Painting in the Style of Mary Pratt, an Inspiring Weekend

At the age of 80, Newfoundland painter Mary Pratt is still painting. It takes months to create a piece such as her "Red Current Jelly". I am a huge admirer of the light and colour in her work. I also love her use of the colour red.

So I jumped at the chance to take a two-day painting class in the style of Mary Pratt, with instructor Andrea Mossop, this past weekend at the Shenkman campus of the Ottawa School of Art. The class was about learning to paint with colour capsules, achieving luminosity, glow, sparkle and shine.

We had to bring an inspiration photo. I chose this photo of a fountain, taken at Ville Lante in Italy in 2012.

Our first task was to sketch out the basic shapes and lay down a colour map using a very light wash of paint, and then the work of painting all the colour shapes began.

After two days, this is where the class ended. I probably have months of work ahead of me to finish this, but I am pleased with my weekend as I learned a great deal that I hope will make its way into future art quilts. The whole subject of refracted light has me facinated.

I am heading back into the studio this week. Still playing with some sketches and ideas before I haul out some fabric.

The Art of Mary Pratt

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the National Gallery of Canada, viewing the Alex Colville, Chagall, and Mary Pratt exhibits. Until a few months ago, I had never heard of Mary Pratt, a Canadian artist living in Newfoundland. I learned of her when the Ottawa Citizen published an article this past April, called "The Erotic Jellies of Mary Pratt". Oh, the transparency, the light and shadow, the colour red, the joy of "Red Current Jelly", below. Pratt is the only living female artist ever to have a show of her work at the National Gallery while still alive (she is now 80). 

Red Current Jelly, 1972

I was especially taken by her comments about how photography informed her work and how it elevated her painting ability. I am quoting here from the Citizen article by Peter Simpson:
“This Little Painting,” as it is referred to by Pratt and in the exhibition title, is 45 by 45 centimetres (18 inches or so), but it was made just as she began to use photography as a reference for her painting. That moment was the big bang in her development as a painter." 

The article goes on to say that, "She took a photograph, and discovered that “photography is a great teacher.” Though she downplays her photographic skills — “I don’t know what an F-stop is” — she recognized how “photography stills everything, so you can look at things, and see how they work.” She describes how a photograph showed her how on the oval lip of a jelly jar, “every quarter inch, the colour changes. The colour is transient and beautiful, and just breath-taking.”

The discussion about photography as inspiration for artworks happens with regularity in some of the on-line art quilt groups I belong to. There is a significant contingent in those groups that looks down at the use of photography, and realistic art along with it.

Seeing the exhibits of Colville and Pratt brings me joy because of their success as artists using realism. While I am not overly fond of Colville's statue-like figures, I was moved by his story of success, which at the same time often brought harsh criticism. I think what the careers of Colville and Pratt highlight, for me, is that there will always be praise and criticism at the same time and we just have to keep trucking, making the art we need to and want to make.

Mary Pratt's work seems, to me, a celebration of the joy in the everyday. It captures ordinary moments in an ordinary life and elevates them to the extraordinary.

Jelly Shelf, 1999.

Smears of Jam, Lights of Jelly, 2007