Owner: Paintings Prints and Stuff URL:http://vivienb.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:49:42 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: paintings, sketches, printmaking, works in progress, exhibitions and thoughts on art. Site statistics:Click here
Sketch clubs and artists talks 2007-03-08 23:09:00 Tonight was a meeting of a sketch club I've belonged to for a long time, since before I did my degree. It has about 100 members, from keen amateurs to professionals, and meets once a month with crit nights and speakers, days out, studio days, demos and plein air trips. Other groups I belong to are by selection/election but this one is open to anyone keen, regardless of ability. Once a vacancy occurs, it's simply the next on the waiting list. It's a very nice friendly group.Tonight was an artist's talk by Mikki Longley http://www.mikkilongley.co.uk/ who has a background in illustration and has developed her own interesting quirky style, painting local towns and villages in heightened colours and skewed perspectives.She was brilliantly prepared with a powerpoint slide show and projector and explained the ideas behind her work from the beginning, how and why she developed her houses and trees that lean confidingly in towards each other, encircling village squares or churches, how
sketch of the crowd at the Renoir exhibition and a moleskine sketchbook 2007-03-10 17:55:00 A quick sketch
of the crowd
at the Renoir exhibition - done at the time in biro and coloured later with those Lyra 'skin tones' set of coloured pencils - I really like them :>) - these are on loan from the college I work at but I must buy a set. They have a lovely range of colours from honey, through siennas, cool browns, dark browns, honey and an almost caput mortem - that dead purple (literally dead head in Latin from the colour of corpses!) that's ideal for some shadows.The tiny lady with the bun at the front I just had to draw! She had so much character, She had a hunched back and this suit with incredibly wide shoulders and that lovely cottage loaf bun hairstyle. I was exhausted by then, sitting listening to the headphones on the benches and trying work up the energy to move on :>) Incidentally, this is my first sketch in a moleskine sketchbook
- as people kept raving about them I thought I'd try one. On the first page I simply tried out scribbles of the different media I
moleskine, lyra pencils and kitten 2007-03-11 14:51:00 I should be getting on with all sorts of other stuff but couldn't resist playing a bit more with the moleskine and lyra pencils.This is from a photograph taken when this little monster was really tiny,The colours of the skin tone set are perfect for her fur.The moleskine is really nice to use with coloured pencils, I like the smooth surface and the ease of rubbing out to draw back into colours.I don't use coloured pencils in the way that many people do, I'm not interested in creating a painterly smooth finish with no paper showing - I like to use them freely, in a scribbly way, more as a drawing medium, using the paper as another element.Incidentally, she may look sweet but she was busy chewing my husband's fingers with very sharp little fangs!
sunset in the shires 2007-03-14 13:01:00 Done on the way to the evening class I was teaching, I had some spare time and the sunset was lovely.I only had those skin tone Lyra pencils and Moleskine to draw it with, so I sketched with them, making colour notes and then added the extra colour later (blue, purple, orange, yellow and green) - using the coloured pencils in the art room at the college - they were nasty scratchy Verithins so not as nice to use at all.It fixed the scene in my memory though.I'm wondering whether our local pastel society allows coloured pencils in the exhibition - I have to have 3 for a show coming up and it would be nice to include a CP one if it was allowed - charcoals and conte are allowed - it's more about being a dry drawing medium - so I wonder? I'll have to make enquiries.
