Joan Eardley<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Joan Eardley<\/a> (1921 – 1963) also spent time experiencing nature but remained embedded in that experience while painting. We hear her voice in an episode of BBC series Coast<\/em> saying she does hardly ever move from where she stands because it allows her to deepen her knowledge of the place: “I do feel the more you know something, the more you can get out of it”. She did not just look at the landscape, she immersed herself in the raw experience, painting from within it. She was known for chasing storms to paint them directly: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second she heard a storm was approaching, she would catch the train to Stonehaven where she would pick up her Lambretta and do the final stage of the journey by scooter.<\/p>\nRitchie, 2021<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n There is a picture of her standing at the sea on what appears to be a rather blustery day! It’s not clear whether she used a piece of board as her ‘sketchbook’ and later worked it into a finished painting on a canvas or whether the final painting was the direct translation of her visceral experience of the place that day. In any case, the resulting paintings are layered, with colours that feel truer to the raw experience of the place. They have an immediate energy emanating from the canvas through composition, thick paint, soft or dynamic lines and splatters, all of which give a sense of movement and noise in Breaking wave<\/em><\/a> (c. 1959) or calm and quiet buzz in Summer fields<\/em><\/a> (c. 1961). Compared to Carter, there is more of a sense of a highly exogenous process and a more immediate connection to the outside world. She appears not only to translate what she saw when she looked outside but also what she felt. This is best expressed in another audio recording featured in the National Galleries of Scotland’s short film where we can hear her say: “Because I’m a romantic, I believe in the emotions you get from what your eyes show you, and what you feel about certain things.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my favourite painting from Helen Frankenthaler is “Mountains and Sea<\/a>” (1952). In a 1965 interview with Henry Geldzahler, she referenced her sketchbook practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1952 on a trip to Nova Scotia I did landscapes with folding easel equipment. I came back and did the Mountains and Sea<\/em> painting and I know the landscapes were in my arm<\/em> as I did it.<\/p>\nHelen Frankenthaler, in Geldzahler, 1965 ,Italics added.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So here is another example of how the sketchbook practice was transferred to the final painting: she suggests it was memorised in her arm, as an embodied memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All the above examples are of artists who recorded their experience of the world on a sketchbook or on canvas as a first step towards making a painting. The final painting was thereafter mediated by that first experience, through a visual of the sketch (Carter), through an immediate embodied experience (Eardley) or an embodied gestural memory (Frankenthaler). But I also found another purpose for the sketchbook in Thiebaud’s practice. For Thiebaud, sketches serve as a space for generating ideas, trying out compositional schemes, changing sizes, shapes and patterns. These experiments can be “variants of dispositions” with different subject matters or “progressive variants” where one composition is modified with slight adjustments. In this sense, sketching can be detached from the immediate, embodied, physical experience of the world although it may of course, draw on visual (and otherwise embodied) memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are several ways I could use my sketchbook(s). Like Carter, I could use sketching as a means to gather loose records of compositions or structures I see in the world and later use these records as inputs to be extracted to structure a painting on the canvas. I think, for me, connecting to the world as a starting point for my paintings is essential (as opposed to, for example, starting from unanchored emotions or pure aesthetic experiences from interacting with a canvas). I need this connection to a lived experience. That’s why I am drawn to use photography (albeit my own snapshots) as a starting point. Reading about these more immediate practices made me better understand the appeal of sketching life “as it unfolds before my eyes”. I am reminded of Berger’s essay “Drawing on paper”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a few great drawings (\u2026) everything appears to exist in space, the complexity of everything vibrates \u2014 yet what one is looking at is only a project on paper. Reality and project become inseparable. One finds oneself on the threshold between the creation of the world. Such drawings (…) foresee.<\/p>\nBerger, J. (2007)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Am I losing some of vibrations of life by working from photographs? I know of several contemporary artists who work from photographs (e.g., Richard Baker<\/a>, Fleur Patrick<\/a>, and just discovered Hurvin Anderson<\/a>). The gathering in their case, is of imagery, which they use as a source for their paintings. When I worked on my studies, I worked “live” from my own interior space and found the experience overwhelming although the results were interesting and more lively. My exterior studies were snapshots of compositions I noticed in my world while outside. This is something I have done for years now. Perhaps it reflects how my mind works, how it flutters quickly from one place to another and how difficult it is for me to simply “pay attention” to one thing. I am always taking it all in. The phenomenology of having AD(H)D makes it very difficult for my mind to filter out the unessential and focus on the essential. It feels like everything vibrates too much and I need to switch off. There is no filter, I see it all, hear it all, take it all at once, it’s overwhelming so I shut it down to cope. Snapping a moment helps me narrow down the flurry of inputs to one experience, one moment, which I can then use as an anchor, a catalyst to revisit the scene, how I felt, what I saw through that still image. It helps me slow down time and tone down the vibrancy of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This being said, as I revisit my most recent studies, I can see how my interior study in charcoal and graphite had more gestural freedom while the outdoor colour study from a snapshot photograph feels more composed, but also more contained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n All this being said, I am not set in my ways. I could also give it a go and allow myself to let the complexity of everything vibrate before my eyes. Perhaps the key is not to try to pay attention, but to simply to be attentive to what I see and feel from being in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BBC (2010) ‘Glasgow to Edinburgh via Caledonian Canal’, Coast<\/em>, series 5, episode 6. BBC Two, 18 August. Available at: https:\/\/joaneardley.com\/watch-bbc-coast-scottish-artist-joan-eardley<\/a> (Accessed: 29 March 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Berger, J. (2007) ‘Drawing on Paper’, in Savage, J. (ed.) Berger on Drawing<\/em>. 2nd edn. London: Occasional Press, pp. 43-52. Available at: https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/bergerondrawing0000berg<\/a> (Accessed: 29 March 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carter, N. (2019) The Studio<\/em> [short film]. Noah Carter Studio. Available at: https:\/\/www.simoncarterpaintings.co.uk\/films<\/a> (Accessed: 29 March 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dervaux, I. (2018) ‘Thumbnails and Notations: Thiebaud’s Sketches’, in Dervaux, I. (ed.) Wayne Thiebaud: Draftsman<\/em>. New York\/London: The Morgan Library & Museum\/Thames & Hudson, pp. 110\u2013115.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Geldzahler, H. (1965) ‘An Interview with Helen Frankenthaler’, Artforum<\/em>, 4(2), October. Available at: https:\/\/www.artforum.com\/features\/an-interview-with-helen-frankenthaler-211801\/<\/a> (Accessed: 29 March 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Helen Frankenthaler<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Wayne Thiebaud<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Implications for my practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nReferences<\/h1>\n\n\n\n