Destroy that precious thing

I took a small hog brush and some black thinned with turps, and made these corrections. I'm ready for a cup of coffee now. I think I've nailed him. The trick now is not to loose him again in the re-painting.

An hour of frustration, then I squinted and obliterated all detail with blocks of tone. I'm finding that using a brush for each shade keeps me making decisions. I need to stop 'drawing' and keep on 'painting' if that makes sense?

Abstract studies

Working from Rolina van Vliet's Painting Abstracts; ideas, projects and techniques.
I was excited when I found this book, and it was amazing to find myself considering the each piece as a whole from very early on, ie how the shapes are relating to each other, choosing and adjusting colours quite critically. All this was amazing, considering I didn't have a goal in sight for any of these pieces.
I don't think that any of these deserve hanging space, and yet, more so that when I was doing the still life exercises, I feel like I'm learning in great leaps about composition, rhythm, variation in scale, and colour relationships.

Exercise 5 - blending

The teacher is wrong. He advises painting in the pears, then adding the background. But he's wrong. Also, after I'd done some fine blending in shades of green and yellow, I decided that it was all to tame, so I livened it up with some impasto in reads and blues. Then I worked over that with the yellow again.
The background was a flat grey, so I made it purple, to zing against the green, then worked over in a chilly blue to send it all backwards again.
At some point I stopped looking at the pears and just looked at the painting to see if it was all working as a piece, and I think that's when I made leaps. I am very, very happy with this piece.

Exercise 4 - Impasto

Why did I paint a cantaloupe? Because the watermelon was too heavy for the hand basket. The texture was hard to capture, and I'm much happier with the pomegranate.

Impasto was great. I found it hard to lay on the pastel thick enough first time, due to my lack of certainty about the final placement of colours. But I enjoyed going over it all with a thicker layer, slightly adjusting the shapes as I went. I wish I'd used stronger under painting to build up a depth or red and green to work over. I will definitely use this approach on future subjects.

Exercise 3 - Linear technique

At last I get into the swing of pastel painting, then I get a tummy bug (for the third time in a couple of weeks) which puts the kibosh on getting anything done for a while. Plus we're off to the in-laws caravan for the weekend (illness permitting) so, though I may get some sketching done, I'll not be working on these exercises til next week at least.

So here's last night's offering. I didn't think there were legs on this technique but now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's a good way to play around with mixing colours before committing. I found the nectarine difficult, the apple was quite easy, and the orange was a trial but I think I conquered it.

After work yesterday I went into Newcastle and stocked up on pastel paper, hard pastels, and fixative. I also chose two boxes for pastels, as I'd cracked the Ferrero Rocher box I used to use. Actually, the unfinished wood would take well to pyrography. That's a project for another month, me thinks. Don't the pastels look amazing in this box. They cry out to be picked up and used.

Exercise 2 - colour

This was harder than I expected. but I enjoyed looking at the reflected colour in the fruit - the orange light cast onto the lime, the yellow of the lemon reflected back on the orange. I'm also surprised at how much reflected light there is underneath from the table top.
I didn't like the background he suggested of random cross-hatched marks, so I ended up using my trademark squiggle to fill in the blanks. I think it works here because the fruit are so solid.
This time I was stood at the kitchen window in late afternoon, so no messing around with bedside lams on kitchen units. But the light is fading, so the next one may be by candlelight.

Exercise 1 - underpainting

Here's the finished exercise. It was meant to be done all in hard pastels, with a view to learning how to create the tonal structure to paint over in soft pastels. But I only have a limited number of hard pastels. I feel a shopping trip to Details in Newcastle coming on.
I enjoyed working this way - it sounded similar in some ways to the tonal underpainting Mel did in acrylic glazes over grisaille.
Anyway, I didn't expect to enjoy this, I thought it'd be a chore. but I'm looking forward to getting home after work & getting my teeth into the next exercise.

Hmmm, local colour and modelling

I do admit that I'm starting to enjoy this, and I'm starting to care about these grapes and bananas.

Grrr, hmmmm

Yup, it's too low down on the paper, but I like the lighting. Must keep an eye on the difference between the lit grapes, and those in shadow with only reflected light from the tablecloth.

Adding local colour next, so it says in the book.

Grrrrrrrr

My sister made me do it. I am working my way, page by page and step by step, through a book called Pastels In 10 Steps by Ian Sidaway. The reason being is that my sister, Mel, who is just starting out as an artist, has learnt a lot about acrylics working through a book. And I'm stuck for what to do with my art.

So I found this book in the library and I liked what he'd done on the back page, so I thought I'd give it a go. Even though it means doing poxy still lifes step by poxy step.


