Study of Roland

Of all the things that I draw, I enjoy people and animals the most. There is something so unique to each face, almost like sculpting on paper.

This sketch is a study for a painting that I will do, most likely still using a limited palette, as it suits itself so well to skin tones and limits my decision-making as well!

I did this quick sketch on brown paper with coloured pencils, very loose. I like studies and look at them as warm ups for the real thing. It gives me a better idea of what I'm trying to achieve in terms of the under drawing and I often use the studies as the basis for the painting and refer back to it often as a guide.

The head shape for this gentleman is different and looks a bit off in the drawing. In fact the back of the skull is rather flatter than usual and I may adjust that in the painting.

Roland is one of the choices for September's portrait challenge at WetCanvas. Its not as good as having a live model, but the next best thing when I just want a face to play with. I'm always looking for new faces, so if anyone wants to be immortalized, feel free to contact me!

White on black

I love the contrast of white and greys on black paper and this face appearing out of the shadows becomes sinister and appealing at the same time.

Like scratchboard, working light to dark takes a bit of thought as you're letting features form themselves. They become apparent only when you form the light around them, like negative space.

I'd forgotten I started this piece and don't recall the reference for it or when I did it. I think it was done with white charcoal or pastel perhaps. Maybe even coloured pencil. It was unearthed when I did a studio clear out last week. Its amazing what you find when you clean up!

When earth, sea and sky combine

While I had some time off last week I wandered a bit and sketched. While the weather didn't always cooperate, there was always the car to retreat to if rain and wind threatend to take me away.

This was one of those times. The day after Hurricane Bill, the sea surge was strong still sending waves up against the cliffs with deafening, hypnotic sound. The cliffs and sea were littered with seagulls who weren't venturing far in the rough waves.

For me, this is perfect weather. I love stormy seas, but also know well enough to stay clear of them too. Strong waves carry people off in an instant. The daredevils often don't live to tell the tale.

So I sat in and out of the my car, perched on top of a cliff overlooking Middle Cove and watched the sea, sky and earth merge and tried to capture the moment on paper.

This is my sketchbook with the brown paper and blue ink from a Micron .25 pen as my Rapiograph decided it wouldn't record for me that day.

Joy

I found some photos I had taken of a friend's daughter and remembered her day of 'dancing' for me. She was 3 and full of energy, flinging herself around the room in the late afternoon sun, wearing her 'princess' dress.

The expression on her face was pure joy. She loves to dance and move and dress up. Her titian hair glowed with light against the shadows and her face showed her pleasure. She was alone in the world at that very moment enjoying herself to the ultimate that she could.

Oh to be able to feel that pure abandonment for the moment. We have glimpses of it as adults, but society has trained us to not give in at risk of being labelled inappropriate or mentally ill. Pity.

Business cards for artists

Today I've been cleaning up the studio as my tables seem to be invisible under a sea of paints, pencils and papers. I finally have regained some space and between sorting I played around with a couple of small watercolours - trading card size. I rarely work this small but its sometimes fun to try to see what I can fit on a small card.

I'm still tossing around ideas for a new business card. I have a layout in mind, just looking for the right graphic for it. A small piece might work for a card, but it has to be the right one.

There is so much differing advice about how an artist's business card should look. Layout, graphics, information...it becomes mind boggling after awhile. I want something simple, that will have impact. Something that people would keep instead of tossing, hence the thoughts around aceo size pieces and how they would translate into a business card. The image and name only on the front and the information on the reverse perhaps. Colour, paper, printing, embossed, plain, interactive??? There are so many possibilities now. Of course all come with a price tag and we all can't afford cards that cost $4 each to produce.

Here's an opinon about business cards.

What is your opinion? What do your business cards look like? Do you have a time tested card layout that works - i.e. people keep them? You get contacts from them?

Here are a few links to business card design and suppliers.

Live Studio: Artist Business Cards
Creative Bits

Print Business Cards
Vista Print

One minute

I have a love/hate relationship with warm up gesture drawings. They do kick your hand/mind into the mode for a longer drawing but if they go on too long my mind starts to lose interest and want to get into the 'meat' of a longer drawing.

These drawings were done today at the Group of 77's life drawing session which are held on Thursday mornings and have done so for nearly 30 years. Unfortunately only on holiday time can I take part. I so long for an evening drawing session, but it seems that I need to start something myself if its going to become reality.

