DRAWING FOR THE DEVOTED , PAINTING FOR THE PETRIFIED - PART 1
Good Friday 1991
Dear All
Caught the little train as scheduled from Marylebone and scanned all fellow passengers. Noticed one set of paintbrushes protruding from a rucksack, the small accompanying suitcase obviously wasn’t holding the range of wardrobe I’d decided to bring!
But on arrival at Great Missenden station, when a huge number of people got off the train, where else could they be going but to the Abbey? Conversation clarified that most of them were coming only for the weekend. The paintbrush owner raised his eyebrows when I mentioned the Art Course tutor, Richard Box. “I’ve heard varying reports, you either love him or hate him!”
The organiser of the various courses came to pick us up in relays, a glamorous, clucky mother hen of a woman dressed in a vibrant purple, peacock blue and shocking pink suit. Drove through beautiful countryside, sprawling fields and woodland filled with spring flowers, glimpsing the little village of Great Missenden just briefly before arriving at the Abbey.
Missenden Abbey is quite delightful, now rebuilt according to earlier designs, the original built in 1133 was similar to the church of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London. But although it was destroyed more than once there are magnificent old trees growing all around with extensive lawns and walkways fringed with daffodils, snowdrops and periwinkles. Inside it is totally modern and comfortable, run rather like a hotel with staff in black and white uniforms hovering around.
An attractive new block of study bedrooms and seminar rooms is tucked away behind the trees and I’m sitting here writing at my desk , sipping my self-made tea, looking out onto a large pond where a couple of mallard ducks (I think they’re real) are floating serenely. There’s a vase of daffodils under my nose and a colour telly should I ever get bored. The wardrobe is too small for all my clothes, definitely designed for business men, and I have my own bathroom, what a delight.
Took a brief time to unpack on arrival then off to ‘tea’ to peruse the company. Just as I’d imagined, middle-aged women for the most part, a few aged couples, one solitary youngish chap engaged in an animated conversation with two old dears on The Renaissance. Discovered that Emily and Bob, my neighbours, were also ‘Petrified Painters’ and new to the Abbey. Like quite a lot of people here they live locally. Delicious homemade scones for tea with serve-yourself whipped cream from a giant bowl. I indulged with a total lack of self-restraint but avoided the simnel cake.
Then, after a gushing welcome to all from the vibrant lady chauffeur, we followed our tutors (all male bar one) to our new homes for the week.
I can see what that woman meant about Richard Box. He wore the crushed cords and Fair Isle sweater of the Art teacher whilst his shirt hung out in an unkempt fashion rather like his long rather greasy hair and he flashed his hands and eyeballs around a lot. His main message in this our first meeting was “Love your pencil and don’t like but love me too,” and of course we’ve all got to care about each other.
There wasn’t time to give much focus to the others, now probably even more petrified painters ,except for Katherine. In her late sixties, white hair scraped into a bun over twinset and pearls, an example of the stereotypical Missenden Abbey course-goer. And Adrian, an older man, my eyes were riveted on his plastic hand.
After this introduction the First Session began. I was too anxious to remember all the points he made but he did say he’d keep repeating himself. He gave us handouts with quotes from famous artists on the subject of drawing. It seems we’re not going to engage in ‘tasks’ but rather ‘play games’. We’re going to conquer any anxiety that we’re carrying in our heads through relaxation, I can’t wait!
With that in mind, we first did an exercise teaching us to sit properly in a chair, relaxing our arms by our sides and breathing regularly with our eyes closed. Odd, the image of ‘the chewing child’ which emerged in my mind in that ‘Creative Journal Workshop’ and subsequently in Art Therapy paintings, now reappeared. Think I’ll quickly have to capture this and any other images that come to mind in writing before they intrude in my drawing!
Following relaxation we did a focussing exercise. As we opened our eyes so we let them rest on the first object that attracted our attention. Our gaze then followed the contour of the object noticing its tones and shades.
We then had to listen to Richard making movements with a pencil and try to describe this sound. Everyone did it visually not aurally. He had been hoping that people would respond with ‘pitch, volume, silence and duration’. He showed us some children’s work and then compared it to drawings by Seurat, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Tonight we’re going to put pencil to paper and I’m TERRIFIED that I won’t be able to control the pencil!
Later
Arrived late to supper and ended up as ‘Mother’ dishing up from an enormous moussaka with three veg, delicious. My neighbour Fenny enquired whether I was retired as this is a good place to come to keep the mind alive. She comes three times a year.
Making conversation over the fruit course I mentioned my incomplete ‘shopping list’ for the ‘still life’ drawing the following day. She grabbed the passing housekeeper and asked her to make up a basket of fruit for the morning! “Take the basket dear, it will help you with your arrangement”. I nearly died of embarrassment.
