This is a fun piece for the portrait study group that I'm in. I originally started it in graphite then a few glasses of wine last night made me try it in watercolour. This is first layer or two of colour and I'm taking my time so I don't muddy it too much. Now I'm officially working on three portraits at once. Yes. 'nuff said.
Then there is this little gem that I bought on Etsy to treat myself with. Its a beautiful journal with exquisite pages of Arches paper coloured in black ink, water, as well as green, red, blue, and yellow liquid acrylic paint. The combinations of colour and ink turn each sheet into its own work of art almost. I think I'm scared to put a mark on it, but it does inspire me and its rather like looking at the flames in a fireplace in terms of seeing images and shapes.
I'm taking part in a self portrait challenge at WetCanvas in coloured pencil. I've done lots of self portraits in a variety of mediums over time, but realized I'd never done one in coloured pencil or not a complete one.
I wanted a pose that was slightly different and looked through some photos and found one taken of me in the car with my glasses on looking sideways. The photo quality wasn't great, but I liked the composition and knew myself well enough to make up the lost detail with a degree of accuracy.
And this is the result so far in stages. The lighter images were taken in early morning light, the golden ones in artificial light. The gold photos more accurately depict the real colours of the piece. The drawing is being done on dark sand coloured colourfix paper with prismacolor pencils and is 9 x 12.
Here's an update on the portrait I'm working on. Not a huge update as I haven't had a lot of time to work on it tonight. I'm hoping to have it finished before the end of the week. I still need to work on the mouth downwards. I just hate this artificial light for taking photos! Nothing ever looks as it should.
Steve Chipman showed me the daylight lamp that he uses to photograph his work and I think I'll have to invest in one of them to get some decent photos of work at this time of year.
I've neglected my waterscapes this week, as I've been concentrating on portraits, but I hope to start a new painting tomorrow. I'm going big! Its difficult for me to break away from the smaller scale pieces that I've been doing. I have a 24 x 30 canvas that I just may tackle - or I may wimp out and go for the 18 x 24. Either way, I want to start a series of waterscapes that are a similar size and that are more substantial than the usual 'daily painter' size. Of course there will still be the smaller ones to fit both budget and wall size, but I think impact and presence will come from larger pieces.
I was also looking through Legion Paper's site for some good watercolour paper and found they provide sample kits at very reasonable prices, of a variety of types which is just what I was looking for. I ordered a set which have arrived and I'm thrilled to get them and hope to put them to good use very soon. There are about thirty 8 x 10 sheets which are quite big enough for me to do a reasonable painting on and also see how I like the type of paper. Living on the island, I'm limited at times to what I can purchase or sample, so I may be back to Legion's site to look for more once I find one that I love.
I've made a start on my next portrait - actually I'm doing two at once. The other is a self portrait for a challenge in WetCanvas. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.
I'm liking the Colourfix support more and more now that I'm understanding how it grips the pigment and how much I can manipulate it. I've tracked down a Canadian source for it now, as I'm still using the package of paper that I bought in California and don't want to order cross border with the current market not quite so dollar friendly.
Just in case others are looking for colorfix paper in Canada, here are a short list of some reputable suppliers I've found so far. If anyone knows of other suppliers in Canada, let me know and I'll add them to the list.
I knuckled down and completed this portrait over the last couple of days. There wasn't a lot in terms of updates that I could provide as it was mostly layering skin tones and refining shapes as I went along.
I will leave it for a couple of days to see if anything jumps out at me that needs adjustment. After that it gets a light spray of fixative, then sent off to its new home.
There are always lessons learned with each portrait that I do. For this, it was achieving that pale colouring without it looking too much like a chocolate box painting. The other lesson is in choosing the paper colour wisely. Too pale and the drawing fades into the colour, too dark and it impacts the skin tones. I choose a sand colour and it was too close to her colouring, so I added some contrast with purple and pink. As well it added some texture that helped bring her forward and not compete with the smooth skin.