But back to gesture drawings. It always amazes me at just how much information I can put on paper in a single minute. I look at overall shape, not detail and try to put in place the lines that make up a curve and turn into a gesture. Only then does it become a useful exercise and not one in frustration.

And I got a note today from Elizabeth Scammell Reynolds, who is a fine art appraiser in St. John's and who was the /judge at an art association show last year that I took part in. She critiqued the three pieces that I put into the show and gave very positive feedback. One of pieces - Curled - which you may remember from back in February 2008, was given first place in charcoal on paper.

Why it took so long to provide the information, I don't know, but good news is always good news even if it is late good news.

Premature Harvest

The garden and greenhouse have done well this year and are producing lots of vegetables. A variety of different types of tomatoes were planted as well as hot and sweet peppers in the greenhouse. I love the heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers. These are seeds that have their roots traced back hundreds of years in some varieties, not being crossed with other plants to change/improve characteristics.

The fruit of the heirloom plants isn't as prolific but the taste is there in spades. And the names are always so exotic... Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Earl of Edgecombe, Black Krim...

I pick some of the vegetables most days and harvest ripe or fallen ones for my own immediate use. I had a bowl of my harvest on the kitchen counter the other day and with the sun on it, I liked the contrast and shapes and decided to paint it.

This is 11.5 x 9.5 on 300 lb Arches paper. There are still a few tweaks to make perhaps but overall it gives a good impression of the nooks and crannies of the pepper against the tomatoes.

Capelin companions

I started this piece a few weeks ago using 140lb stretched paper and it seemed so flimsy and just wasn't cooperating. However, I pushed through and the paper did, more or less what I wanted it to do, but I did go out and buy some sheets of 300lb paper which are wonderful.

This piece is 12 x 18 in watercolour. I drew random capelin on the sheet but when I was calling it done, it wasn't letting me say so. The botton left corner was too empty so I added in another fish over the blue background and now that fish has become one of my favourites.


The second piece is a companion of sorts and is 15 x 19.5 inches on 300lb Arches paper. I'm still not sure if its complete or not. Its sitting thinking about it. It was designed to be less 'busy' than the first. These were based on some photos I took of capelin from Middle Cove beach, taken in late July. These little fish are getting a lot of service and the freezer has a stock of them for when I want to do more prints.

Bluebird of happiness

This little ceramic bluebird caught my eye and fit nicely onto a leftover piece of 300lb watercolour paper, about 8 x 8 square.

I'm not a collector of knick knacks as they only mean something else to clean, so the ones I do have a sentimental value and are few. Some only come out seasonally. Lately I find myself looking at vintage pieces and recall a little ceramic eggcup that I received one Easter as a child and wonder what became of it. It would make a great little drawing or painting if I can track it, or something similar down.

Be like I, hold your head up high,
Till you find a bluebird of happiness.
You will find greater peace of mind
Knowing there's a bluebird of happiness.
And when he sings to you,
Though you're deep in blue,
You will see a ray of light creep through,
And so remember this, life is no abyss,
Somewhere there's a bluebird of happiness.

Bluebird of Happiness
Words by Edward Heyman and Harry Parr Davies, 1934

And for those who want to visit (or revisit) some classic music of the 30s, have a listen to what was a huge hit at the time.

Yupo cat

I found a half sheet of Yupo in my stash and another couple of sample pieces in a box and wanted to try it again. Yupo is a unique surface to work on and has benefits and frustrations, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

Its not for the faint of heart who like precision, that’s for sure. Yupo is synthetic plastic so watercolour sits on the surface instead of soaking into the paper. Strong, impressionistic work seems to work well for this surface , as you have little control over the paint flow, except to try to concentrate it in areas.

There is no need to mask areas because you can go back into a piece and with a clean damp brush, take it back to the white surface in a second with no paper damage. Yupo is virtually indestructable unless you decide to poke holes in it or crease it.

Water reactivates the paint so you need to do a little planning before you put down colour or try to add layers of colours as they will shift before your eyes. I found on this piece of yupo that on area in particular was being very resistant to accepting colour. I persevered and won in the end. Perhaps a fingerprint or similar changed the surface texture a little, I don’t know. But this paper has its challenges.

Overall, I like it for strong impressionistic pieces, but don’t think it would ever become a constant in my stash of watercolour papers. Like drafting film, it is something different to try with a variety of mediums. Experimentation is always fun and you never know what you’ll learn along the way.

