Just Joan Eardley - Part 2

More experiments in loosening up my paintings

Continuing from my previous post: after delving into Joan Eardley’s work and trying out some of her techniques myself, I had to try and paint a scene or two of my own.

In Eardley's Style #1

My first attempt at painting my own scene in Eardley's style was a curious affair. My sister took a beautiful photo of the September supermoon hanging over the countryside just before sunrise. The colours were very similar to Eardley's Winter Day, Catterline (1957-60) so I thought it a good place to start.

My first Eardley inspired painting beside the photo of the September supermoon that it is based on

Painting began with gouache paint, applied thinly, in the style of watercolour. All good. It had a nice effect - but it was nothing like Joan's work. The paintings I was comparing mine to were all painted in oil and had great texture and movement. Mine had watery flow and flatness.

More layers were added and I start to see the texture evolve. Although it did not have the lumpy-bumpy texture of oil, I could add brush strokes and colour changes within the paint to help give that feeling of movement. Initially I was pleased - until I started adding a few more brush strokes. They weren't right. They were streaky, then muddy - and it all went horribly wrong.

However, what it taught me was that I needed to have more faith in my initial brush strokes. Eardley's paintings are made up of layers of paint. If you look at the naked edges of some of the watercolour, gouache or colour sketch pieces you can see how the brush marks are laid down. There is often a base layer of flat colour that is unrelated to the future layers. Then there are blocks of colour, often mixed on the canvas. More detailed strokes are laid on top of the previous layers.

Samples of Eardley’s works showing initial layers of paint or pastel that are unrelated to the colours of the surface layers

While gouache paint allows you to go back in and re-work areas, it also allows future layers to mix with previous ones. This can give both a smooth transition between two colours or an ugly, jumbled mix of muddy colours. In trying to utilize the best of the paint’s traits I managed to over work it all and was totally unhappy with the finished result.

To try and fix it, I started using Neocolor ii wax pastels. Oh dear! It didn’t help. Over worked paint is over worked paint - and a water based piece of art cannot be rescued by applying more pigment on top. But at least it allowed me to experiment a bit. Needless to say the end result was horribly over done. It was time to call it quits and move on to something different.

In Eardley's Style #2

This was the culmination of all my experiments. I chose a larger size of board - 40x30cm. This gave me a bit more space to work the paint. I began with a loose sketch of my chosen scene in a sketchbook to see the basic shapes and lines. That was then transferred onto the paper. I suspect Eardley would just have 'let rip' with paint on board rather than an underpainting first - but I wanted a framework to help me.

The sketch of the local landscape that I based my final painting on

I had already chosen my colour palette of peaches, blue/purple and blue/green. I wanted the feel of Eardley's 'Summer Fields' (1961) or 'Harvest' (1960-1). So I began with a sky of blue/purple and grey. I slapped that paint on with a big brush and let go. I had fun. It looked dreadful. The second coat still didn't look right. It was too dark. My colour mixing obviously needed some work. I decided to add more purple and it started to look ... not totally ugly.

The next layer covered the fields. After a first layer of cadmium yellow, a second was applied with more yellow, scarlet and a spot of magenta. The colour was supposed to be mixed on the page. Unfortunately the peachy colours I had hoped for turned into mostly yellows. (It's been a while since I have used acrylics - obviously I need more practice.) The paint was also pretty thin.

The first layers of paint

I moved on to the clumps of woodland, painting them with cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, a spot of Windsor violet and burnt umber. It gave a nice colour - but still too thin. Break out the palette knife! Things looked up.

The combination of the thin layers of paint and the thick layers gave a texture that was more like some of Eardley's strokes. I think I missed out on utilising some of the swooping, circular strokes Eardley used - but there was definitely more movement in the painting than the paint brush alone allowed.

The gold fields were a bit too gold. So I added some pops of other colours here and there with the palette knife, more darkness in the wooded areas. Hedges were added with burnt umber and the palette knife's edge. I added more white and blues to the sky which made it look rather windy - like a gale was blowing across the harvest fields.

My final, very bright, Eardley inspired painting of the Scottish Borders landscape

There are definitely things I would change about it - like the position of the castle and the road. It is not really in the style of Joan Eardley’s work either. But I would normally paint a scene that was a literal rendering of what I was looking at. So that old ghost of realism was always going to get it's nose in there somewhere. I did wonder about adding more lines with Neocolor ii pencils but decided against it. However I didn't dislike the painting and figured it was a good place to stop. Maybe I will go back to it, maybe I won’t- but it was great fun whatever I decide.

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Conclusions

Of course, trying to recreate such wild pieces takes away the opportunity for luck that Eardley would have experienced. Mixing paint on the canvas and painting out in the wilds would have made a difference to each of her pieces. I was trying to follow her lines and learn new lessons, she was trying to create originality.

Not using oil paints did not help. Oil paints have their own unique qualities that would have helped create some of the techniques in Eardley's paintings. Acrylic - or the acrylics I was using - do not have the opacity of oil or their consistency. Gouache requires some care, in case you disturb lower layers which are then harder to correct.

Oils also have richness and depth and can be painted over multiple times. This takes away the fear of making a mistake and not being able to fix it. While you can paint over acrylic, my acrylics seemed a bit thin for the purpose and the colours underneath still shone through too strongly. I think I would have been more forthright and confident with my brush strokes if I had the possibility of correcting the strokes behind me. Sometimes in being careful you loose some of the freshness and freedom.

Joan Eardley painting outside her cottage in Catterline

Eardley was also painting on large canvases, papers and boards. Even her small sketches were on larger pieces of paper than I was painting on. I have always painted in smaller scales. However as my experiments went on I grew more confident in using larger sizes of paper. Sometimes using small canvases can hold an artist back. You think too much about fitting everything in to a small space instead of giving yourself room to explore the possibilities.

One of the things that did came to mind as I reproduced the pieces of art was to ask 'what does this line do?' What is it describing? Is it light? Is it dark? Is it directing the eye? Loosening up can give you the same information as a tightly illustrated painting. It all comes down to the language of the lines.

The final piece is not something sale worthy. It was never supposed to be - and it was refreshing. It was about loosening up and freeing my painting style. Did it do that? For these images - I think so. Whether it will help change my current style will remain to be seen.

There was so much to think about during this project, things I had forgotten, trying new media and colours and tools. It made me smile at a time in my life where there is more hysterical laughter and rocking back and forth in a corner than gentle smiling at something pleasurable. That alone is a win.

There is still a way to go. There are other artists I want to study and learn from - Eric Ravillious, John Blockley, Mark Hearld to name but three. I hope my next set of experiments won't be quite as long winded. This was rather an epic project - but SO much fun.

I hope it helped inspire you to try something new and thank you for reading.

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