Jan, from Pets to Posies was so kind as to give me an award! It always thrills me when someone thinks of me in this way. Thank you Jan! Big hug!
In return, I am supposed to name 7 things that I love.
1. I love my family and friends who are scattered across the country and the world. 2. I love coffee - anytime. 3. I love having the house all to myself. 4. I love napping on weekends. 5. I love lying in bed, reading. 6. I love twilight. 7. I love watching the ocean waves roar in on a stormy day.
I have been chipping away at lino when some ideas came to mind. Some headed for the trash can but this one appealed to me. Last summer, I wandered through a shady section of Bowring Park. It was early morning and the sun was filtering through the maples and oaks, producing strong shadows and glittering pieces of light on the damp grass.
I loved the shapes and strong contrasts of the light and shade and took some photos. From that, I've played around it, breaking down the complex scene of leaves and light into something that I could carve out of a lino block.
The first image is the original print, not tweaked much. It looks a little sparse in places, but that is more the ink colour than the level of pigment on the paper. I created a beautiful violet colour that didn't dry as vividly as I'd hoped, but still is lovely. Soft, an almost sepiaed version of violet if that is possible. I had put a strong violet in the middle of the brayer to add some colour variance to the piece and that is the lighter shade.
This piece is a second print, scanned and darkened slightly in Photoshop. I will try some other variants of colour with this. I'm thinking a deep rich green to mingle with that luscious violet colour...
I finally finished the last few pages of this little Moleskine for the sketchbook project. Am I happy with the contents? No. I didn't plan it well enough and could have done much better. There are some pieces in it that are fine, some are disasters, but I guess they're all art in one form or another.
Eclectic. That's one word for it.
About the only part that I am happy with are the covers. And they were done on a whim.
Ok, whinging over.
Here are a few samples of the contents of the sketchbook. There are a variety of mediums from marker to watercolour to pen & ink. I'll pop it in the mail tomorrow or the next day and let it go do its thing. Would I participate again in a sketchbook project? Yes. But I would be better prepared. I felt rushed in this as the sketchbook didn't turn up til late, so the contents were hurried and I felt pressured to put something, anything on paper.
Will I put it up for sale? I still haven't decided yet. I don't know if I can get it back or not as I don't know if I can provide a SSAE with US postage on it originating in Canada. I'll check on that at the post office when I send it. Either way, its an experience.
I've been moving more of the art supplies from the cupboard that was in the previous room I used down to my current studio which now has a big set of shelves in it. I'm sure these will soon be groaning under the weight of materials.
I unearthed a couple of boxes of pastels that I haven't done much with . The colours are so appealing though, just making me itch to use them. I had been setting up a new watercolour possibility in the handmade book I use for my Watermark projects and leafed through them.
Breakers was a watercolour I did a few weeks ago and while it shows the curl of the wave hitting the water and shore, I thought I'd add another dimension to it with the pastels. They both appeal to me for different reasons. The watercolour paper in this book is very rough so both pastel and watercolour hit the peaks in the paper, giving a different effect depending on whether or not you blend them. The age old problem of getting a good image in artificial light remains to haunt me. No amount of tweaking seems to bring the colours or light to the state of the real image.
The dictionary of Newfoundland English defines a Dory as: “A small flat bottomed boat with flaring sides and a sharp bow and stern, providing both stability in the water and easy stowage in stacks on deck.”
This little dory lay moored in the clear waters of Admiral's Cove, while just below the surface pale rocks lurked like ghosts.
I loved the colours of the water and how the wind was rippling the surface and the bright sun almost neutralizing any shadows in the boat itself.
“When the tides of life turn against you and the current upsets your boat, don't waste those tears on what might have been, just lie on your back and float.”
Light and shadow gives objects their form and create form on their own through shadows. In winter the air is clear and cold and colours seem brighter somehow, perhaps reflected against the white snow, forming the perfect notan elements.
As I walked to the car this morning, shadows of early light surrounded me through the trees and on the snow that had fallen yesterday. These are a couple of images that caught my eye.