Still fishing

Capelin
8 x 6 oils

I'm back from my little break and it was rather good to be able to spend some time catching up and concentrating on producing art and tying up loose ends - many of which are still loose.

I enjoy blogging for several reasons, but time away from what often turns into daily writing is a good thing. It refreshes my mind, gives me time to think and explore other options.

I've immersed myself in art and not so much marketing, as I had originally intended. I do have a week off next week so I have plans to work on some marketing tasks then and produce more work.

I have made progress on several projects and made inroads into several others. This little 8 x 6 capelin in oils is one of a series of fish paintings that seem to be producing themselves almost. I have some more tweaking to do with this one, but its close. I can't explain why I find painting or drawing fish interesting but they do capture my imagination.

The pen and ink piece that I'm doing is still in progress but I'm getting there. I'm hoping to have it ready for the local government art procurement deadline on September 11th, but don't know if it will be completed in time. If not, there are other opportunities later in the year.

I have so many ideas in my head and never enough time to complete them all. One piece at a time...

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ~Denis Waitely

Production break

Moss covers the forest floor everywhere

The carnivorous pitcher plant is Newfoundland's provincial flower
and grows in damp, boggy areas.

Snowy owl

I need to spend some time concentrating on art production and marketing for a few days. I have a deadline looming and a project not close enough to completion for my comfort. So I need to knuckle down, ignore the online world more or less, and just do some serious drawing and painting.

Sales are picking up for me which is good, and I have to produce to replenish stock for sale. I also need to do some marketing and administrative work. New business cards, greeting card prints, applications for grants, research and photography for a new project on local landmarks, etc. etc. There is so very much to do, but I would have it no other way.

So stay tuned, I will be back within the week! Meanwhile I'll leave you with some images that I've taken in my travels. This is the Salmonier Nature Park which has a wonderful wooden walkway through mossy forest and displays with indigenous animals along the way. These animals were brought to the Park as injured, unreleaseable animals where they live out their days in comfort.

The artist's high

I've done a little more work on the pup, but still not enough to bring out the texture and colours of the fur to any degree. I'm still laying down colour more or less at this stage.

I haven't intended this to be a detailed drawing, more a sketch, but I'll let it take me where it wants to go. Drawings or paintings seem to find their own direction sometimes without a lot of effort from me. Its like that 'runner's high' that you get when something in you overcomes physical tiredness and pain and it feels as if you could run forever. Art has similar highs and you know when you experienced it.

For me, my brain takes over and pushes everything else to one side. I don't hear noises around you or notice time. My complete being seems to be concentrated at the end of a paintbrush or pencil and the energy and form comes through that medium onto the support. I don't realize I'm even in that space until it stops.

When it stops, it a bit like waking from a deep sleep and it takes a moment to break away from that deep concentration and move back into a world full of interruptions, noise and movement. When I write it down, it sounds very strange and anyone reading it could well think that I'm ready to be committed soon. But I believe I'm not alone and that this same process of complete concentration happens to many others whether artists, writers or other individuals involved in creative production.

What does your artist's high feel like?

Portrait of a boy

Still on my multi tasking, I'm fitting in a portrait as well as the dog as well as a large painting, etc., etc. What can I say, its just how I operate. So while I haven't done a lot to update the puppy since yesterday, I have done the bones of a portrait of a boy. This is August's portrait challenge. I love faces and can't resist most of the time.

Still in my brown paper sketchbook. (don't worry, the novelty will wear off soon) I'm using coloured pencils. The boy's colouring is very pale with little distinct shadow and that wonderful smoothness of youth that is so difficult to capture. I keep telling myself - just a little one, as if its a treat. And it is in many ways.

Imagination

When I was a child I had a vivid imagination that worked in several ways. Part of it was simple childhood brain development and experimentation, part was an escape mechanism. Funny thing is, that while I presume most of the brain development is over with at my advanced years, the escape mechanism still works beautifully.

Drawing is a bit like reading a book. It can take you into a new world, it can take the pictures in your head and put them onto paper. It can bring places, people and animals to you, morph them, place them in odd situations or scenes and made very ordinary scenes extraordinary.

One of my favourite illustrators is James Gurney of Gurney Journey, who has a magical mix of reality and fantasy that is the ultimate in escapism for adults and children. His drawings of Dinotopia are exquisite and finely detailed that bring you to places and show you things that you have not even considered previously.

