Introduction
Well I hope I'm not the only person who found having a go at working in the style of Jasper Johns a bit of a challenge.
Jasper Johns, still alive and showing at the moment at the Royal Academy in London, has been working since the 1950's in painting, sculpture and print making. As a consequence it's not that easy to sum up his work covering as it does some very different oevres. Maybe his most famous works, or the ones I most associate him with are those paintings of very iconic American images, the flag and the (Captain America) shield. The alphabet and number paintings are also equally brilliant.
I did an online search for images of his work and also got a few books out the library and saved the following images of pieces of his work I liked the most.
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| Probably my favourite |
The Alphabet Painting
I focused on this painting for my work, taking a few letters to work on and study in more detail:
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| Note additional layers of paper (?) added to the surface |
The Letters
Simple bold letter shapes all in uppercase. Set in approx squares with a border around each one.
Simple bold letter shapes all in uppercase. Set in approx squares with a border around each one.
Colour
I started off by looking at his use of colour. The work is undertaken largely in primary colours: reds going to orange, yellows and blues. Also much use of shades, tints and tones with some highlighting in either white, lots of pale blue as well, and some smaller areas of dark, possibly black, to highlight the letter forms. He uses green very sparingly, and there are occasional areas of pinky and terracotta shades although clearly working from images rather than the real thing makes it hard to be certain about this.
I started off by looking at his use of colour. The work is undertaken largely in primary colours: reds going to orange, yellows and blues. Also much use of shades, tints and tones with some highlighting in either white, lots of pale blue as well, and some smaller areas of dark, possibly black, to highlight the letter forms. He uses green very sparingly, and there are occasional areas of pinky and terracotta shades although clearly working from images rather than the real thing makes it hard to be certain about this.
Texture
The texture of the work is really interesting. In addition to areas of vigorous brush strokes there are clearly some attached layers - maybe paper. See image above. Some of the paint is really thickly applied and there is the use of dry brushing.
Painting Base
It took me to my fourth attempt to realise that maybe the canvas or board had been painted in red to start with and that the other colours were applied on top of this. I might of course be completely wrong in this assessment.
My main task at first was to have a go at getting the colours right.
Because I had observed that some parts of Jasper Johns work seems to have been done on Newspaper, I decided to use newspaper covered in gesso rather than normal sketchbook paper.
I used two images from a book from the library with good quality image reproduction to use as a base for colour matching. And notes to self. Some made before I started and others added as I went along:
Initial selection of primary colours plus white and black.
I mixed colours on clear acetate sheets and was then able to layer these on the library books to match colours. This was quite a clever idea and I must remember it for future use.
I added colours mixed to a few sheets of A3 as I went along to keep a record of them.
In the final analysis I went for the following colours: alizarin crimson, cadmium orange and yellow, small amount of lemon yellow to mix in certain areas, cobalt blue and small amounts of cerulean in some places, titanium white and payne's grey.
As I went along I tried out a few brush strokes to get a feel for how he worked, not sure that really paid off. Finally I had a go at doing two of my own letters using thickly applied paint. I enjoyed this and found it much easier to use my own instincts using light and dark to highlight the letters.
The letters
I made 4 letters in the style of Jasper Johns and I'm glad I did, as I found them individually not very good, but taken as a whole they seemed to work quite well. I was frequently frustrated by my inability to really understand how he had painted these letters and threatened to down tools on a number of occasions.
Starting with 'O'
The texture of the work is really interesting. In addition to areas of vigorous brush strokes there are clearly some attached layers - maybe paper. See image above. Some of the paint is really thickly applied and there is the use of dry brushing.
Painting Base
It took me to my fourth attempt to realise that maybe the canvas or board had been painted in red to start with and that the other colours were applied on top of this. I might of course be completely wrong in this assessment.
Activity 2
So after looking for a few days at the work I had no further excuses about avoiding having a go. I set myself up with acrylics, clear acetate sheets for colour matching, books, paintbrushes etc:My main task at first was to have a go at getting the colours right.
 |
| Painting brushes, pallet knife, sponge, cards |
Because I had observed that some parts of Jasper Johns work seems to have been done on Newspaper, I decided to use newspaper covered in gesso rather than normal sketchbook paper.
I used two images from a book from the library with good quality image reproduction to use as a base for colour matching. And notes to self. Some made before I started and others added as I went along:
Initial selection of primary colours plus white and black.
I mixed colours on clear acetate sheets and was then able to layer these on the library books to match colours. This was quite a clever idea and I must remember it for future use.
I added colours mixed to a few sheets of A3 as I went along to keep a record of them.
In the final analysis I went for the following colours: alizarin crimson, cadmium orange and yellow, small amount of lemon yellow to mix in certain areas, cobalt blue and small amounts of cerulean in some places, titanium white and payne's grey.
As I went along I tried out a few brush strokes to get a feel for how he worked, not sure that really paid off. Finally I had a go at doing two of my own letters using thickly applied paint. I enjoyed this and found it much easier to use my own instincts using light and dark to highlight the letters.
The letters
I made 4 letters in the style of Jasper Johns and I'm glad I did, as I found them individually not very good, but taken as a whole they seemed to work quite well. I was frequently frustrated by my inability to really understand how he had painted these letters and threatened to down tools on a number of occasions.
Starting with 'O'
'T'
'M' only letter with green!
Finally 'R', this time using the red as a base
Putting the four letters together
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