sketch clubs and beaches and mixed media 2007-03-16 13:16:00 I was asked to give a talk at a local amateur art group (small) and refused a straight talk but agreed to take work and sketch
books to show and do a demo of some techniques, rather than finished work, followed by a workshop with help and advice - people love hands on don't they? and I wouldn't be comfortable talking for 2 hours about me!So I did a couple of doodles to show how things worked with mixing media
. This one was showing them how oil pastel as a resist with W'col is great - later I added CP and pencil to show the effects ....and finished it off this morning. 6x8 inches. I hadn't actually intended it to be a finished piece, just a demo of techniques, but it was working reasonably well so carried on with it. .... then another one throwing the same mix of media adding chalk pastels. I paint plein air at the coast a lot so was drawing on memories of light and colour, wet pools and the colours of damp sand These are much more finished than the group saw - I'm going to email t
Reflections 2007-03-17 16:56:00 Later in the year I need some work for an exhibtion where the subject is reflections and I wondered if it was worth looking through my photographs to see if there was anything there I would want to work from.As I've said before, I don't normally work from photos but I fancy giving it another go - I knew I had some images that I like and maybe .....Anyway these are the images that I found quite quickly that would meet the brief. I love the coast so naturally a lot of them are to do with the sea :>)I really liked these seagulls waiting for the incoming tide on a grey afternoon. I like the subtle limited range of colours - watercolour and CP???? Watercolour and pastel?Then there is the boat lying beached on the wet mud with all the lovely sky blues in the reflection of the sky - something out of nothing.Or the boat in the harbour with the lovely old stone walls - pastel and charcoal over acrylic or watercolour? It's the busiest of the images with all the people jostling along the harbo Read more:Reflections
adding feedblitz and feedburner 2007-03-17 14:43:00 Eureka!!!!!! I finally got there!You would not believe how long I struggled to get feedblitz and feedburner to work .... first of all I'm not techie and second I was looking for something more complicated than I needed to - it simply needed pasting into a text box rather than the feed box, that I was attempting to use, expecting that to be the correct one for a feed - apparently not.Anyway , anyone who would like to subscribe is now welcome to do so.I can't believe how difficult I found that!and thank you to Katherine, Diane and others who tried to help me out :)
digital images 2006-12-29 19:40:00 I've been playing with digital variations on the paintings in the series so far. I find this often gives me ideas on ways forward in paint. The paintings won't be the same as the digital images
but serve as ways of thinking ideas through and providing a new starting point.With the abstracted paintings I have no definite idea of the finished result - it's a matter of putting down marks and aiming to create a feeling/mood/colour vibration/sense of movement etc Once the first marks are down then others relate to them - constant changes are made, colours and areas can change dramatically and the works take much longer to evolve than an observational study.With a painting from direct observation so many things are 'given'. With an abstract there are so many decisions to make on the wing. I think it's like the difference between classical music and jazz.Layers may be almost totally covered, leaving just scratches and fragments flickering through overpainting of shining through thin gl
moleskine, watercolour, coloured pencil, pencil - and seascape 2007-03-19 18:42:00 I knew that people had said that moleskines didn't take watercolour
- but I had to find out for myself :>)I started off with a rough pencil sketch of a marsh harbour at Brancaster Staithe from the small moor on the hill above. It's a tiny area but real moorland with gorse and bracken and rocks.The watercolour just rolled off its waxy surface and had to be scrubbed in quite drily to get it to stay on the paper at all! Definitely not one to try again - maybe gouache? or acrylic?Then I used coloured pencil
s to reinforce colours, letting some of the watercolour that 'stuck' show through.A mix of Polychromos, Lyra, Derwent and some cheap unnamed supermarket coloured pencils were used, reinforced with graphite pencil.This is a view I'd like to do in oils some time, working plein air. It was done from a photograph taken when I sketched there last year. There's a wonderful view from the moor, known as The Common, of the harbour with its islands and twisting creeks, reed beds and salt mar
charcoal pencil in that moleskine 2007-03-21 10:08:00 I've got some very cheap charcoal pencils that I bought - a dozen for £1 ! - they are a bit waxier than a true charcoal pencil but I rather like them. They don't smudge quite the same as a true charcoal pencil. Some charcoal pencils can be a little scratchy and I don't enjoy using them. These are definitely not, they create lovely rich blacks.This is a very quick sketch trying them out in the moleskine - the slight waxiness means that though normal charcoal doesn't work at all with the slightly waxy feeling paper, these do.I considered sketching the tree in last Wednesday's post again yesterday, as I left work, as the leaves were now partly open and it was a haze of spring green, blowing in the icy gale from the north .......... which made me decide not to stop!Kurt Jackson did a long series of small sketches of a little hawthorn tree. He took his daughter to her ballet lesson and didn't have time to go home before picking her up again - so he looked at this little tree every we
last light, moleskine and coloured pencils 2007-03-23 13:14:00 I should be doing lots of things instead but I wanted to draw - so I did :) ... and now I have to face the dirty dishes, pile of washing and tidying up :( I did this from a combination of the sketches I did on the beach at sunset and memory. I've done a series of works from those sketches - in oil, pastel and digital images. It was interesting to see just how intense and dark it's possible to go with coloured pencils. I think they hold up well in comparison with other media. I'm speeding up with them and can now imagine sketching more with them plein air. I think they'll feature more often in my sketchbooks in the future. It was done with a mix of Polychromos, Lyra and cheapo Tescos coloured pencils and one Derwent. I like the heavier waxier Polychromos and Lyra - in future I'll know which to go for. Luckily I took the advice of expert CP users and bought quite a few polychromos - the Derwent is an old one, though it's good I don't like it as much. The moleskine Read more:light
