Revisiting a portrait - 18 years later

Draft portrait - Robert William Barber
16 x 20, oil on panel
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Ok, I have that watercolour/self portrait thing out of my system for the moment. Now I need to concentrate on some other projects, one of which are some test illustrations for my daughter's wedding invitations.

I haven't been given a lot of direction in what they want as the backdrop for the invitations, except for ideas for an old sepia map of Newfoundland or coastal scenes in blues. I'll work on a few test pieces and see if anything appeals to them.

I found a 16 x 20 oil portrait that I started of my father before he died, which was 1990. I had the bones of it in place, but then he died and it got pushed to the back and I had more or less forgotten about the portrait until I unearthed it last weekend.

I would like to finish it, but haven't got the reference image that I used for the original piece. I'm hoping that with what I have done so far and some other photos or him, I can make it work. The background was toned with black - I need to lighten that and bring in some other colours so it won't be so stark. Its also difficult to get a good photo of the portrait with that very dark background. I'll try again tomorrow with better lighting to capture the composition and overall feel of the piece as it currently exists.

First cuppa

First Cuppa (adjusted)

I adjusted the shadows in this piece as the scan below just didn't reflect the depth of values and was washed out. These colours are now very similar to the real life version of the sketch. I also adjusted the hairline, bringing it further down the forehead. Its still not perfect, but its better.

First cuppa
watercolour pencils, 9 x 12 140lb watercolour paper
copyright Jeanette Jobson

This is the last watercolour of the early morning trio. My cup of coffee to start my day in a giant anniversary Tim Horton's mug.

I'm not happy with the scan of this and can't seem to tweak the colours into good behaviour. I've also muddied the colours a bit. I wanted pure simple colours without too many adjustments but that didn't quite happen, so this may be a do over some other time. Watercolour can be one of the most difficult mediums to master and I am definitely no expert in it, but I enjoy seeing what I can coax out of the paper.

I rushed putting this together and the proportion isn't quite correct. I don't like the hand position and the shading isn't right in a lot of areas. But its only paper and always good practice to keep on trying.

8AM

8AM
Watercolour pencils, 9 x 12 140lb watercolour paper
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Another sunny morning and another self portrait. And no, I still haven't found my set of watercolours. I used the watercolour pencils once again and added a few graphitint pencils too.

Every portrait that I do of myself seems to look entirely different but I enjoy the process, even if I am not always entirely pleased with the end result. I'm in the mood to experiment with colours in portraits and see what I can get away with but that will still be representational.

Its quite amazing how viewer's eyes 'read' unorthodox colours and accept them as representing the form they expect to see. Is it shape that is recognizable and the colours are ignored or is it the values not the colours that create the form?

6 AM

6AM

Staedtler watercolour pencils, 9 x 12 watercolour paper
copyright Jeanette Jobson

I had to a meeting for work this morning and was up early. The sun was streaming through the window and I captured the bright light and shadow in a portrait using the web cam as my 'mirror'.


Later this afternoon, I decided I'd try my hand at watercolour. I searched the house for my pan set of watercolours. Could I find it? Nooooooooo. So I settled begrudgingly for a set of 12 Staedtler watercolour pencils. I don't often use w/c pencils except for sketches. I find they don't always dissolve completely and I can still see the pencil strokes on the paper despite my efforts with water and brushes.

So my colours were limited and some colours a little unorthodox, but I kind of like that effect. The viewer's right arm isn't correct. I need to make that far line diagonal, not straight to reflect the angle of the pose, otherwise it makes the arm look artificially wide. I find that with watercolours, it isn't ise to go back and make too much in the way of changes as it can lose the freshness of the original layers.

Drawing at the end of the day

The Ravine
graphite & coloured pencil 5 x 8
copyright Jeanette Jobson

My time for drawing has been limited lately so I've started to make little sketches once I've gone to bed at night. These are of anything and everything. Some take a few minutes and some take 30 minutes if I start putting in details. Either way, I have been putting something on paper each night.