The three other dinnertime neighbours, all with broad cockney accents standing out like foreigners in this genteel, oh so English environment, included a very entertaining woman. A near London neighbour of mine, she works with children suffering from cerebral palsy.
10.00pm – I’M SHATTERED!
After coffee we headed back to the studio for a series of ‘pencil games’ opening up the idea that the pencil can be used in an almost infinite variety of ways. Did an ‘invisible’ drawing to show the difference between what we really see and conceptual vision.
Richard, hair shining like a freshly washed haystack, in evening attire of black patterned sweater and artistically unpressed trousers, used to teach in a London comprehensive school a long time ago. He’s also taught younger children and makes constant reference to their work besides the work of famous artists. He certainly is a good teacher, well-paced delivery with the emphasis on understanding the process. He also gave a great many ideas for follow up work at home.
He emphasized that we shouldn’t wear ourselves out during the week reminding us that one hour of drawing activities on an unaccustomed board is worse than vacuuming the house from top to bottom. At this moment my right arm feels as though it no longer belongs to me so I’d better stop this extracurricular writing and give it a rest.
EASTER SATURDAY
Awoke to the music of bird song and the small fountain playing in the pond below my window. Discovered that it’s not artificial but a ‘groomed’ version of the original swamp which brought the monks here in the twelfth century. Sunshine filtered through the branches of trees revealing quiet lawns and a few early morning strollers. All will be hidden if the buds open during the week.
Breakfast was as copious as I’d anticipated, orange juice, a range of cereals, grapefruit and prunes, a selection of yoghourts, bacon, sausage, egg, beans, toast, marmalade and jams washed down with coffee or tea. Stayed long enough to drink some juice and eat some grapefruit.
Found myself at the same table as the chauffeur of the previous evening. Still in her vibrant day outfit, April by name. she’ll blossom forth no doubt in a new spring outfit next month. My immediate neighbour, leader of the ‘Change your Career’ group, had the irate aura of an unfinished crossword. I felt myself in the company of someone who could ‘teach’ but not ‘do’.
Didn’t have the nerve to disturb the busy kitchen staff for a basket of fruit so took a stroll down the nearby High St in search of a greengrocer. Found executive cars parked alongside large houses , averaging £350,000 in the small Estate Agents window. Passed an iinviting French Restaurant, a huge Off Licence and an Art Shop selling paintings of ducks and chickens. Wooden ducks sat in the Antique Shop too so if you don’t have quacking on your own pond you can buy them or create them.
Back in the studio we moved straight into Shading.
Game 1: Divide a square into nine smaller squares. Shade over them gradually leaving one white and ending up with one black. Difficult.
Game 2: Make a landscape of fruit. View it through a small cardboard frame. Examine the fruit carefully, mark the outline of each with a dotted line on your paper. Then outline their highlights before repeating the shading exercise, very difficult. Some people ended up with very pastel, fragile results. Mine looked rather more Van Goghish, still better than I thought I could do.
Ended up alongside Richard at lunch, a huge variety of cold meats and salad or hot ham with vegetables followed by jam tart and custard. It seems he became interested in embroidery at the end of Art School and continued to pursue the interest while teaching both students and children. He ended up exhausted trying to run two careers, took a sabbatical and ended up opting to enjoy himself rather than worry about a pension. He now runs a lot of adult courses when not creating for himself. He certainly is a good teacher, very positive, nothing is ‘wrong’ approach.
After lunch we launched into painting the long familiar colour wheels shading tones of primary colours. Totally frustrating not being able to get a 3D effect. Richard ended the afternoon by demonstrating a coloured fruit composition using coloured pencils which we are going to create tomorrow. God, is he ambitious on our behalf!
I wanted to go for a walk but here I am collapsed on my bed, TV on in the background sipping a cup of tea. Must say a holiday in executive surroundings does have its advantages!
Later – have just enjoyed a musical evening given by the Music Course lecturing duo, young Stephen with sculpted Beatle haircut and older David, thinning grey hair and the face of a Swiss woodcarver. They recited, sang and played from Milton to Music Hall, all of which went down well with the paisley frocks and the tweed jackets. Music has never been my ‘thing’.
EASTER SUNDAY
Chocolate eggs on the breakfast table and a large number of people returning from church reminded us of THIS DAY, before we plunged into our next session, the creation of a fruit landscape as demonstrated yesterday evening.
