new Gwens and painting

Gwen 2- A Clone Drone.

For some brilliant reason I woke one morning, leapt out of bed and encased Gwen in layers of clingfilm, PVA soaked fabric and then paper – all before breakfast.

Shame I can't remember why it was so important to do, I hadn't planned it at all. The process was fun enough and simple enough but had I thought about drying time?

Photo one is Tuesday. Photo 2 is Thursday. Still drying on Saturday. I've taken the body cast off her and resealed it and guess what? - waiting for it to dry. I've also made a paper cast of a dinky body form to experiment with – it is still drying too. I have headless bodies dotted round the house hogging the radiators.... why does this make me want to put Christmas decorations up?

This brought nearly everything to a halt- difficult to drape and fit without a model to drape on and fit to. Never mind. It has been a finishing and resolving week. The velvet purple spencer has been revamped, some hems redone and illustrations, notes and pattern pieces put together. Instead of total chaos taking over the house it is now organised total chaos and coordinated heaps of things. Can't spot the difference. I've roughed out a caraco to use up the scraps from the blue rose fabric and hope to complete that this coming week once a Gwen is free. The illustration below shows what it should be like (hope).

In the meantime it's been research, paint and draw. I now know what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution – fascinating book but still feeling rather ambiguous about her ( felt sorrier for the husband!). The ideas of clothing as a visible statement of status, personal attitudes and political allegiance are still commonplace and mainstream, but it was interesting. Still not sure whether it was the choice of clothing or the attitudes leading to the choices that are important. She did seem to give a lot of ammunition to her enemies with many of the things she did.

Compared to the current book this was light entertainment. Having read some of the 'Ackermann's Repository's on Google books (thank you for the free downloads!!) I desperately need more background. I'm on page 12 (again) of a weighty tome– and there may stay – it's discussing the underlying shifts in philosophy and attitudes that led to the Neo Classical revival and Romanticism – apparently it wasn't just finding Pompeii and all those Grand Tours. The posts on Google+ in the Regency and general history communities are excellent at providing snapshots of key people and places but stitching these snippets into a broader understanding of the era is taking time.

As light relief more illustrations – new artists to trace down and try to remember, and as usual the more I look the less it seems I know. I was brought up with the formal portraits, but there are so many styles, some looking back, some looking forward.
While admiring the skill and drama of the formal, (Gainsborough's country house portraits of tall figures who tower above you in all of their finery, or of starchy court paintings,)
I am a creature of the 20th and 21st centuries so find the sketchy, the domestic, the intimate and informal more fascinating. Some the pastel or pencil studies are exquisite – they show more of the artist's thought and working practice in response to the subject before the layers of fashion and style take over. Looking at Fragonard's body of work is an education in itself – the fanciful, mannered and playful Rococo pieces to the more sober, bolder observation of paintings such as “young girl reading”. It is so easy to dismiss artists if the style of work is not fashionable any more but that just means we judge on trends and presentation expected of their time and not on skills and content.

Of course there are problems, dating the painting, attributing work – just take a look at John Copley's listing on BBC paintings - some the handling is so skilful and on others so clumsy. The same face reappears on different bodies. Even within the one painting the quality can be radically different. Some studios did have specialists to do various parts of a painting such as the clothing ( my dream job, if anyone needs one just ask!) or hands, and sometimes students filled in the unimportant bits, but there should be a consistency of standard. Of course I don't know which works were of a commercial standard and which may have been rejected and stayed in the studio or reworked and sold on. Some may have been retouched or repaired and this is not recorded on most sources.

Paul Sandby

Using portraits to help with understanding the clothing isn't helped by the artists having a stock of costumes which appear on a variety of patrons over the years. A serious draw back as I've been using them to match hair and accessories to dress styles as well as dress to artistic style! Oops? But at least it makes it very clear where the traditions for the school photo poses come from!