Most of these images are from things I have seen during the day or something from my imagination that I try to recreate. This sketch is a bit of both. It is partially based on a place that I've been and the colours and some features have been enhanced. This isn't the usual me as most often I need a subject in front of me or a reference image to be able to achieve detail in a drawing. I like seeing how much I remember about a subject, then check the reality of it the next day or simply see how far away I can get from the real thing in another drawing.

Its fun to let my mind run loose at the end of the day and I'll continue this exercise for awhile and see where it leads me.

Virtual Sketch Date

I can't remember if I've shared this drawing or not previously. I was looking through old drawings and found this one. I remember the drawing and the model well, even parts of the conversation of that night in the life class. The model was Pip. The setting was the studio of Tom Greenshields on the farm in Hawkchurch in Devon. The year was...I'd say 1981 or 82. Time does indeed fly.

Its that time again when we start another Virtual Sketch Date. This was the original idea of Rose Welty back in April when she contacted me to become involved in a project that would provide each other with some drawing opportunities, using the same reference image.

Well, it got very popular and now it has its own blog where the reference images are stored and the participating bloggers links are listed at the end of the event.

July's VSD reference be posted on Friday July 18th and you have one week to draw the reference image and post it on your blog. All drawings must be posted on Saturday, July 26th and the summary of all drawing links will be completed on Sunday July 27th. There isn't a limit to how many individuals participate, but you must let me know if you do, so that your drawing can be viewed and your blog listed.

About Virtual Sketch Date

The blog was set up to help administer monthly virtual sketch dates. Once a month a group of artists band together and draw from the same reference image for a week. At the end of the week, each artist posts their image on their blog. A post will be put up on the VSD with links to all participants' entries.

Want to join?
1. Once a month, when the reference image is posted, leave a comment to let us know that you are participating.
2. Sketch from the image
3. On the "date day" post your sketch on your blog.
4. The next day there will be a post here with links to all the participants entries.

Guidelines for Virtual Sketch Date Reference Images

• * All photos must be "suitable for work"
  
• * No camera phones
• * No blurry images
• * Natural light is preferred to using a flash

* Resolution must be at least 800px by 600px (higher resolutions uploaded to Flickr are greatly appreciated)

Relaxing

A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him. - William Lyon Phelps

This photo kind of makes you rethink that quote doesn't it?

Tripod loves his bed more than food almost, but when he gets too hot in it, he can't decide which is better, the floor or the bed so this is the result. He's done this 'play dead' look before on a warm day. Remember this shot last August?

Apply heat and you have a collapsible cat who sleeps so soundly that nothing wakes him except picking him up body and bones.

I've been playing around with clouds and charcoal lately. I ran out of coloured paper except for this brownish grey one. I finally went out and bought some new paper in various shades of blue on Saturday but I was too far into this one at that point to want to do it all over again. I'll try another cloud on the blue later.

Needs

Tripod snoozing
graphite sketch 11 x 14
copyright Jeanette Jobson

The cat likes nothing more than a lap to sit on and a hand to stroke him. At that point he goes into zen meditation I think, accompanied by purring loud enough to rattle the teacups.

Drawing and painting lately is a bit of an effort for me. Maybe its the heat that causes the malaise. I have the tools and the time to do this, but inclination or inspiration flags a bit. I also consider this blog and wonder what to write to fill the space. I don't want to write simply for the sake of writing, but abandoning it into its two and a half year life seems rather pointless too.

I have so many ideas whirling in my head, I need to closet myself away and make myself put things on paper. I have stepped down from an art association that I was with and am considering a couple of other options. I want to be part of a group that inspires and challenges me at the same time. I want to work towards an exhibition of my work and know that will take at least a year to produce a body of work. And I know that I need those people around me who will push me towards that goal, not impede my progress. I need, I need... The only way to meet my needs is to face them head on and just make them reality.

Shaded ducks

Shaded ducks

Rapidograph pen, Pentalic sketchbook 8 x 5
copyright Jeanette Jobson

On warm days like today, the ducks find a shady spot under a tree to have their siestas. I was sitting on the front step late this morning, having my coffee and thought I'd do a quick sketch of them resting.

I haven't used my Rapidograph for awhile and the first one I picked up didn't work. Sometimes they can be a little tempermental but it may have just dried a little and needs cleaning. The finer nibs are more prone to clogging, but I do prefer them.