This puppy is a little bit of escapism or wishful thinking. I'd like a puppy, but for a variety of reasons, I can't have one, so I made do with the next best thing - a drawing or the start of one. It was past time I drew an animal and I'm still fixated on the earthbound sketchbook and the lovely brown paper.

Knights and waves

I'm working on three pieces at once, more or less. Its something that I've always tended to do, this multitasking whether in art or other projects that I work on.

They different projects consist of different mediums and different levels of difficulty so that I can switch back and forth when one becomes a little tedious to continue with. In between the major pieces, I also work on sketches and small paintings. Its my equivalent of a coffee break.

This image of a man in a jousting tournament from a renaissance fair was in this weekends WDE at WetCanvas and his intense look appealed to me. It started out as a quick sketch which then turned into a watercolour.

The other piece that I started yesterday is a 20 x 30 inch oil painting of a wave breaking over the rocks in Pouch Cove. I was there last weekend and watched the water, took some photos and came away inspired. I will be working on this piece for awhile yet and it will likely be on the Watermarks blog.

I have blocked in colour at this point and am starting to develop some shading to give the waves and rocks form.

Capelin update

Capelin study

I've had a hectic few days and haven't had much time to spend on painting for one reason or another, but I managed another few layers for this watercolour. The initial panic about the Arches paper has died down a little and as it dries the wrinkles are eliminated. So far, any masking fluid that I have used has come off without taking off any layers of paper with it.

I did get a full sheet of Arches today but 250lb hot press so I'm hoping that will be better. I'll still be placing an order for some other types of paper as people have been kind enough to offer to suggestions for other brands.

This piece is 15 x 22 and so far, its behaving. I'm going slow to avoid muddying colours. I want the blues and pinks of the fish to show through but have the fish in the bottom layer more subdued. This is where I can scrub back some washes of colour if necessary, but am a little wary doing that noting previous Arches behaviour.

Wordless Wednesday

Rock challenge results!

Image taken in natural daylight

Image taken under artificial light

I have found that the best way to tackle something that tests your ability is to study it continuously for a period of time and to study the subject as it is portrayed by other artists too. A month ago I issued a challenge to other artists to join me in a month's exploration of rock and their complexities. And what beautiful images were created!

This last piece is some rocks jutting out of the sea at Holyrood. The images, the first taken in natural daylight and the second under artificial light at night show quite clearly how lighting can affect viewing colours - and the same would seem true when applying colours to your painting too.

Here are the links to drawings and paintings that were submitted. Take the time to visit each and every one, as they all have a lot to say about creating rocks in art. And thank you to everyone who joined in!

And if there are any waifs and strays who still want to submit a piece, please do. Just put your link in the comments and I'll add it as soon as I can.

Maree Clarkson
Link I
Link II
Link III
Link IV
Link V
Link VI
Link VII

Katherine Tyrrell
Maritime Inversion

Vivien Blackburn
Sennen Cove & Land's end

Charlene Brown
Link I

Harry Bell
Link I

Ann
Link I

Jennifer Rose
Link I
Link II

Jeanette Jobson
Rock Challenge
Mariners Foe
Savage Cove Rocks II
Savage Cove Rocks III WIP
Untitled WIP

Tools and fishes

I started this watercolour with a line drawing the other night and have begun to lay down layers of watercolour. This is being done on a half sheet of Arches 140lb paper and its acting horribly, almost like tissuepaper, despite having been stretched. I'll continue on with it and see how it turns out and whether it will warp badly. I've had bad luck with this batch of Arches paper with masking fluid tearing the layers and now it reacting badly to being wetted. I may invest in another brand of w/c paper, but am limited here to what's available. Looks like its another mail order.

Note to self: Buy 300lb watercolour paper in future, no matter how much it costs!

These are capelin that I was given and photographed last week. I was drawn to the colours and sheen on the skin and this piece is a bit more of an experiment to see if they turn out as I want them to do without getting muddy. This is early stages and in its ugly phase where its very much at risk of being trashed. I'm trying to see past this and into its final form which is in my head.

Its time I invested in a new set of watercolours, as I'm still working with my ancient set of Winsor & Newton half pans which are literally 25 years old or more. That shows how often I use watercolour. A number of the pans are nearly empty, but I can buy the halfpans to replace them. Or perhaps I may just go for a set of tubed watercolours.

What are the watercolourists' views on this? Pans or tubes?