Meeting Mr. Frog

Meeting Mr. Frog
Salamanca, Spain

During Beever’s days as an art student ad the Leeds Polytechnic, he was already intrigued by the theme of water surfaces as this allowed him to getaway from the college environment and explore the natural outdoor environments such as ponds, riverbanks and the seaside. Though he was drawn by the subject of water, at the same time he also found the theme of water one of the most challenging to draw.This eventually became one of his most regularly used elements in his paintings. This may be due to the fact that water has no certain form, hence Beever can have the freedom to shape it in the way to suit his paintings. This opposes to many objects with geometrical precision which requires the artist to make exact calculations leaving no margin for errors. The theme of water mayalso reflect Beever’s inner unconscious desire to explore the world outside theUK. Water travels and exists in nearly all parts of the world, and it is also these paintings with elements of water which enabled Beever to finance his trips around the globe.

Beever’s art is timeless, a suspension between  the ripple effects on the environment andwhat exists in his mind. Some of my favourite pieces include “A slight accident in a railway station”, “Sony Computer”, Pepsi I can”, and “Little and Large”. However,I will look into “Meeting Mr. Frog”  which is drawn in the streets of Salamanca (Spain)in more depth by exploring the process and techniques of creating this piece, the themes this piece brings out as well as my personal interpretations and the ideas this piece expresses.

The sidewalks are Beever’s canvas for his art work and he would use multi-coloured chalk to draw his works onto the pavements. Before drawing on the site, he would have made various detailed sketches of thepainting in his sketchbook. The first thing he does when he arrives at the site is to set up his camera on a tripod, and focus it onto the pavement. The chosen viewpoint of the painting will be the view through the lens of the camera. To start off this artwork he uses some cotton thread to measure out an outline ofa grid of dimensions. He then uses white chalk (as white chalk is easier to erase if he makes a mistake) and a meter ruler to draw out fundamental lines of the piece. After that, Beever starts to map out his sketch in a larger portion(as compared to that in his sketchbook) by starting with core parts of the painting which were drawn with black chalk (to give more definite lines) then moving to the details with multi-coloured pastels. When painting larger areas, Beever sprinkles powdered pigment onto the sidewalk, lies on his “stomach hammock” and bends over towards the pavement and then carefully smudge and blend the chalk by using blocks of polystyrene foam to create contrasting colour effects and shadowing of the piece. Once the piece is completed he takes a photograph of the painting with a child (who is in fact his daughter) in it as if sitting on a water lotus leaf. The painting itself as well as the picture of the artwork is his completed work.

One of the reasons why I chose this painting out of all Beever’s other works is because I think that the theme of water and the natural environment in his paintings which are drawn on city pavements seems to integrate two very different and opposing sceneries into one. It is very difficult to find greenery in the city which is often described as a concrete jungle, therefore by bringing in a scenery of green, Beever brings colour to the dull and boring metropolis. In addition, the urban is always a fast paced and noisy area to live in. This contrasts to the countryside where the area is relatively quiet and slow paced,and by using his anamorphisis technique of drawing, Beever effectively draws the attention of passersby to slow down or even halt and admire him creating his piece as well as the finished product itself. This is just like removing them from the fast paced world of the city bringing them into the scenery of the painting itself-blending drawing with reality.

Another reason why I chose this painting is because it seems to be a snapshot of one part of his story (the other parts being his other works Meeting Mr. Newt and Feeding the Fish). This story is one where Beever brings his daughter to the countryside where in Meeting Mr. Newt, she is concentrated on fishing in a pond, and in Meeting Mr. Frog she is not only unafraid of the gigantic frog, she also wishes to feed it (which of course if we look closely, we would realize that in fact she is merely holding Beever’s pastelsbut not real food). This shows the element of care which is an essential part surrounding the idea of family and also something that people living in the cities may lack due to the limitation of time. Moreover, the heart shaped water lotus leaves the frog and the child is sitting on seems to further depict the message of the spirit of love and care.

Meeting Mr. Newt
Cologne, Germany

Feeding the Fish
Lisbon, Portugal