subject: The Workings Of A Northern British Artist. [print this page] To him, a drawing was just as important as a painting, and Lowry would labour over some of his sketches for a long time in order to achieve a result he was reasonably happy with.
Dreamscapes:
Until Lowry had some idea of what he would create, he would often sit in fronbt of his canvas until the inspiration arrived. He will have a dreamy aura around him and doesn't now about his next work until he starts working. Dreamscapes were so named by Lowry as he would let his mind and imagination work on the painting.
Industrial Landscape:
Mr Bernard Taylor was a major influence in helping Lowry form some what we recognize today as his northrn industrial lanscapes. It was suggested by Mr Taylor that Lowry experimented by painting some of the landscapes on a plain white background. Lowry then experimented with several permutations and combinations of white paint on his boards. Lowry used this technique frequently, by painting various coats of white paint, and using this as a background to finish the painting. This gave Lowry the desired effect of the industrial sky and the stark placement of his figures; a feature he wanted to achieve.
Color and Brush Strokes:
Lowry is known to use a basic range of colors on a pure white background. His range of colors never exceeds other than black, flake white, ivory, vermilion (red), yellow ochre, Prussian blue, and a linseed medium. He is known to be partial towards oils. If one pays close attention to his paintings, one can find an ingenious variety of brush strokes including both the ends of the brush, his fingers, sticks and nails.
Lowry was also known to reuse and recycle his older images. In a distinct case, the painting of Head of a Man (1938) showed a female portrait and a self portrait beneath it, when X-rayed.
Landscapes and Portraits:
Most of the paintings of Lowry depict the urban and industrial landscape of the city he lives in at that time. Though Landscapes and seascapes are some of his powerful pictures, he found particular pleasure in his portraits of solitary figures. He found painting sad people to be his biggest challenge and a difficult one. He had a huge insight of human nature and was known to maintain an unattached relationship with it.
The great breakthrough for his paintings came a little to late for Mr Lowry. A large exhibition was held at therR.A. in London and attracted many thousands of visitors. Since 1936, the Salford Museum & Art Gallery has been collecting his artwork and houses a huge collection of his award winning works and other paintings.