I found my favourite ducks, B.D. and Buddy in a newly found shady spot. They usually lurk under the rhododendron bush or behind the steps to the house, but today they found a temporary spot.

Estate planning for artists

Jimi Hendrix
graphite , 11 x 14 on Canson
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Many visual artists joke that their work will only be valuable once they are dead. And unfortunately, that often is the case. We all seem to value something more when we know the source no longer exists.

As an artist with less years in front of me than behind, I sometimes do a little introspective thinking and wonder what will happen to my art when I am dead. That may sound morbid, but in reality its quite practical to consider this and to make plans for my art while I'm alive and have the mental faculties to think rationally. We chronical the times in which we live through our art. It would be the logical thing to do the plan what happens to those valued pieces after our death. Recent delves into family history bring home to me the need for accurate records, dates and information to enable individuals in the future to track history.

How will I manage my estate? To be honest, I'm only just seriously thinking about it now and researching exactly what I need to do to ensure it lives into the future and is not collecting dust in a basement or attic in a relative's house somewhere. I need to rewrite a will and ensure that it becomes the document that gives me a little immortality despite my mortality.

Here are a few starting points to get you thinking about your art and where you want it to go when you are no longer here.

• Create an inventory of your art works.

Some of us have that already, some have partial lists or don't keep lists up to date. It is important to have a record of your pieces, including any relevant information about them, such as size, medium, date completed, title and, if it was sold or gifted and to who and the price if sold.

• Define copyright of your art pieces

Copyright can be flexible and you may choose to leave a painting to one person and copyright to a painting to another. You may want to give a gallery copyright to reproduce your work in exhibition catalogues or make postcards from it. You can control reproduction of your work through copyright licensing.

• Make a will

Many people mistakenly believe that having a will is not a priority. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a will is probably the most important document you will ever write.

If you die without a will, the province in which you live will decide how to distribute your estate.

You can dispose of any of your property in your will, from major assets such as buildings or trust funds to your personal possessions and, of course, your art. Specific bequests can be made to non profits, personal friends or other relations. The benefits of having a will ensure that disputes will not occur over property or personal asset distribution and that your wishes are maintained.

Suggested reading

Where There's a Will - Estate planning for artists. This is a comprehensive document (55 pages!) about planning your estate, your will, copyright etc. It is Australian, but the information is very broad based.

Visual Artist's Guide to Estate Planning - The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation

Checklist for Planning Your Art Estate - ArtBusiness

Let Professionals Manage the Art

Estate Planning for Artists - the Crafts Report

Senior Artists Initiative

Finally, do you want to know how long you'll live? Well, there are many variables including lifestyle, diet, exercise, external environment, etc.

The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator uses the most current and carefully researched medical and scientific data in order to estimate how old you will live to be. Most people score in their late eighties... how about you?

My calculated life expectancy is 94. I guess I have 40 years of drawing left to do...

Heat

Summer heat
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Its been a very warm week here, even by Newfoundland standards with the temperature rising to 31C. I have air conditioning at work which makes it almost too cool at times so that I need to bring a sweater with me or go outside to warm up from time to time. When leaving the office, the heat hits you like walking into a sauna. However, I'm not complaining. I love heat and hate being cold, so each warm day is a bonus for me.

The heat makes all the animals cranky, especially Tripod, the cat who spends his days following people around, meowing loudly about how hot he is to anyone who will (or won't) listen. It becomes very trying at times as he has what I call his 'outdoor voice" that he uses both outdoors and indoors. At 4:30am, its not a nice sound to be woken to, so he spends the nights outside now where its cooler and he usually goes to the greenhouse and snoozes the night away in a cardboard box full of landscape fabric. So much for the mighty hunter...

I haven't done a lot of drawing this week, as I'm concentrating on getting some tutorials finished. While this involves drawing, I also have a lot of writing to put together as well. They usually go hand in hand with some overlaps when I get caught up in the drawing mode and forget to scan at critical junctures!

