Lunchtime doodle

Last week I was making lunch, and sliced a tomato through horizontally. The centre core looked like some kind of muscular organ, and the seeds appeared alien for some reason. It was as though I'd discovered a hidden universe. I drew it in pencil, and ate it. Later that day I went over my sketch in a permanent fineliner, and played around with watercolour. I didn't like the background I'd painted in, so I cut it out instead. Interesting.

Ivory white roses

A second outlet has been found for my sunflowers. so that's all seven of them up for sale. A huge thank you to my sister Mel who's been doing lots of running around getting my work accepted and mounted ready for sale.

So today I spent some time clearing space to actually work in my studio, instead of it just being used to store art materials, while I find a place to work elsewhere in the house.
And here are the fruits of the labour that followed; three roses of the pale variety.

Still life with a box of red wine

This is more like it, and the brother-in-law is on the Martini. The bad news is that I think I've lost my sister. Here's what happened; we read through an exercise in one of the books I'd brought on the stages of painting a still life in pastels - start out with a charcoal outline, then lay in the shadows gently, then put in the local colour of the objects, then develop these with modelling, and finally add detail. Mine was going fine, so I stopped for a bit to look at what my sister was doing, and made a few suggestions, and then some more. It was when I asked if she minded if I drew on her work to demonstrate what I was failing to convey in words and she adamantly told me NO! that I knew I'd overstepped the mark.

We laughed about it, and she's been digging me about it ever since, but I think I've learnt that if we're drawing together, to leave her to it until she asks me for help or advice. She is also an Open University tutor, and understands how to give feedback, constructive criticism and all that. I don't. I'm a well-meaning oaf who can't keep her gob shut. I'm just glad she hasn't asked me to go home.

Still life with stewed tea

Here's the first still life I've drawn in a long, long time. One of my sisters has started drawing and painting, and she'd asked about soft pastels. So we set up a still life, and had a go. Mine was a monumental failure. I won't even say that it was fun to do, and the whole time I was gasping for a cup of tea. It's done on A4 pastel paper, and the whole image is too small, leaving me no room to explore the surfaces and describe the shapes. I haven't done any underpainting, just lashed on the local colour, put in some detail, and then wondered why it all went so wrong. Back to the drawing board. Well, actually, back to the 'How to Paint in Pastels' books I've brought with me. In the mean time, I'm having a fantastic time at my sister's, as I always do.

a morning's work

Thanks to a supportive hubby, I got a couple of hours working on the kitchen still life on Sunday morning. I've decided to loose all but the yellow book on the table. The white wall in the background needs to be duller, as does the brick fire surround, and I'm panicking about the tiled floor. But overall I really like it so far.

I've stopped myself adding highlights and details at this stage because I know it's all too wet at the moment. It took a lot of self control to slow down and work on one area at a time, but I've had to because I'm only just learning about colour mixing, and I can't yet grab colours confidently to add a touch here & there yet. But I feel like they are skills within my reach. All I need is time to paint.

I also finished reading 'The Yellow House' and I've ordered a book of Van Gogh's letters. I'd love to go to the Tate in London to see his Yellow Chair.

next step

Then, I did a detailed drawing of the arrangement, and I love the strong lines. I haven't decided if the lines will become a part of the final painting or not.

Originally I has an idea of a calm scene, but now it feels very energetic.

I'm definitely under the influence of Van Gogh at the moment. I don't want to copy his style but I am happy to see which elements of his work seep into mine.

still life

I've been reading The Yellow House, about Van Gogh & Gauguin. Although, as a novel it's poorly written, it's inspiring none the less.

I've also been looking into oil painting techniques, and I'm all buzzed with excitement and want to get my teeth into painting more and more.

As a result, today I've made a start on a still life of my kitchen table. I replaced my usual garish table cloth with a plainer one laid upside down so the pattern is only hinted at, and I photographed the scene to check the layout. Then I did a simple sketch to see how it sat on the paper. At this stage I've omitted detail, including the objects on the table.

Looking at the preliminary sketch, I love the arrangement of chairs round the table.

The background of my children's artwork is very busy, and I'll be simplifying this in the painting itself. I'm also fascinated by the table and chair legs and lino under the table, and although these aren't the focus of the painting, they'll add depth to it I hope. The books, cup and pen on the table are what I've been using this morning, so it's fallen together quite nicely.