Trial and Terror

Peter Paul Rubens often wrote to his brother. The letters are interesting partly because he was not afraid to write about his talent. We are often told "don't boast", "don't bignote yourself", we are taught of Tall Poppy syndrome - if you stick your head up too high it will get lopped off - and we are encouraged to take part in the cutting down to size. Unless someone is good at sport, in which case they fly as high as they want and we are all expected to cheer them along.

Well, Rubens didn't care about what other people thought, or maybe in his day and age it was okay to admit when one was stunningly good at something. He certainly thought so. "My talent is such that no undertaking has ever daunted me". Ever? Really? He always thought "I'll give it a go"? Actually, when you put it that way, that's suddenly understandable, and pretty cool. And what is wrong with saying, "I am really good at what I do"? He was certainly very confident, unlike poor old Rembrandt, who seemed to always be racked by self-doubt and striving to be something he didn't think he was, and Velazquez, who made no secret of the fact that he wished he was Rubens, right down to the international intrigue.

Another line of Rubens' was "my talent is such that I no longer fear mistakes". Now that is one I wish I had.

When I did the School Careers Fair I told the kids who were serious that the best thing they can do is draw everyday. Without fail. Even if it is just a little sketch or doodle or pattern. I also told them that there is always more to learn and other artists are great people to learn from and share your own techniques with, because we all do things differently. I copy Rubens and Durer and others because I can learn a lot from them. I look at how contemporary artists whom I respect (there aren't many, to be honest) do things, because I can learn a lot from them. When asked how I have done something I am more than happy to share because it may spark an idea in someone else. How rude and selfish to keep that back, even if it is just a little thing. I am lucky to have talented artist friends who feel the same way.

So, by a roundabout route I come to the point. I have, as I have said before, been practising with three-colour drawings - sanguine and white chalks and charcoal. And this is the effort of the last couple of days:

Riyaz, sanguine and white chalk, charcoal, yellow ochre chalk on buff paper, Megan Hitchens, 2014

Doing this was at times quite scary. Unlike Rubens I am afraid of mistakes. Intellectually I know that any mistake can be fixed, that it is almost impossible to ruin a painting or drawing once you have enough knowledge and ability (which I do - not boasting, just fact. I have worked hard to get to this point). And if you do manage to wreck it after all, you end up with a really valuable lesson in how not to do something and how not to "fix" it. But emotionally? No. Terrified. And the closer I got to finishing the more frightened I became. At any moment I was going to wreck this. At any moment it was going to die in a screaming heap. But I kept going. And ended up with this.

It isn't perfect. Each time I look at it I think "I should fix this", "I should change that". Despite that, I am actually quite pleased with it. Hopefully my friend and fellow artist, Riyaz, doesn't mind being the subject (it occurs to me NOW, that I should have asked first - oops).

If you read the caption you will notice that it isn't three colours, it's four.

Here's where the learning comes in.

Try as I might, I could not get an olive green for Riyaz's jacket. Dirty grey, dirty brown, but not olive. I contacted my friend, Mark, an artist of great talent and even greater knowledge. He was so very helpful (thank you, Mark). We had a discussion about the reflective qualities of chalk versus charcoal and about grounds and Leonardo, and then I went away and experimented.

The key, it turns out, is the colour of the ground. The paper I have been using is buff, which means a sort of tan colour. I really need to be working on something a little more yellow. Yellow ochre perhaps, or, if I could afford it, vellum (which is what Leonardo was drawing on for his portrait of Bianca Sforza). I have some scraps in my workroom, so I can at least experiment.

I had already done so much of this drawing, and was so happy with it, that I did not want to start again, so I borrowed a technique from oil painting. Dead colour. You could also call it "spot imprimatura". Where the jacket is I put in a layer of yellow ochre chalk and then came back with the charcoal. Et voila - olive green. Not as good as working on a yellow ochre ground in the first place because the chalks mixed a bit, no matter what I did so it is not an optical olive, but not bad. I experimented on another page and black chalk is definitely better than charcoal, and high quality charcoal is definitely better than low quality charcoal (well, dur). For the purposes of not adding yet another thing I stuck to charcoal for the drawing.

Next is a drawing of another artist friend, Arlene. I want to do this one on some beautiful paper I have that is a soft grey. But again, I'm not Rubens. I am daunted. But hey, I'll give it a go.