Saturday, March 22, 2008

For a while, I have been intending to take a closer look at, and be inspired by, the works of Giorgio Morandi. He mostly painted arrangements of pots and boxes in muted colours. The compositions are very unusual, often a central arrangement with the tops of the pots nearly aligned. He also did beautiful etchings with detailed crosshatching.I purchased a variety of small, old pots from a charity shop and made a 'corner box' out of a sheet of foam core board to isolate my arrangements as well as project shadows, which Morandi often eliminated, but I find very interesting.But the colours were too distracting, so I painted many of them white. This felt like dressing them in school uniforms but, unlike uniforms, the white had the effect of enhancing their form and individuality.I played around with them for a while and did some drawings. But I didn't achieve whatever it was I wanted. I have recently been working with a beautiful blue piece of fabric - and wanted to continue working in colour so I roughly over-painted some of the pots.
... and set up an arrangement, again with the spotted scarf, in the corner box. I painted with water colour, 6 1/2 inches square - and, playing around with the computer cropping, realized that the importance of the shadows is enhanced if the blue pot is cropped on the right. - still, it looks a bit clumsy.I tried again, this time without the scarf - and experimented with text as texture and to provide a 'base'.Then I thought I'd try machine embroidering it. I should have experimented with thread colour swatches before starting, as even a 4x4 inch piece like this takes several hours to stitch. In the event, most of the threads I had, turned out to be too frail to use for such dense stitching. In this medium, the blue pot looked uncomfortably chopped off - but it's easy to just place a bit of extra backing in the right place and add to the design.
Still life
4 x 4"
These are some pots that won't be over-painted as I really like their 'outfits'. Watch this space for more pot studies.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved reading through your journey with the bottles/pots. The photo of them set up after you painted them all white is stunning - and the progressive abstration you did after coloring them was great. Please keep sharing!
Shirley
http://www.paperandthreads.com

Tami said...

This will be interesting. I love the drawing and the stiching sounds pretty interesting too, time consuming but interesting.

Robyn Sinclair said...

I see Shirley has already said everything I wanted to say. :( And she is absolutely right, this is a fascinating post and I too love your pots in their white uniforms. I've seen this done with bottles, but I love the effect with such different shapes.

I'll certainly be back to see where you go next with this study, Alison.

quirkyartist said...

I also painted a little 'Morandi' a couple of weeks ago - to include in my Bologna artist's book. One of my favourite artists, and my biggest disappointment was that, at the Museo Morandi, they didn't have a beautiful big Morandi book for me to buy. I'd kept space in my suitcase & bypassed other books I'd wanted.
I am keeping an eye on Vinnie's and collecting slightly wonky pots, which Morandi's often seemed to be. It was amazing to see the ACTUAL pots. Specially amazing to see his 'studio' in his small bedroom.
I love the way you have progressed through all the different ideas you've had. Hope to see more.

Fran S said...

What a great group of exercises! I think that you did a great job of adding to your repertoire of skills by studying these subjects. I can't wait to see more!
Fran
http://www.artsyfran.com

Linda said...

What a fascinating series of studies -- all the way to the embroidery! That's amazing!

Penny said...

You have been having fun with pots and the various aspects of it all. Lovely to have the dedication! As a butterfly who cant make up her mind what to do i think it is wonderful.
The difference in the pots painted is interesting.

Ann said...

Interesting study and I like your compositions and colors thus far. I am curious to see what else you will do with these and where this idea might take you:)

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Alison is going potty! What fun you have had and what a variety of responses. Sometimes we just stop at one picture and really the idea of different colours, cropping, textures, is worthwhile.
another wendy
I don't know the artist. I must use the link and find out.

Jan Allsopp said...

That spoon shadow is divine!