Shadows on the snow of the barn roof were so blue against the pinkness of the sun rising. The brilliant blue sky above the barn roof added another layer of colour to the scene.
The light coming through the trees against the side wall of the barn were almost painted on. If it hadn't been so cold and I didn't have to go to work, I think I'd be out here painting the scene of dawn over the farm.
I've been studying light and its effect on water, mostly the ocean for the last few weeks and have done some studies and paintings that I've put on Watermarks.
In the last week, I've taken a photo each morning at the same spot at around the same time so that I could see how weather and the resulting light alters the colour of the ocean and land. I'll then use that information to stock up my knowledge banks on colour for painting water.This abstract wall of frozen water caught my attention on the drive to work. There is a waterfall cascading down a rockface by the side of the road and tumbling into the stream below. The severe cold caught it in time, literally frozen and was just starting to flow again. The water could be seen and heard just visible under a lacy curtain of ice.
I've made a small update on the portrait of Kiora, but have been sidetracked doing other things today. At least this photo gives a better image and truer colours in daylight.
Its been a snowy day here with a pretty large dump of the white stuff on the ground. For a change, it didn't turn to rain, which it often does. At least now there's time to clear it away and avoid an early morning rush to do so. With a 250 foot driveway and a turning circle, it takes a bit of time to do, even with the plow on the tractor, especially when its 10 inches deep!
I've spent today trying to make some inroads into my sketchbook project and now have just 4 pages left to go then I can pop it in the mail to join the others that will tour around some of the USA galleries and museums. I had a look at the Sketchbook Project website and the quality of some of the sketchbooks is amazing. Mine seems quite modest in comparison.
As promised to Dermott, I did include a sketch of him in the book. What a tongue that dog has!
I also made a start on the February portrait for our Portrait Study group. Its a challenging one, but great fun to do. Once I finish my grand daughter's portrait, I have another one in the wings and will continue to work on that as well as the portrait study piece.
Multitasking seems the norm for me in all areas of life. Why should art be any different?
I've done a little more work on the portrait of my grand daughter. I wish now that I used a darker paper to provide some additional contrast. This paper is sand coloured and matches too closely her pale skin and hair.
But no going back now. I have another portrait in the pipeline that I must transfer today sometime. With a snowstorm brewing for tomorrow, I'll get some chores done today then cocoon in my studio tomorrow and draw.
I also wanted to fit in some more painting and had bought a handful of 6 x 12 gallery canvasses. I love these long thin canvasses and love even more the fact that I don't have to get them framed. You can see what I produced at Watermarks.
Recession Strategy # 1: Save money whenever possible.
I redrew the portrait of my grand daughter today and transferred it to another piece of colourfix. I then made a start on adding some layers of colour to the image. She at least looks her age now.
Children's portraits can be tricky if you're not careful. Features are placed slightly differently than in adult portraits and measurements are crucial to get a good likeness. (about time I took my own advice isn't it?)
I have another portrait that I've just started a line drawing for. In my plans for this year, I have decided to do several free portraits in return for a little more exposure from the recipients. All I'm asking is that the individual hang the portrait prominently either in the home or work area. Somewhere where it will get some traffic. I don't mind doing portraits gratis, in fact I quite enjoy portraits and the extra practice is always useful to me.
UPDATE I so disliked the drawing that I did last night that I redrew a master line portrait at lunchtime and will transfer it to colourfix tonight. This one much better represents the child. My original drawing made her look too old. Amazing what a bit of measuring can do! _________________________________________________________
My grand daughter was two yesterday, so what better time to draw a portrait of her but now? Time does move very quickly, and I recall so vividly when she was born, such a tiny thing, then her 1st birthday devouring cake for the first time. Now two, ready for a party with all the trimmings.
I am doing this piece on colourfix paper and using Derwent Coloursoft pencils. The paper colour isn't purple, its more a soft brownish red, but I have to make do with a scanner tonight as the batteries in my camera need charging.
