Christmas dress #2

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.

A fresh start

So far this summer I've looked out of my kitchen window every day and my eyes have rested on this magnificent foxglove in the back garden. It's the softest lilac with pale green at the top of each bell, and deep purple splotches inside. In a storm last week it was so laden with raindrops that it was bent over at right angles, so I've had to stake it up to protect it. Fingers crossed it'll self seed and come again in two years time.
I love this box of watercolours, and should take it with me everywhere I go, as when I pick it up it just begs to be used. I've been very remiss these last few months with little or no art in my days. In fact I lost momentum last year around August, with a burst of activity in November, and not much since. So I've kind of had a year's sabbatical I suppose.

Not that I've come back with any strong sense of direction. Maybe that's what I was waiting for all that time. But it never came. I felt lost in my art work, with no strong subject to get my teeth into. Often I've stood in my studio, getting filled up with junk from the house which needed storing out of the way. I can't blame my lack of work on a messy studio. More like the mess was a symptom of my apathy. No, apathy is wrong, because I've yearned to paint and draw, but I've had a block. A fear of failing. I suppose it's good that I felt my art had been improving for a long time, and after a pause I was scared to back-peddle. But when I started this blog, after a very long sabattical indeed (look back to my beginnings and you'll see) I had no strong direction then. Just an itch to pick up a mark-making impliment of some kind and make a start, after a very long block.

This morning I woke up with that itch again. So here I am. I make no promises to you guys, or even to myself. I just have a hope - that I'll be here in a week's time, and that there'll be a couple of things I'd like to show you all.

Gurning

The English sport of face pulling

Castellian Island

We returned from the most surprising holiday I've ever been on - surprising because I didn't expect it to be so beautiful or inspiring. Our hotel room was literally a stone's throw from the Mediterranean, and this watercolour is the view from our ground floor balcony. The earth was an amazing red terracotta, crumbling in low clay cliffs into the soft tides. The sea itself was banded with blues, greens and blacks. All the flora and forna was alien.

Unfortunately on the fourth day there I lost the A5 sketchbook I'd taken. It wasn't stolen, I just left it somewhere and never recovered it, along with a 3B pencil and a small shoulder bag. I bought a new one while I was there. I'm glad I'd vowed not to take Vivien's Moley she sent me from the Moleskine Exchange, or I'd have thrown myself into the sea.

I spent most of my time with my family, but managed to sneak a couple of hours every other day for drawing olive trees, and photograph some scenes. So there'll be more images to come, I promise.

colours

While on the beach in Ingoldmells I saw shells and stones that you don't get on the Roker coast. I loved the colours, and sat painting these in the sun while the kids dug a huge pit which was eventually big enough to fit my daughter in. I wanted to make a loose study of the swirling layers in a small sandstone pebble, but I was interrupted by an ice cream which needed eating fast. Still, it reminds me of the morning I sat on the sand amongst the shells and stones.

My first commission

I was out on a walk with the kids in North Dock when I was told I had to paint the piles of sand and cement stored on the keys of South Dock. I had no choice in the matter, I had to paint it. So I did, and here's the result.
While I was painting I realised there was a man in one of the houses behind me on the dock watching birds through binoculars. After some gesticulation I realised he was interested in what i was doing, so, from a distance of about 20 feet he peered at my small painting through his bins. It's a rather rubbishy painting, as watercolours go, but the kids were impressed and I was rewarded with kisses and cuddles. They're my biggest fans, apart from my dad.

In case you hadn't noticed....

I've been away, visiting my big sister in Cheshire.

Now I'm back I need to find my feet; what with returning to work after the delayed Easter break and getting the kids back into the school routine. I hope to be drawing, painting and posting regularly soon. Oh, and if anyone has seen my feet, please let me know as I do need them. Thanks.

Quink Ink

I know, more pyracantha studies. But what else am I meant to draw at 7am when I manage to grab 20 minutes while the kids are eating breakfast? And yes, that is a bit of green you can see there. All the way on the drive into work I was thinking about using inks on an impervious surface to depict the back lit leaves. I want to make the branches more opaque, with more texture and modelling. This project has legs.




