Patrick Caulfield and his 'White Ware'

Patrick Caulfield

(29 January 1936 – 29 September 2005)

Patrick Caulfield constantly studied art, and yet the over simplistic shapes and colours in his White Ware collection give the impression of an artist at the start of the career path and not at his peak. However, the simple bold colours certainly make an impact and the lack of complications to the prints, such as shadows and tone allows the viewer to enjoy the pictures for what they are and not wasting time working out if he has captured the correct perspective of the objects. It also gives and on-looker a puzzle as all you can see is the positive and negative space, but no or little object space, so they must make sense of the picture themselves. By keeping the prints simple, his draws attention to the most mundane of objects and makes them stand out and seem special. In the 'Vase and flowers in a garden' drawing by Eric Ravilous the vase is merely a vessel for the flowers, whereas in the 6 'White Ware' prints below, the vase becomes the focus of the pictures.

Below is a drawing I made using a similar style to Caulfield. I kept the detail and the colour scheme to a minimum and concentrated on making my daughter's clothing and blanket stand out.