I've put in some more time on the Jimi Hendrix portrait and am worrying the hand right now. When someone said 'that's an interesting walking stick he's got' I knew I was on the wrong path with the hand. So I had to redo that and am now building values to bring some depth to the piece. I am considering a background, but haven't decided what or if it will be. Perhaps it should be just him floating in space. I don't know. If I have a background for a piece I usually try to put it in first and work the figure into it so the values are correct. It always looks a little odd when its added after the fact. I'll use some tracing paper and look at some options for backgrounds, but I'm not spending a lot of time on this - at least not right now.

Portrait update

Jimi Hendrix - update

graphite 11 x 14 on Canson
copyright Jeanette Jobson


It's funny how most people love the dead, once you're dead your made for life.
Jimi Hendrix

I've had the song 'Fire' in my head ALL day long after posting the video clip last night. But there could be worse things to be stuck in there.

I've done a little more on the Hendrix portrait. I've used crosshatching for most of this drawing. Hatching and crosshatching fill a lot of people wiith fear, but I just love the technique. In the initial stages it always looks odd and its not til you really start getting the values in place that you see it coming together. When its at this strange stage is when people abandon hope and bail out usually.

My Skooba Skin laptop case has arrived and I still haven't decided on a design for it yet. These bags can be decorated in any way I want, using permanent markers, paints, glued on decorations, stencils, pens, airbrush, needlework or anything else that is suitable for use on fabric. Decisions, decisions...Jimi Hendrix?? Nawwwww

Woodstock 1969

Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970)
11 x 14, graphite on Canson
copyright Jeanette Jobson

In 1969, I was fifteen and a huge Jimi Hendrix fan, much to my parents dismay. I had my bedroom walls covered in Hendrix posters and listened, enraptured to songs like All Along the Watchtower and one of my favourites, Fire. 1969 was also the year of Woodstock - "bunch of hippies..." my father would mutter, as scenes of it filtered through to the news.

I still like Jimi Hendrix music and this morning when the geese decided to do the dawn chorus at 5am, I started a portrait of him.

Here's a little trip back in time to Woodstock and one of the world's greatest guitarists. Enjoy!

Inspirational computers

I loved the shapes of this rhododendron bud (yes they're just flowering now!) and thought it would make a good line drawing. I often put images in Photoshop and tinker with them to get an idea of what mediums they would translate into or to experiment with colours and shapes before I start a drawing. I tried a few filters and colours within shadows, midtones and highlights and this was the result which pretty much follows through with my original thoughts around this piece and its potential.

Using a graphics program gives me the ability to intensify colours and values to enable more accurate rendering of the final image or provide more inspiration to veer off the beaten track. I'm sure that the masters would have spent time playing with PS if they'd had computers too.

Single red female

Single, red, female
Acrylic on canvas,8 x 10
copyright Jeanette Jobson

I spent about an hour this morning finishing this painting that was the demonstration for a class. Overall I rather like it now, but as always I can see things in it that I could change. I won't tinker anymore otherwise I'll just turn it into a muddy mess.

I played around with some more small studies today as I've run out of decent size canvases and need to stock up again. I have a handful of small canvas panels that I can use but some are just too small - around 3 x 5 - but they're good for practice. I haven't used acrylics for quite a while. They are convenient in terms of clean up and I really don't think many people could ever tell the difference between acrylic and oil paint in the final picture. However, there are devotees of both acrylics and oils and everything in between.

Personally, I prefer oils. I love the smell of the paints and turps and oils. It must be something to do with my love of history and the feeling that I am continuing a tradition when using oil paints. Yes, there are more challenges working with oils and waiting for them to dry between layers. I enjoy the ability to mix the paint more easily on the canvas with oils. I can do this with acrylics, but they are fast drying and can cause problems, especially in the warmer months.

There must be something about summer that makes me want more colour in my artwork, while in winter I seem to stick with graphite much more. Dry media will always be my comfort zone even if I slide over into painting now and then. I think it is the same for many artists who try their hand at a variety of mediums depending on mood, season and level of comfort.

Do the seasons affect how you crave colour or influence what you draw or paint?

Painting and talking

Single tomato study II
Acrylic 8 x 10 canvas
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Last night I taught a class and was asked if I could do a demonstration of a painting in acrylic. Oh yeah, no pressure....