Primula sketch 8 x 10 watercolour pencils and wash
I don't enjoy drawing flowers. I know that I can, but for some reason, I just don't like them. Perhaps its the difficult level - all those nooks and crannies of leaves. All the colours, shading and complexity of petals.
At the weekend the supermarket had these little pots of primulas for sale, vainly trying to pretend it was spring in the -10 temperatures. I loved the colours and brightness of them so bought one, bundled it up like a baby to take it from the store to the car and home then let it try to inspire me. I dared it to.
And of course it sat there on the dining room table, watching me as I had coffee or ate supper, waving its pretty head and crinkled leaves til I finally succumbed. This is the resulting sketch. Horrible light as always and fuzzy photo resulting.
There is something so appealing to me about beach stones. The endless colours and shapes, the smoothness of one in your hand or pocket, the sheen of the sea on a wet pebble or the matt surface of one dried by the sun.
I can't come away from the seashore without pockets of them and that that has gone a step further to turning some into jewelry, so they can come with me wherever I go.
I hope to have some of these in my Etsy shop over the next few days. I need a block of time to devote to doing this and this week may be a bit busy. But if anyone's set their heart on them, just email me and let me know and I'll help you out.
I have an idea in my head of something that I want to draw and am working on the process, with some obstacles cropping up.
I want to create a drawing/painting of candy apples. You know, those bright red shelled, cavity producing things of fairs and fall. Its not so much the apple and candy part I want, its just some images of them that I want to capture in the right light so I can use them to draw from.
So I set out to find some. Of course there are none available. Even the ingredients for them seemed difficult to find. I can find the things to create the brittle shell, and the apples, now I need to find sticks to insert into them. And then the time to make them. This will have to be next weekend now, otherwise I won't be around during daylight hours and unable to photograph them and they will have softened or melted by then.
I've never made candy apples before. Caramel apples, yes. They're simple, you just melt caramels and coat. The hard shelled apples are a bit trickier. It involves heat and melting stuff and if you've ever gotten a speck of boiling sugar syrup on your hand you'll know what I mean when I say pain.
Is this what suffering for the sake of art is all about? Frustrated by my inability to get things set up today I created a drawing of a candy apple to satisfy a little bit of my need for instant gratification.
"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."- Charlotte Gray
Anyone who's ever owned a cat knows this look. Its that mix of anger, disdain and extreme disappointment in the human race when they have once again failed to anticipate a feline's wishes.
This sketch in watercolour let me try to capture it.
I don't know why I drew yet another version of this clementine. I guess I'm just testing to see how different mediums look on the same subject. I'm sure I could go on to many other mediums but think I'll stop at these three.
My scanner seems to make horrible scans lately or perhaps its my tweaking ability. I prefer a photo of it, but that need to wait til daylight.
After doing so much painting for the last month, it feels good to go back to drawing again. I love the ability to create finer detail with pencil and the portability that goes with it. This little drawing came to work with me and I worked on it at lunch then finished it off tonight.
I am in a portrait study group and have been working slowly at the first portrait, which is of Rose Welty. I've changed aspects of it several times due to not checking my measurements carefully enough. I think its on the right path now but I have more work to do with it. This is the progress so far.
Most of the time I draw freehand, but sometimes when I want to really be sure a piece is correct I use an abbreviated version of a grid so I can gently place the main features then go on from there unaided.
I love using charcoal and white chalk on toned paper. I can manipulate it and control it (doesn't that sound so very sadistic??) Dry media will always be my fall back to comfort.
There must be something in the air, as lino prints are springing up everywhere. But why not? Its a lovely indoor winter activity and becomes easily addictive. I've just received a new supply of lino blocks and a set of carving tools as well as a sheaf of paper to print on. And today my book arrived from Amazon: The Printmaking Bible by Ann D'Arcy Hughes. A lot of the information is well over my head at the moment, but it does entice me to experiment with more types of printing besides relief.
