Posts by Leonie Andrews

I am an artist of the landscape of common objects. Discarded items and suburban life fuel my art practice.

May 15, 2018July 3, 2019 by Leonie Andrews

American abstraction and the last Monet

A few days ago I visited the Musee de l’ Orangerie, for their exhibition ‘Waterlilies: American abstraction and the last Monet’. (And yes I am in Paris). The jumping off point for this exhibition was the ‘rediscovery’ of Monet’s last waterlily paintings and the impact this had, on Abstract Expressionism, when Alfred Barr showed one of the large waterlily paintings in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

To quote one of the information panels, “As the impressionists attempted to deal with the optical effects of nature, … they [American Abstract Impressionists] were interested in the optical effects of spiritual states, thereby giving an old style a new subject”. Elaine de Koenig ‘Subject: What, How or Who?’, 1955.

It’s a challenge with such a show, not personally having done the requisite scholarly research, to asses the merits of the case put forward. Nonetheless the hanging of the exhibition, designed by Eric de Chassey, displays powerful resonances between Monet’s work and those of the other artists represented in the show.

Two of Monet’s versions of the Japanese Bridge, 1918, hang either side of Morris Louis, Vernal, 1960

Flanking the scene above were Jackson Pollock’s, Untitled, circa 1949,

Pollock and Monet

Jackson Pollock, untitled, circa 1949, tissue, paper, cardboard and enamel paint (?) on panel

and Willem de Kooning’s Villa Borghese, 1960.

Willem de Kooning, Villa Borghese, 1960, oil on canvas

For me it would have been worth going if only to see such works as Helen Frankenthaler’s Riverhead, 1963.

Helen Frankenthaler, Riverhead, 1963, acrylic on canvas

and the work of other Abstract Expressionist artists that we don’t generally see in Australia, such as Sam Francis.

An added bonus was the prentation of a painting and a series of sketches of waterlily leaves by the late Ellsworth Kelly, at the entrance to the Monet galleries. An absolute joy.

Ellsworth Kelly, Tableau Vert, 1952

Ellsworth Kelly, Waterlily, 1968, and reflections of some random people.

My take on this show was the joyous use of colour. Here is a little summary of some of the works.

Top row, left to right: Kelly, Frankenthaler, Monet. Bottom row: Monet, Louis, Francis

May 11, 2018 by Leonie Andrews

Henderson Waves, Singapore

Henderson Waves is the highest footbridge in Singapore, at just over 36 metres above the road. Designed by RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd and IJP Corporation Ltd, UK, for the Urban Redevelopment Board of Singapore it joins Mt Faber to the Telok Blangah Hill Park. The hills are part of the Southern Ridges Walk, a hiking trail that takes you through three major parks: Kent Ridge Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park and Mount Faber Park, (I can assure you that given the heat and humidity we didn’t hike the trail).

Looking up at the Waves from Henderson Road

Henderson Waves from Telok Blangah, looking towards Mt Faber Park.

We were interested in sketching this modern marvel. It’s deck is made of balau wood and the seating areas along the bridge provide a suitably challenging set of curves for a sketcher to tackle. On this typically hot and humid day it also had the best breezes going.

Henderson Waves, watercolour and pencil

Looking out from Henderson Waves towards a set of residential towers. Watercolour, pen and ink.

May 11, 2018 by Leonie Andrews

How now brown cows?

(Serious amounts of watercolour obsessing follows, you were warned).

The desperate need to clean up and refill my palette has lead me to look at my current watercolour paint sets. Just to be clear, all my paint ‘sets’ now consist of my own choice of colours in half pans, in tins I have found or purchased. Some of my half pans are all used up, while others sit full and untouched. So I grabbed my newest sketcbook, a Stillman & Birn Beta series (270 gsm) and as many tubes of paint as I could find and got to work.

I don’t know about you, but I get so ~~envious~~ bored of all those sketcbooks that are artfully decorated with renderings of the artist’s working palette on their opening page. Give a girl a break! I give to you the ‘art cow’, a far more entertaining way of getting a sketchbook underway, without the need to resort to ‘serious-ity’. This approach also immediately renders concerns about not ‘ruining’ your sketchbook irrelevant.

On sorting out my paints I asked myself (rhetorically, of course), can you have too many browns/ earth tones in your palette. The answer is, of course not! I have some 15 colours in my palette that fall roughly into that category!

How now brown cows?

What about the rest of my paints I hear you wonder? In comparison they are fairly ordinary, although there are the odd outliers.

Most of the rest of the colours

I have a definite need for lots of greens. I find Perylene Green indispensable for super dark shadows in trees and elswhere. The yellow greens, such as Serpentine Genuine and White Knight’s Olive green are there as well. A darker cousin of those yellow greens, Undersea Green will be put on trial over the coming months. Viridian has finally been given the flick, it’s one of those ‘thug’ colours, that can overwhelm a painting. And no, I have never like the grey it makes with magenta either.

The blues are pretty standard, with the exception of Sodalite Genuine, which works beautifully as a subtle blue grey. Peacock Blue, from PWC, is a fun inclusion, with a better than expected lightfastness rating of two. I often use it in a mix with greens or yellow to make green.

My former fantasy colour favourite, Opera Pink, has been cast, like Tosca, out of the window, to be replaced by the more reliable Permanent Rose. I will be interested to see how my old favourite fares in my ‘test cow’ as I heard recently that some brands of Opera Pink, which is colour-heightened by a dye, can be so fugitive as to fade inside a closed book.

As I have currently run out of empty half pans, the decision is still out on whether Naples Yellow or Quinacridone Violet will make the final cut. Oh the fun of playing with colour!

The full herd over the start of my book!

PS No correspondence will be entered into over the anatomical accuracy, or otherwise, of my cows.

April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by Leonie Andrews

A fistful of cafes

I have been refining my coffee sketching process this year, applying the KISS principle (‘keep it simple stupid’) to what I carry in my bag for impromptu sketching sessions. A test card of watercolours, a pencil, a pen and a waterbrush and a ‘book’ made from one sheet of A3 watercolour paper. Both the book and the colour card fit into a plastic sleeve from an old bank passbook (gosh, do you remember those?). Here’s a shot of the set up.

Each A3 sheet is folded in half horizontally to make two panorama style pages. These are folded in half then sewn together through the fold. Each side of the panorama is the folded in half again (as you can see in the photo above), which means the final size all folded up fits in the plastic sleeve.

The completed booklet

Here are sketches from my latest book. What I really like is that, depending on your layout you can sketch over part, or the full stretch of the page.