Here's the first step - in bananas and grapes. It's blurred because you're meant to brush off the excess pastel before moving on. It's not the absinthe, honest. Though I could do with a stiff drink. Setting up the still life was a chore. I mean - Cezanne had it easy; 8pm at night and he's only got one light bulb swinging from a bare cable in the middle of a room. Me; I've got 6 light sources in the kitchen ceiling alone. I had to resort to grabbing the bedside lamp, but now I can see the still life and my drawing board, but not the pastels to my left, or my feet for that matter.

Looking at this photo I see I've placed everything too low on the page but I'll be damned before I re-do it. The left side of my brain isn't a happy bunny at the moment. Don't mind me - I'm off to block in the dark areas on and around each grape. There's 43 of them by the way. I know. Because I counted them. I thought drawing and painting was meant to be a calming exercise.

Grumble mumble.

Lino prints

As I mentioned, I'd dampened some paper to make lino prints of a block I'd cut back in June of Penshaw Monument. I'd read repeatedly that dampened paper enables the ink/paint to transfer and adhere better to the paper than using dry paper. They were right. Previously I had to make sure that my lino block was well covered in acrylic paint, as it dries fast on the block if applied thinly and leaves bare patches on the print. Then, when I lay the dry paper onto the block and applied pressure, the paint would squash between the block and the paper, moving into and obliterating any fine lines I'd cut, and gooing out over carefully cut edges, so the image wasn't hard-edged any more. In addition, as I removed the paper from the block the paint would stretch between the two like melted cheese and form feathered areas on the print.

BUT....... with dampened paper I can use less paint, as the paper now absorbs the paint on contact with the block, leaving a much sharper image, and I can use my fingers to press the paper into the recessed areas giving a lovely relief effect. This has re-enamoured me to lino prints, so watch this space.

Oh, the image at the top was done on scrap paper I'd dampened, which already had scruffy black marks. They're not a result of bad printing. But you can see the accuracy of line I've reproduced here, which would never have been possible on dry paper.

Broken pencil and ink

At a huge art store in Manchester I bought, amongst other things, a pot of dip-pen ink in a fantastic deep and dirty red. I'd been reading about Jim Butler in the Artist & Illustrator's magazine, who draws city landscapes in ink with a stick over found paper. So, to try out these new inks I drew by dipping in a broken pencil end. The variety of marks were controllable to some degree, though I did find that the relatively poor quality paper meant that the ink soaked through to the page below. I have a range of coloured inks at home so I may have fun in the future doing some people studies using this technique.

Funnily enough, Jim has done a lot of studies Manchester scenes. Unluckily, I didn't have time to stop and sketch in the city that day.

Not happy, decisions to be made

Ugh. This is a colour drawing of the same stretch of trees done this morning at about 7.45am.
Pros - I'm looking intently at colour, and working on the same hand subject over and over is stopping from jumping to conclusions and making me really look. It's nice to line up the drawings next to each other afterwards and look at the differences the light and weather and changing seasons are making to the same scene.
cons - the limited colours I have are dissatisfying, and the scribbling of the fine nibs isn't letting me lay down colour fast enough. With this technique I'm left with a lot of white paper in the background which is diluting the effects I'm after.
Conclusion - abandon felt tip pens, reach for soft pastels, continue with colour studies.

Self Portrait Nightmares

Now I know why I haven't worked on my large self-portrait canvas. It's because it's all wrong to start with; the composition, my outfit, the pose itself. Everything is wrong. So, this afternoon I went to have a look at it and drew it so that I could look at it dispassionately. Who am I kidding - I can't ever be dispassionate about my own portrait. But I digress, as I actually did make some progress.

Anyway, here;s a sketch of where I was. As you can see, it's all wrong. I am too passive. The lines of the canvas I'm painting are leading the eye across and out of the frame. There's a huge gaping vacuum between my head and the canvas that sucks in the eye and leaves you dissatisfied. Also, I look like a sack of shit tied in the middle, as my mother in law once said to me. I'm dressed in a brown shaggy jumper, because it was bloody cold in late winter when I started on this project, and apart from the fact that it's a very unflattering outfit, I don't want my attire to fix me to a particular season. Please don't try to say anything positive about it at this stage please because, as you'll see, I'm throwing the whole thing metaphorically out of the window, and am starting from scratch. No, I'm not starting from scratch, as I've learnt a lot having dissected this one.

My tree

It's really starting to bug me, what kind of tree this is. If I remember rightly it's technically a shrub which was planted by the previous owners, and grew tall as there's little light at ground level.

This is an oil board, about A4, which I covered with a thin layer black and red acrylic. When it was dry I squeezed out a load of white acrylic, and smeared it around with a plastic palette knife, then started scraping back to the black to describe the trunk and branches. After a while I added some green, and then some red as a contrast, and mixed all three to make a pale grey/lilac to suggest the floor and the wooden planter.