The initial proof of ripples on water didn't take up as much ink as I wanted or I didn't rub it enough, so I decided to add some colour to it, inspired by Vivien Blackburn's exotic lino print. I used coloured pencil and will continue to experiment with more lino prints and colours.
I like the abstract feel of lino prints and adding colour gives another dimension entirely without the process of reduction or multiple blocks. Hand coloured...
I've seen some portraits done in lino and would really like to try that next. It may take a little planning to work it out, so stay tuned.
I am trying several other versions of the clementine reference that's in this month's Virtual Sketch Date. This is the watercolour version. I love the sunny colours of this fruit, it definitely brightens up a January day. However, technically I'm not entirely happy with it as it needs more white in it for the pith on the fruit. I should have taken the time to add some masking fluid, but I didnt. I may try a little gouache and see if that will be effective, or simply store the thought of better planning for the next piece.
Self analysis is very useful when you don't have an experienced critic at hand. And over time, you learn to spot weak areas and know almost instinctively what needs adjustment, what lines are out of whack and when to simply trash something and start over.
Its useful to draw or paint the same piece over and over and I see something new each time I do. The next piece will be in charcoal or carbon I think. And perhaps large. I'm trying to break out of small pieces and the transition is difficult. There is a comfort level for me in both dry media and in size restriction.
Going to larger pieces provides a new set of challenges in terms of the technical aspect of creating something larger than life on paper so that it is drawn correctly. Just the sheer size can become daunting as well, when I'm so familiar with working on a small size and the time frame that it encompasses. Larger works mean larger blocks of time for completion. I'll need to bridle my need to see completion earlier.
I did some portrait drawing from life again tonight. The class doesn't seem to be moving in the right direction, so I don't know if I will continue, however, I do enjoy the chance to draw faces any chance I get.
I was the model for one of the 30 minute poses and it felt odd being there again. I used to model a lot for artists years ago and can't remember body parts going numb quite so quickly as they do now!
Susan 9 x 12 graphite
These are approximately 30 minutes each. I was trying to do some simple value maps within a couple of them to see if I could translate them into more refined drawings later, but without the model in front of me, it would be difficult to do.
This last scan is terrible for some reason. A bit of light under the cover perhaps. And I can't be bothered to scan it again right now.
I wanted to experiment with a larger piece to see the impact of it. I've always worked on small canvasses, perhaps feeling safer there. I took the small graphic self portrait that I did for the sketchbook project and translated it onto an 18 x 24 canvas. Of course in my haste to get something on canvas, I didn't paint the background, so the face and hand is currently bare canvas. Once it dries a bit, I'll go back and add paint to that section.
The rest is painted. I started out with just venetian red on the canvas, then wanted colour, so the sweater was added in viridian which I toned down a lot. I'm not sure if I want that in there now or not and if there would be more impact with all white and just the red, like an oversized lino print or whether I should go for a strong graphic feel with colour as the background.
Its quite nice to work on a much larger size, if not a little intimidating. Everytime I walk into the studio, the size of the piece hits me. However, often size does matter...
I have a lot of images on my hard drive and on an external hard drive and on cds. Some of these are well stored with lots of neat directories and files telling me what is in them. A lot more are stuffed away all over the place, leaving me searching forever for a particular piece.
To make one little part of my life easier, I've set up a Flickr account to store some of my pieces, but in particular the Watermarks pieces so that I can view them at a glance and know what areas I've covered and where I want to go.
I've even managed to create a little slideshow of the watery marks I've made so far. I'm always so impressed when something electronic works for me!
Kevin
Then there is this little gem that I bought on 
Etsy to treat myself with. Its a beautiful journal with exquisite pages of Arches paper coloured in black ink, water, as well as green, red, blue, and yellow liquid acrylic paint. The combinations of colour and ink turn each sheet into its own work of art almost. I think I'm scared to put a mark on it, but it does inspire me and its rather like looking at the flames in a fireplace in terms of seeing images and shapes.