Kurt Jackson 2007-03-22 19:22:00 image: Kurt Jackson
I mentioned yesterday that KJ has a new book out, with his paintings of the Thames, from its source to the sea. They look amazing. I've treated myself to the book and can't wait for it to arrive :DAnother book on my 'want' list is the one with his paintings of Cornish hedgerows. Do take a look. This is one example, not my favourite as a painting, but very typical of the quantity of flowers.Cornish hedges are something very special. They aren't simple hawthorn+ hedges like a lot of the country but high stone walls with earth banked up and they are a mass of wild flowers, Do read the description of them on the page with the paintings. It explains them perfectly. http://www.kurtjackson.co.uk/Kurt_jackson_exhibition_the_cornish_hedge.htmIn Spring they are full of primroses, bluebells, wild garlic, campion and more. I lived in Cornwall as a child and loved them. The lanes are narrow, often only one car wide so they are 'up close and personal'.So, the combination o
Watercolours at the Mall Galleries and Monet at the Royal Academy 2007-03-24 23:45:00 Todays trip to London was greatFirst was the Mall Galleries
and the Royal
Institute of Painters in Watercolours - an exhibition of contemporary watercolours. We met up with Katherine again.Watercolour here includes acrylics and gouache and there was a great deal of mixed media work involving charcoal or pastel or oil pastel, ink or pencil. No hard and fast rules to stifle creativity here :)Unfortunately they have no web site so it isn't possible to link here to images that were in the exhibition but where I can I've given links to see other work by artists I liked.The work was wonderfully varied - from the super realism of Janet Skea, incredible paintings showing every fibre in fabrics, simple arrangements of delicate objects in a limited colour range, creating subtle and beautiful finished pieces, quiet and contemplative; to the luscious abstract paintings of Morocco by Leslie Goodwin, again with a severely limited palette but this time freely and boldy painted with the addition of Read more:Monet
, Academy
caran d'Ache Neocolour II 2007-03-28 21:58:00 I wish I could find my tin of Caran d'Ache - I was reminded of them recently when I was looking through some sketchbooks. I'd like to dig them out and use them again but simply can't think where I've 'safely' put them .I was out sketching trees with a friend and did these of some birch tree trunks - I think the eyes are created when a branch is broken off or eaten by the deer? rabbits? - these particular trees were really quite spooky as the more you drew the more you were aware of these eyes all over them - watching! I haven't exaggerated them - this is really how they are.At first sight I thought the Caran d'Ache would be a bit bright and unsubtle - but they are really lovely to use and you can get subtle colour mixes and washes. They are water soluble and look at first sight like childrens wax crayons, chunky and suitable for working on a large scale. This sketch book was an A4 - about 11x8.5 inches or something close to that.I want to find them to try combining them with no
Leicestershire: Rivers and canals and woods as well 2007-04-01 14:47:00 Swithland Woods, oil on paper, plein air painting, one of the woods and trees series.I tend to work in series. I like to look at places through the seasons, seeing the changing light and weather; the gorgeous dark skies of autumn with flashes of golden light, the cool fresh bright light of spring or the cool grey light of winter with its skeletal trees - summer isn't always as interesting somehow. When the sky is blue and the trees are dense with foliage the landscape isn't quite as interesting, very green green green, though working at the coast when it's warm is a very pleasant thing to do!Ongoing series are about the coast from Old Hunstanton to Wells next the Sea in Norfolk, local woods and landscape and Flowers-up-close-and-personal.I've decided to start another project as well, also on the local area, and asked 3 friends, Ros, Glen and Maggie, to join with me. We'll work plein air - sometimes all 4 of us - other times alone or whoever can make it that day. It will be a long Read more:Rivers
trees and rocks progress april 2007-04-04 14:01:00 I did some more work on the trees and rocks today.I decided that the sky needed quite a lot of white in it to tie it in with the land and to act as a foil for the tracery of branches. I also wanted to lose the edges at little where the sky meets the snow at the sides of the canvas. I feel it has taken a step forward, though it still has a way to go.I'll bring a bit of blue sky down from the top in a loose V shape, echoing but to the right of, the gap. That will create a deeper tone around the top of the tree trunk, reducing contrast, so that it doesn't shoot the gaze straight out of the top of the painting.There are sludgy olive colours in the bark of the foreground tree now, along with the blue greys and purples. I still have more work to do on this though.There are more variations in colour than show in the photograph as I had to use flash.Size 40x40ins oil on canvas details: Read more:progress
sketching cats 2007-04-03 21:16:00 Cats really are extremely uncooperative models - and all that chicken I feed her - you'd think she'd be more grateful. She doesn't like cat food except for the dry cat biscuits and insists on chicken.These first 2 are of the little madame indulging in her favourite hobby - ornithology, it's accompanied by a lot of little yattering noises and twitching whiskers :>)These are very very fast sketches of a moving model who wouldn't keep still at all. The glare on the top left of the second page of images is her telling me to stop staring at her and leave her to wash in peace - not that she'll necessarily return the compliment. It's a lousy drawing because she of course ... moved.This is the dictatorial little madame that the sweet, if sharp fanged kitten. of a few posts back, grew up to be.She's a tortoiseshell tabby and beautifully marked (well I thinks so :>) ) with a beautiful cream and apricot tummy, deep beige socks and dark tabby stripes on her back and rosettes on her sides.