I hate it as a painting, but I loved it as an exercise. I should really do some more of these to see where they lead.

Proportions and underpainting

When it came to transferring my idea to canvas I didn't want to make any early mistakes by painting my head too big, or my bum too big for that matter, so my cousin took some photos of me which I reversed (because I'll be painting what I see in the mirror in my studio, remember) and then printed out and squared up in inch squares, making sure I was working to the same proportions as the canvas.

Then I sqaured up the canvas in 3 inch squares with charcoal over the burnt sienna oil paint I'd washed on previously and sketched in the outlines. Next, I used a mix of burnt sienna and blue (possibly ultramarine, only it's dark in there) to block in the darks, and used a turpsy rag to wipe off for the light areas. I'm very happy with this so far, especially the balance of the pale area of my face top right against the table top bottom left.

Studio self portrait - guided by Muddy Red Shoes

The painting I'm starting today follows on nicely from my previous entry; I've recently been following Sarah's site, seeing how one of her paintings comes into being, and she raised some interesting points about composition. This is something I've never given much thought to, but decided to try out for myself.

I am starting a new 3/4 length self portrait showing me painting in my studio. My canvas size is 24" by 30", a size I've never worked on before, but I'm in an ambitious mood, and I have a very good feeling about this one.

So, I start off arranging the canvas and mirror (this is harder than it sounds, but boring to read, so I won't go into detail). Then I grab a sketch book and draw a rectangle the same proportions as the final canvas, only smaller. I look and I draw, and I have a first draft.

Now, to follow Sarah's rules (or guidelines... you know what I mean);

1. Check the flow- where are the lines leading the eye?

Well, here my arm and brush are leading the eye across and out of the painting. Is this what I want? Hmm?

2. The rule of thirds - divide the painting into thirds, and the 'hot'spots' are where the lines intersect. This is where the action should be.

Damn. I'm slap bang in the middle, making the arrangement static. The upper 'hot spots' are the wall behind me, the other misses my head completely.

So I bring the canvas I'm painting on into the painting itself which gives a good balance of weight between myself on the right, and the canvas on the left, with my arm connecting the two in a lovely triangle (a very Renaissance trick). On the 'hot spots' are my face, the end of the paintbrush, the intersection of my arm with the canvas, and (almost) my elbow. I am very happy with this arrangement.

3. Pretend it's a lanscape - where's the horizon - what's in the distance, middle, and foregound and does this work? Well, maybe I'm a large neolithic rock and there a building next to me. The sky fills 2/3rds of the canvas behind and the horizon is suggested by the bench along the back wall. This drawing shows that I'm keeping it simple, and reminds me not to make the backgound too 'busy'.

4. Light & dark - the contrast between areas of light and dark are going to be important in this painting, so I rough in the shadows to see what shapes they create, and to see what the balance is. Well, the shadows slim me down, as I was looking rather bulky, and I can blur where my body stops and the background starts, playing round with that. I'm still a little concerned about the empty space behind my back, so I may shift myself to the right slightly, leaving only a suggestion of the horizon behind the small of my back. I think that so long as my hood touches the edge of the canvas I'll be okay.

Well, speak now, or ferever hold thy peace, because I'll start the painting in the next few days.

over tonked but happy

Here's the lastest stage on my self portrait. I'm very happy with the nose and chin, and the far cheek, but the mouth needs some work and I'd kindly ask you to ignore the eye for the time being. When I was working round the eye and forehead I found I needed to blank out some of the underpainting with the background colour. Whilst doing this I decided to paint in some texture on the background - verticals to the right and some ceiling along the top.

Having just added the image to this post I can see there's still more structural changes to be made. But I felt I was getting to grips with the paint this morning. So much so that, having tonked off some thick paint from the forehead, I found I'd over tonked the chin so that the under painting was showing through more than I'd wanted. That's life, as they say. Or, as the French say 'Une absinthe, garcon!'.

A new painting

I've started on a self portrait in oils today. I found that I was frowned when concentrating furiously, and I liked the wrinkles at gave me. So I stopped painting and did a charcoal study. Then I continued the under painting, tonking* at the end to remove the thickness

I'm excited to see how it will end up, and I hope Bill in Ballaugh will bear with me during these early stages.


* Tonking is laying paper over the painting and rubbing all over with a scrunched up tissue, so that the thickness of paint transfers to the paper, leaving only a thin layer of paint but still most of the detail, on the canvas. This enables the paint to dry relatively quickly to enable you to get on with the next stage, and stops a huge build up of paint in the early states when working fat on lean - which I'll explain another day.