Then, again grabbing about 20 minutes after work before getting the kids, I did these two colour studies at Doxford Park. I especially like the one on the left, and they work upside down too!

Doxford Park

I have been yearning to work on the trees in ink, but I forgot to bring them so I used watercolour instead. However, I really liked teasing the colours out of what, at first, just looked like dark brown. Again, I've been blind all these years.

Goldfinch

I have a dozen that visit my garden. It was one of the birds I first ID'd when I took up birdwatching a couple of years ago. They were perching on top of the lampposts in North Dock, Roker, and I was amazed that something so beautiful could have been on my doorstep all these years. For an artist I'm pretty unobservant at times.

That was it, I was hooked. So now I'm an artist, and a twitcher.
My Dad also has goldfinches visiting his garden at Ballaugh, and the other day we were both stood at our respective kitchen windows, talking to each other about which birds were feeding at the time. Because he seemed so excited about the goldfinches, and because I love him so much, I thought I'd paint this for him. I'll pop it in the post to you in Eire later this week, I promise Dad.

Death Valley, Northumberland

There's a place we go for walks, driving west from Sunderland towards Carlisle. It's a secret place of ours, a gorge with a thundering river, deciduous and evergreen trees, damp ferns, blackberries and raspberries and hazelnut trees, squirrels, pheasants, foxes, voles, ducks, and hundreds of birds. We call it Death Valley, because it's so little visited by creatures who walk upright on two legs that we often see nature at work, and there are no park keepers to clear away evidence of the cycle of life. We love it there, and so do our children, and so did our dog, May, who we miss terribly whenever we visit there. May's four-paw-drive was essential for her scrambling up steep moss-clad slopes, over rocks, and in and out of the river there.
Over the weekend we found ourselves there, in the mizzle and wind. The kids didn't mind the poor weather, wrapped in scarfs and hats and gloves. While they skimmed stones and built lost-causeways in the river I paused to do these studies.
I never knew charcoal changed character so much on a page covered in rain.

Schiele landscapes

At The Leopold Museum, Vienna, I also saw 'House With A Shingle Roof', an oil painting of a house in his mother's home town. I had no idea that Schiele had painted such strong landscapes. The tiles on the roof were a multitude of colours, but were unified by the graphic black outlines. Again, I stood there for an age peering at it. Then I started drawing it, working from the left hand side, and I started to realise what a complex composition it was.

The museum shop had a very good postcard, which I bought, but I've been unable to find a good picture on-line to put on the blog, so instead I've posted my study, partly done from the original painting, then using the postcard.

A Portrait of a Friend

Actually, he's a friend of my dad, from Eire. But when I first met him, apart from his gentlemanly demeanour, I immediately thought he was a lovely specimen. To paint.

Well, he kindly obliged to be photographed by my dad, and here are some preparatory sketches I've done so far. I also did an ink drawing, but I'd mailed it to my dad before it occurred to me to photograph it for this blog. Because I'm a nincompoop!

It struck me to do some lino prints from the studies. None of the photos have inspired me to do an oil painting. Maybe when I next visit Eire I'll ask him if he'd pose for me in his work van, or in dad's woodwork shop. He strikes me as a great 'Poseidon' maybe.

Steps forward in colour

Here's attempt number 2. I'm happy with it. I'm not delighted, but it's closer to the mark than the previous one. I've included the first colour study for quick comparison. I can see that it's not just the colours in the first one I didn't like; I also dislike the passive pose of the Renoir figure.

I found it difficult adding the background in, after I'd done the figure. I also worked flat on the table, and when I thought I'd finished & propped the piece up, the top silhouette of the lower back was all wrong. So I wet the area, and removed some of the dark background to correct it.

Working with the colour was hard. I found it slow going, probably because I'm still learning how to mix the colours, and learning about how the watercolour goes onto the paper. I used a wedge shaped brush, and I now need to get some much bigger round ones. If you look at blueish indents on the buttocks you'll see the brush marks are too square.

I still enjoyed it, and can feel myself getting hooked on colour.

At this point, advice would be welcome from anyone who knows about watercolour, and can see what I should be doing to make this work.