I made an unappetising puree of my first attempt as didn’t follow the rules. “If you want to come on a course you stick to MY RULES!” You could tell that he’d taught in a comprehensive! The rules are that you keep layering on the colours all over in greater or lesser quantities to achieve that sought after 3 D effect. Needless to say our results were all different again but not bad for first attempts. He always advises working on at least two pieces simultaneously to keep the eye ‘fresh’.
Spent most of the day focussed on fruit before learning how to stretch cartridge paper followed by a demonstration of how to lay out the paint in such a way as to keep it fresh. He keeps talking about recipes but this really was the icing on the cake.
First, take a white enamel plate. Make seven little cushions of kitchen paper, wet them and balance them around the edge of the plate. Cover each cushion with a piece of dry greaseproof paper. Squeeze onto separate pads a little of the two blues, reds, yellows plus white, the only colours we are going to use. Put a small jam jar containing a little water into the middle of the plate and cover it with an airtight plastic bag. Result, the paint remains useable the following day.
After such intensity of concentration I decided to head for the great outdoors for half an hour. Wandered through the back streets of Missenden passing dainty little red brick houses. At one time these would have been workers cottages but with the addition of small well-kept lawns edged with daffodils, hyacinths and tulips they have become bijou country cottages selling at highly inflated prices.
Climbed a winding path to a bridge crossing a noisy road, and on upwards to a tiny church filled with Easter joy. The cemetery around it was awash with colour and also the sky! It suddenly filled with multi-coloured balloons blasting fire and rising high above the trees. There’s a weekend event located a few fields away.
Returned to the abbey for dinner. Dressed myself as befitted the platter of pork chops lying in waiting. My stomach is already beginning to weary from the unusually vast intake of meat. I think I’ll be vegetarian by the end of the week. And the desserts, layer upon layer of foaming cream. I’m still characteristically eating everything but after the shocking pink mille feuille tonight I’m contemplating nibbling into my fruit landscape.
Checking wedding rings at dinner tonight I’d say the monastic element is still prevalent here, not monks and nuns, but widowers and spinsters , plus a clutch of elderly couples. Indeed sex has crept into the wood panelling.
Chatted over coffee with my neighbour from the studio today, Alison, and for the first time engaged in a conversation beyond the palette. She works as a physiotherapist in a psychiatric hospital in Bristol where the art therapist uses my type of collage creation with people suffering from short term memory loss. By tapping into long term memory it’s possible to move back into short term. Forgot to go to the musical evening but hearing strains of Land of Hope and Glory at ten o’clock we didn’t regret the loss too much.
Haven’t seen a black or brown face, so much part of the cosmopolitan life of London, since the guard on the train pulled out of Great Missenden station last Friday. And I notice alcohol being mentioned very frequently as certain people can’t wait to get to the bar before meals, the same people complaining about hangovers in the mornings!
EASTER MONDAY
Paint at last. Followed the same recipe for mixing colours. Used very pale ‘sensitive’ sheets of overlayed colour as a starting point guide to building up deeper colours before setting up another fruit landscape. Good job I didn’t eat it!
Richard then demonstrated how to outline the fruit on stretched cartridge paper before beginning to overlay the paint. At last it’s becoming clear, don’t think ‘orange’ or ‘apple’ but instead look for the light and dark shades on the fruit and begin to build up the paint accordingly. Miraculously, the fruit began to appear like a ship emerging from a fog.
Since people work at different speeds we also had in progress an enlarged version of the same landscape, a monochrome version and a tonal version using one colour. We worked on these whilst waiting for him to demonstrate the next layer of landscape.
Sat next to Richard again at lunch and, don’t ask me how, my twin story came into the conversation. His sister experienced the same loss. I’m going to put her in touch with the Lone Twin Network.
I must say I think we’ve been lucky with our tutor. He’s the most interesting person I’ve come across since arrival, and he’s a really stimulating teacher. The group has now gelled very well. It does make such a difference to be part of a group in which people have an independent interest in the same subject.
Spent all day working on our landscapes taking breaks only to prepare paper for the following day. As our tutor left the room I couldn’t resist a sudden flourish of freedom. Splurged all the remaining paint on the greaseproof pads onto paper and created my first miniature abstract painting!
Just returned from the evening’s entertainment given by young Stephen, a monologue of three extracts from Dickens. He’s RADA trained and much more impressive in this role than singing. I laughed, hadn’t realised that ‘The Pickwick Papers’ featured St Bartholomew’s Hospital, so well-known to me. Another tale featured a conversation between a true blue Englishman and a Frenchman, a linguistic situation with which I’m familiar.
Next Week - Missenden Abbey Writing Course Part 2
Also of interest: The Blog of an Anxious Artist - https://www.naomielfredross.com.blog
Missenden Abbey Part
Commentaires