002. Christopher R. W. Nevinson:La Mitrailleuse

My copy of La Mitrailleuse

La Mitrailleuse by C.R.W. Nevinson. Painted in 1915. Oil on Canvas measuring 61cm by 50.8cm. Owned by Tate Gallery. Currently not on display.

La Mitrailleuse. CRW Nevinson. Tate Gallery

This is a cold picture. Painted from his experiences on the western front, it shows a French machine gun crew in the trenches. A significant portion of the canvas is taken up by the new machine of war -  the machine gun. Buried in the shadows (and given far less prominence) is one of their dead comrades, to which the others pay no mind. Nevinson later wrote 

"To me, the soldier going to be dominated by the machine ... I was the first man to express this feeling on canvas."

I was originally going to do a pastiche of this painting, concentrating solely on the machine gunner but changed tact after my first session. - that was my first mistake. 

The second and a much bigger error of schoolboy proportions was I screwed up the canvas. After deciding to incorporate the rest of the elements into the picture I sketched them down with a heavy B pencil and did not seal it. This meant I had a grey blob that seemed to follow me around for the rest of the painting. It has also left a grey bloody ridge in the final piece.

Making a mistake after mistake

Before getting into the third mistake, I should point out that I am someone who preaches a bad workman blames their tools, but in this case, I am going to blame my tools. I lied in my first post where I mentioned I had only one blue paint - I did have two. 

To kit out, I went to a lot of of the art supplies websites and bought whatever was on sale. Now the second blue was part of Daleys Rowneys Graduate Range - which is a Budget range. In its defence. It is blue and you can paint with it and what comes off the end of your brush is blue. 

But… It doesn't blend well. It is very hard to lighten and darken.I also tried mixing in a bit of red to get a stronger blue which only produced more grey blobbiness. 

I should mention, quite a few of my paints are budget range. Most notable I have several pigments from the Sennelier Abstract range which I can highly recommend, but this paint was pants (unless all you wanted was blue). 

It can be frustrating working on something and producing mistake after mistake, but I would much rather be making mistakes than sitting there going “I would like to do this, but I am afraid I will mess it up”