Robert Hannaford Workshop

About a week ago I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop by Australian artist Robert Hannaford. I have long admired his portrait work particularly his self portraits from unusual angles. I am certainly not alone in admiring his work as he one of the few artists who are loved by both artists and by the general public as his numerous "Peoples' Choice" awards gives testament.

This is Hannaford's amazing portrait "Bill" which won the 1990 Doug Moran Portrait Prize. I will return to it later but first some details about the workshop.

The class was for two days and Hannaford began with a brief overview of his thoughts and methods and a demonstration piece which he continued to work on over the two days. I took brief notes which I will reproduce here.

Robert Hannaford's Ideas

* Art is an "act of discovery"
* Don't have a plan
* Importance of a viewfinder to try different compositions and then the "That's the one I want" moment. As most of us didn't have this essential piece of equipment he proceed to make several out of paper for us.
* SHAPE  COLOUR  TONE
* Abstract pattern / Abstract shapes of the masses, and Light/Dark
* Objectivity
* Squint to see tone and open eyes (till they blur) to see colour,  Shift between these two.
* Don't fiddle
* Don't rush in
* Using viewfinder try vertical or horizontal composition/ different sizes of head/ inclusion of body etc.
* There is a psychological horizon in a portrait ( eye height if standing in front of it)
* Re-see every day, don't follow your drawing from the day before or even from the previous sitting before the break.

As far as his method goes, Hannaford started on a white canvas, blocked in using charcoal which he then wiped off just leaving traces. He also started with lots of paint which he wiped back. He did even put in some highlights early on ( not details, details were last) so I guess you could say his approach is an instinctive one.
Filbert brushes
He did a tonal block in, around the head etc.

* Only when you cover the whole canvas can you really see what's going on.

 And his main point which he repeated throughout the weekend

* DON'T EVER USE PHOTOS TO WORK FROM!!!!

He quoted Rembrandt as saying  "Nature is my master" and made the point that all the big leaps in art history have been made when artists returned to nature, i.e. Leonardo, the Impressionists etc. The Impressionists, painting plein air noticed that shadows were blue/purple and not the brown that Rubens painted.

He stressed the importance of composition from the start.

* Always rely on your own vision, not on your painting from yesterday.
* For his commissioned portraits he takes 6 to 7 days with a 3 hour sitting per day.

* Seeing is everything.
* Don't worry about technique, technique will look after  itself. Everything will look after itself.
* Spend 90% of your time looking, 10% painting
* Stand back /use mirror to view your progress.
* Don't copy other artists

He spoke about when he was young, taking his own work to his mentor Ivor Hele. He said Hele never said much he just looked, and Hannaford could then see his own mistakes as he felt he was seeing his own work through Hele's eyes.

Hannaford made an interesting point that we are on the verge of a Renaissance with our eyes.
* You can make unique discoveries.

I asked several questions about the painting of Bill (above) most notably about the dog and did he use a camera to capture the dog. He said he did not. (It is the artist's own dog.) There were over 100 sittings for the painting and the dog was there for about 50 of them. He says while other people train their dogs to fetch sticks,  he trains his dogs to pose.

                                Painting of Brett by Robyn Bauer

This is my effort after the two day sitting. I had a full-on profile which I did not choose as we drew easel positions out of a hat, but but I soon warmed to the possibilities (after using my viewfinder) and deciding to do landscape format which  I would not otherwise have done. The green curtain had been placed behind the sitter and framed the head very well for most of the painters but I ended up finding the book shelf very exciting (surprise surprise). I am sure I have never painted a bookshelf before.

Hannaford was very generous with his information and gave plenty of individual attention. There were some great painters there and some great paintings by the end of the weekend.

My History as an Artist

 

 

I am asked fairly often if I have always painted. The simple answer is yes. It was certainly encouraged in my family for all four of the children. My mother Joan Bauer (1933 - 1995) was an artist, so we had ready access to pencils and pens.
 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother did this pastel of me when I was a baby and I have had this framed work hanging next to my bed virtually all my life. Even now it is still there. It touches me to know I was observed so closely when I was asleep. My parents had two more children after me but for a while there I was the baby of the family.

 

One of these days I will devote a blog post to Mum's work, but for now I am just remembering back to my own early Art Education. Mum and her artist friends in the Dalby Art Group would drive off on Sundays to scenic spots near Bell, Kaimkillenbun and along Dalby's Myall Creek. All the kids went along too. It was  the perfect introduction to seeing the Australian landscape as something picturesque and also a great initiation into an artist's working methods.

 

This is the type of work Mum was doing in those days.

 

 

 

 

This is a watercolour and it shows the type of  scenery she sought out. More often she worked in oils like this one below with the purplish mountains either on the road to Toowoomba or near the foothills of the Bunya Mountains.

 

 

 

 

She called these her "pot boilers" as they sold very well among the locals of the town. She also called them "trad" meaning traditional and in those days it was a very derogatory term. She'd be surprised to see the amount of realist work being done today. As a kid I really liked them and couldn't understand her disparaging tone.

 

 

 

The Australian Flying Art School also visited town and Mum took me along to these seminars as well. I was the little apprentice painter, the youngest by far. (This aspect of my training completed a full circle when in my early adulthood as Education Officer at the Queensland Art Gallery I travelled with Mervyn Moriarty around Queensland in the little Australian Flying Art School plane.)

 

I painted all the time as a child.

 

 

 

 

This is me at 16 working on what looks like a pen and ink garden picture. The photo was taken by the newspaper which explains its air of unreality and my awkward pose.

 

 

 

 

 

This painting won me the Sunday Mail Art Prize at 16 years of age. All those poor barefoot faceless convicts lined up and the British red coat soldiers with the "X marks the spot" on their jackets. Not really sure what I was thinking... Interesting composition I came up with though and the subject matter demonstrates at least to me a certain consistency in my interest in things historical.

 

I wish I had more examples of work from my teenage years but this is the sole sad survivor.

 

I went on to university and studied the history of art which has been fueling my work ever since.