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Painting among the horses

Noordhoek Common is one of the loveliest parts of the Peninsula, trees, grass, horses and kids. If you want to join us, be there on Saturday at 9h30 (bring some sandwiches.)

Drive from Fish Hoek in the direction of Chapman's Peak. On your left just after the Noordhoek Farm Village you will see a beautiful green field with trees and horses. This is Noordhoek Common. It is encircled by Sunrise Crescent. Meet us there.

A bird in the hand

The first of these little birds hopped into my world in Venice. Lazing about one day, I started sketching a few of the little brown jobs hunting for crumbs around my feet. Since then I have done a number paintings of the little birds of Venice, and they are among my favourite subjects.

Animals tell us stories. They are teachers. When an animal enters our dreams, they are the product of our mind, and they clearly represent aspect of our self. The same applies to the real animals which cross our path.

Last week, as I walked into my studio, I saw a faint flutter behind the skylight curtain, a kind of William Morris pattern of birds and foliage... It was a young bird, little more than a fledgling, trapped between the glass and the heavy cloth.

Fetching our long ladder, I said to my model, "How is this possible? The studio is in the furthest corner of the house, and the window blocked by this heavy curtain." I caught the bird in a cloth, but it wriggle free and I had to grasp it in my hand. the feeling was massively sensual - the little heart beating against my palm, and the wings struggling for freedom. The last thing I wanted to do, was to set it free, but I had to. "Good God, the symbolism of it! This is the little bird which means Venice to me and now not only is it in the Cape, it is in my house, and in my studio; and not only is it in my studio, it is in my hand..."

Ever practical, Chantel said, "Oh you'll see symbolism in anything."

I was outraged. "That may be so, but this little bird is just about hitting me over the head with significance!"

"Yeh yeh sure..."

O.K, so the bird spoke to me, and this is what it said:

"The things you want are already with you; on its way to you, to your house; and into your hand."

Fine Music Radio interview

Philip Todres of Fine Music Radio chats to Ryno Swart. Click here for the interview.

If you just want to listen to good classical music from outside Cape Town, click here.

Physicality in painting

Paintings have a physical quality. A painting is a living entitity, it has character, personality, and anatomy.

In looking at some paintings, even of the masters, there is something disturbing about the work, often highly realistic, but they are somehow bloated, lacking in bone structure and in muscle tone. This goes a long way to explain our gut reaction to art.

Maybe I can illustrate with fruit. In the rendering of a head we need to become aware of the underlying bone structure of the skull. A fresh apple is hard and crisp, with smooth angles and planes. An orange is still firm, but not hard, whereas tangerine is soft. A head, rendered with the structural qualities of an orange, is OK (not good, just ok); whereas one rendered like a tangerine is positively ugly. Ideally a head should have the crisp hard feel of an apple. Not only the head. Folds of material demand the same underlying strength. So do rock formations. Everything.

The way to get this crisp, starched-linen look, is to work in terms of planes. The purest plane in paint is one crisp brushstroke, left unlicked. Provided that each stroke is true in colour, then every brushstroke is also a plane. The other way is by working in fields of flat paint. Avoid making things 'round'. That is the way to flabby, podgy painting.

Diamonds are cut into flat planes, with sharp edges. This is the perfect way to paint. Every surface we see in nature is angled towards or away from the light, and therefore unique in colour and in tone. Each plane meets the next in a specific way, soft or sharp. We can perceive 4 kinds of edge: knife edges, hard edges, soft edges and lost edges, and it is these that give the character of the form. The variety of edges make the painting, but without planes, there is nothing to edge, and planes are flat.

Website

http://artistvision.org/

Workshops

For details on workshops and classes in Cape Town and Europe, click here

Joy

Joy cannot be destroyed or created. It can only be embraced or celebrated.
It is the underlying stuff of the universe.

Marilyn Monroe was photographed, recorded, filmed, but never painted.

The art of Ryno Swart