As this site is called The Draughtsman I suppose I should put in some evidence of pure line drawing to support the paintings in the last two posts.

These six images are reference tracings taken from the original drawings. I made drawings intitially to work out just where things go as it were but then needed to overpaint them to see how it all works out. But before proceeding to the painting stage I made these tracings. Being on tracing paper and drawn to scale in relation to the planned finished work, I can, if need be, project this onto the canvas via an overhead projector. Purists may regard that as cheating but there is strong evidence to suggest the old masters used optics extensively.

If you click on the image you should get a full size version.

To those photographers who look at this site from time to time, I suppose these tracings and to some extent drawings can be looked at in the same way as negatives. By that I mean photographers who still practise the dark[room] arts! (grins).

The opposite three figures in the Orestian Trilogy. Here we have, reading left to right, Cassandra, Aegisthos and Clytemnestra.

Cassandra was a prophetess who had been cursed by Apollo in that nobody believed her prophesies, even though they all turned out to be true. She was I think in a bit of a "Monty Python" situation. She had been brought back to Mycenae as a trophy/slave from Troy by Agamemnon and in the play she even prophesied her own death and the manner of it.

Aegisthos was promised the throne by Clytemnestra provided he help her assasinate her husband. This he did but was really only a puppet king thereby. He carries his bronze sword, he is not entirely blameless.

Clytemnestra has blood on her hands. She not only murdered her husband but she beheaded Cassandra and butchered all the children Cassandra had by Agamemnon. She is downcast. Her only son will avenge his father's murder.

Enough of the slaughter and mayhem.

These three images are gouache on paper and each is 30 cm (12") high. This is also experimental work to see how the paintings might look. The idea is to have the triptychs facing each other so that Agamemnon is opposite Clytemnestra; Aegisthos is opposite Electra; Cassandra is opposite Orestes. Note the backgrounds are pale towards the left and dark towards the right. This is to set the mood. Note the Agamemnon/Electra/Orestes group are the opposite way, darkness to the left.

How big to make the final pieces? I put it to some of the others in the studio and the consensus was that I should make a six foot tall mock-up on paper of one figure and try a four footer on another and see how they work. So that will be the next stage. I'll probably get down to it in the New Year. We are all rather busy in the studio with Christmas card making. Artists always make their own.

Well, we do!

The Orestian Triptych
If you've been following this blog for the last few days you will have been watching this project grow. Today I completed the Electra image so now the triptych is complete, - in its water-colour form. This is a preparatory work on paper, though in its way is complete in itself. The plan is to develop this into a larger painting. I had originally intended the panels to be six feet tall; pretty well life-size. But now I wonder, perhaps they would be better at four feet tall (120 cm). What is shown here is 24" (60 cm tall). I have done it this size so that scaling up shouldn't be too complicated.
Anyone out there got any thoughts? 120 cm ? 180 cm ?
There is another triptych planned to go with this one, the three protagonists; Clytemnestra, Aegisthus and Cassandra. Watch this space. I may be a week or two working on it.

I've spent the last few days developing the image for "Elektra" who will stand between Agamemnon and Orestes in the triptych.

Here is the line drawing of the final design. She is a weeping figure. In both Aeschylus' and Sophocles' versions she spends much of the time in the mid-section of the trilogy lamenting the loss of her father and, ultimately, cultivating hatred for her mother.

Is it only in Greek tragedy, I wonder, that grief is allowed to ferment into poisonous hatred and find release in violent retribution? I remember when seeing Sophocles Electra just how raw those expressed emotions were. The play was in Greek but you didn't need to understand the language to get gripped by the drama.

I get the feeling my finished work will seriously understate this. You can judge when it is completed.

Four [Hellenic] figures. A little out of sequence here but are part of the exploratory process which brought me to the start of the ongoing project. There is a lack of logical connectedness in that the grey-clad figure on the left is a caryatid from the Erektheion in Athens, the middle two golden-clad figures are of Artemis and the right-hand one in white is a composite of Aphrodite. The Aphrodite was taken from a sculpture (as were they all) which is headless and armless and entirely nude. The torso is in the museum in Pafos, Cyprus and the head is in the Central museum in Nicosia. I decided to drape the figure to keep it all in context.

I suppose it could be argued that Aphrodite could remain naked among her clothed fellow deities for she was noted for her promiscuity despite her being, apart from the goddess of love, she was the defender of matrimonial fidelity.

Each of these panels are 7 x 42 cm and are together on a single sheet of paper 55 x 50 cm. The work is in gouache on 300 gsm paper.

To further illustrate the development of this work here is the line drawing, built up from original sketchbooks.

And here, some gouache has been applied. The idea of this is to work out how, and if they would work as paintings. This particular piece was intended as something of a "test-bed" but I think it stands as a work in its own right.

Agamemnon. Companion piece to "Orestes" posted yesterday. This piece is the same size at 60 cm tall. This is a mixed media drawing utilising both soft graphite and charcoal. To get the subtleties of tone I had to layer up several times.

There now only remains "Elektra" to draw. I envisage doing that as a line drawing with watercolour washes.

At the moment I have a large body of work assembled of the "Sea Pictures" so there is not so much pressure to produce new work in that direction. This leaves me free to concentrate on my Hellenic project(s) which hark back to the times I spend in Cyprus.

Not surprisingly the mythological material coupled with the modern Cypriot Art scene has exerted something of an influence here. Many years ago when I was in my late teens/early twenties I avidly read the Greek classics. My trips to Cyprus have re-awakened this interest. I have done a lot of random drawings of Hellenic style figures, mainly female, but there has been no real cohesive plan. It was rather like looking around a new environment and just taking everything at face value.

But now, I seem to be on a roll. My plan is to produce around fifteen pieces making up triptychs and polyptychs. The first is a look at the Orestian Trilogy which deals with the murder of king Agamemnon after his triumphant return from the Trojan War; his daughter, Elektra's grief and growing hatred for her mother, Klytemnestra who killed her father Agamemnon and finally the return of her brother Orestes who avenged the killing by an act of matricide.

Not quite your gentle family story.

Shown here is a preliminary drawing of Orestes. This drawing is 24" tall. The plan is to make paintings six feet tall. But a happy accident in making this drawing is making me reconsider. Perhaps these should be works on paper? Finished mixed media drawings rather than paintings? Such is the journey of discovery we call Art. We have an idea, then a plan, then have a rethink. So which way shall this project go I wonder?

As well as the Agamemnon/Elektra/Orestes trilogy, I think another triptych is called for of the protaginists for want of a better word, Klytemnestra/Aegisthos/Kassandra. These would, ideally be shown on a wall opposite the first three. I would like to do three goddesses as another triptych, namely; Artemis/Athene/Aphrodite. Also a four part polyptych featuring the female figures, - caryatids, - of the Erektheion at the Acropolis in Athens.

All these works are intended to be six feet tall.