Research Point: Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson was strongly influenced by his father's work - William Nicholson, the painter and woodcut artist - and began his artistic pursuit by painting still lifes of fairly ordinary household objects, a subject that would remain faithful to his lifelong career. He had the good fortune to meet some very inspiring people in his time including Mondrian, Picasso and Braque. These heavyweights of the art world left a lasting impression on Nicholson, as you can see clearly in his work - the primitive, abstract reliefs he began to create in the 1930s, and much later the Cubist style still life paintings of his father's vast collection of interesting glassware and crockery.

                                   

In the stimulating times of the 1930s he became affiliated with a group of artists and architects who felt so strongly in favour of the principles of Constructivism in the world around them that they wrote a 'survey' about it. Nicholson, among others, edited "Circle", a pioneering piece or modern art literature that promoted a lack of ornamental art and followed the conventions of mathematical precision and clean lines.

                                     

It was these principles that carried him through the long years of World War II and encouraged him to paint his series of works based on the Cornish countryside. He would overlay his scenic view with the simple shapes of jugs or cups, etc creating an unusual mix of abstract still life and landscape painting. His love and dependency on these familiar but lovely everyday items stretched across his career and gave him constant inspiration to create. He died in 1982 after having moved back to his childhood home town of London.

Project: Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour

Exercise: Using hatching to create tone

I hate saying this but I was pretty pleased with myself after this drawing - bleurgh! I think it's because I felt I had a bit of a breakthrough with capturing the changes in colour when it's reflected, for example, the red of the pepper being reflected in the courgette, and the blue from the skylight reflected onto the pepper. The pepper in particular has really reflective properties, unlike the dull, almost powdery surface of the beetroot which seemed to sap away a lot of distinguishing colour. Because of this it was really challenging to get the colour in the beetroot right. I tried really hard to create a good composition this time - something I feel I fail with a lot. I wanted the fruit and vegetables to more or less fill the page, with a little negative space to balance it. I also remembered that the cast shadows of the objects are extremely important for the balancing of the composition too. I enjoyed using the coloured ball point pens - perfect for hatching.

Exercise: Using markers or dip pens

I enjoyed this exercise because it felt experimental and a wee bit hazardous. Nothing went drastically wrong - I don't think - but overall it does look quite plain considering the bold colour and irreversible mediums used. The composition isn't great, I assume because I left almost half of the page white with negative space, which ordinarily perhaps would be fine if the subjects themselves weren't so contrasting to that blank white, but in this drawing it's way too much. It would be improved massively if it were cropped. In fact I may even draw some faint lines in over the drawing to show how it could look better... I think the mushrooms in particular work well - they almost look squishy, as in fact they are to touch. The colours in the plum are a bit over the top - I'm not sure a plum can really be that purple!

Exercise: Drawing using oil pastel

Because of the addition of a plate, there is actually little negative space left on this drawing - it looks fairly well balanced I think. I used pink sugar paper (the only colour I had left!) which I think may have been a bit of a mistake. The texture of it is perfect for oil pastels because it really clings to the rough surface but the pink creeps through in a lot of areas, particularly on the plate, and looks a little odd. Again, it really helped the drawing to focus on reflected light and what it does to the colour of the fruit and vegetables (I guess this would be the main thing I have learned throughout the project). The pepper for some reason is such a pleasing thing to draw - perhaps because it has so many planes or shapes to it, and is so reflective? I was happy with the plums mostly because they were slightly dusty looking and I thought this would be hard to replicate, but don't think I did too bad a job.