So I chose the little tomato that I was going to paint anyway and gave it a shot. This is about an hour's work done between painting and talking about what I was doing. I really find it difficult to do the creative aspect and provide a running commentary at the same time. I start out painting, explaining why I'm choosing a colour or how I'm applying it to the canvas, then I find myself trailing off as the painting side of me takes over. I'm left with expectant faces, waiting for the next step and I have to jolt myself back into verbal mode again.

Does this ever become easy to do or is it always a challenge to function with both left and right sides, switching constantly?

I will go back and finish the painting, as there are a number of problems with it. The tomato itself is too perfectly round, the highlight colour isn't right and the shadow is sloping off downhill. I'll tweak the colours and background a bit. I really need to do more painting to be proficient at putting all the information down in an hour or less. I'm always amazed at those who can produce wonderful images so quickly with paints.

Complementary colours

Single tomato study
9 x 12 coloured pencil on bristol smooth
copyright Jeanette Jobson

Although my love of art is in graphite and drawing, sometimes I do crave colour too and this fit the bill nicely. I always enjoy drawing tomatoes. That hot colour against a complementary one, the blues in the background, works well.

I was thinking about complementary colours and just why they are pleasing to the eye and how the eye sees them. Its a complex process, explained nicely in Wikipedia.

I also found a little video called Crazy Colors that provides an interesting visual experiment about complementary colours. Try it and see what your eyes pick up.

Memorial Day/Canada Day

"It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further." — Major-General Sir Beauvoir de Lisle, Commander of the British 29th Division, on the 1st Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel

July 1st is Canada Day where the country celebrates its birthday. In Newfoundland, while we are part of Canada since 1949, another day is remembered - Memorial Day. On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, 801 soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment rose from the British trenches and went into battle at Beaumont-Hamel, nine kilometers north of Albert in France. After only 30 minutes the regiment was devastated. Only 68 men stood to answer the regimental roll call the next morning. 255 were dead, 386 were wounded, and 91 were listed as missing in action and presumed dead. Every officer who had gone over the top was either wounded or dead.

While researching relatives in an old cemetery I found a gravesite which brought home more the meaning of Memorial Day. The graves of two young men, relatives through my mother's paternal side of the family, James Atwill, who died on July 1, 1916 as part of the Newfoundland Regiment and his brother Duncan, who died two years later in action in France. James was 25 and Duncan 21. Such a waste of life and such a terrible war, as all wars are.

I started drawing a heliconia - a cousin of the bird of paradise flower. These are ornate showy bracts that hang down and are very tropical. Its a good exercise in negative space for me with all the background foliage and stems. The complexity of the background isn't as daunting as it seems as it gives me a degree of 'artistic license' in terms of leaf shape and depth of field. Just getting the values correct to provide the illusion will be the challenge.

Eyes

I've been doodling off and on this weekend and as its a 4 day weekend for me, I feel a little guilty that I haven't made inroads into the drawing projects that I intended to. I played around with a sepia coloured pencil and this white cat that has potential but isn't too special at this stage. I do love drawing eyes. I think I need to try a whole page of them just to get them out of my system for awhile!

I did however start a more complex drawing of a lovely tropical plant that involved a lot of detailed drawing and use of negative space. I love the challenge of drawing complex subjects freehand. I rarely use grids anymore and rely on my eye/hand to put me in the right place. Most of the time it works. I truly enjoy the process of drawing and seeing it develop under my hand.

Rock

Rock I
Carbon pencil on Canson paper
copyright Jeanette Jobson

There is something satisfying to me about drawing rocks. Living on a rock in the ocean may have something to do with that as I'm surrounded by rocks.

I liked the porous texture of this rock. I often see these on the beach. They are part coral, part rock that have married into a new form. I love the intricate shapes that the new form creates and the challenge of developing subtle shading to portray those nooks and crannies within the piece. Lava rock is also very similar to the coral rock that I find, but formed by molten rock and gas bubbles, making it lighter than most rocks.

I haven't done much work with carbon pencils as I can never find them here, so this was an experiment. Its similar in feel to charcoal but has a 'lighter' feel to it and seems to go on more smoothly. I like the rich darks it can achieve along with the more delicate shading of the B grade pencil.