long thin seascapes in coloured pencil 2007-04-06 14:16:00 I need to do some more of the long thin seascapes in the Time and Tide series for a couple of galleries so I decided to have a play in coloured pencil
from sketches and paintings done at the coast and the last one simply playing with colour and shapes and taking a different viewpoint - looking back at the land instead of out to sea or along the beach. The majority of my seascapes look out at the sea as that's the view we commonly get - but looking back at the land from the water gives an interestingly different perspective. I must do more of these.These are only small, about 7.5 ins tall, coloured pencil in the moleskine.I wasn't planning on them being anything other than sketches but it occurs to me that a row of them in coloured pencil might be worth framing. I have to write a press release now and update a group website but I keep getting distracted by the amorous squirrels in the garden - it looks like we could have babies before long by this behaviour! and noisy sparrows dispu
sketchbooks and old drawings 2007-04-11 14:01:00 An early sketch done in 1994 when on holiday with the family - pencil in a landscape bound A4 sketchbook (computer paper size).I've been looking to see what sketchbooks I've got for the rivers/canals project. I thought I might buy a new A3 hardbacked book - but I've found 2 new ones just waiting to be used :>) One is the traditional portrait binding and the other is bound in a landscape format - so an incredibly lovely wide spread for long long sketches over both pages - nearly 3 feet across :>) I do like landscape bound sketchbooks. A3 paper is double the size of the paper you use in the computer - so a double page spread is a really nice size to work on.It made me look again at some very old sketchbooks (I've got booksheleves full of them) This sketch was done before I started the degree. Looking back it was interesting to see how the 'good' pieces of work were sprinkled through pages of dreadful stuff! - it was all a learning curve but there was a lot of backsliding between Read more:drawings
Oh to be in England, now that April's here .... 2007-04-11 00:08:00 The weather has been gorgeous over Easter - unfortunately I've been pretty busy with paperwork and stuff that meant I didn't get out sketching.I have to put mirror plates on some paintings tomorrow for a group exhibition at the local museum and deliver them on Friday.There is a pastel exhibiton coming up soon with another group but I've had authorisation that coloured pencils are allowed so that means I can show some of the flowers I did in cp. That takes the pressure off a little and means I can get on with the big canvasses, series of seascapes and hopefully start the rivers and canals project :>)I think I might treat myself to a nice big new A3 sketchbook for the rivers/canals project - I really do prefer to work a bit bigger. Buying art materials is fun :>) , I like to keep project research stuff together so I'll probably have a one small sketchbook and a large one - apart from any canvasses I do plein air.The image above is digital - scanned watercolour doodles combined with f Read more:April
, England
marina update 2007-04-13 16:23:00 The boat looked a bit chopped off so I added a bit more to the length - as I go along I may do some long thin horizontal images, this marina
cries out for that treatment.
sketching at the marina (on the canal) 2007-04-12 19:35:00 After teaching this morning I decided to make a start on my project and do some sketching at this marina
on the canal. It's only a couple of miles from where I teach.These were done in an 11 inch square sketchbook, the first with the Lyra skintones set of coloured pencils and the second started off to be a pen and ink sketch with a Rotring pen - but I wanted colour, so I finished it with coloured pencils.I was there for a couple of hours and it was lovely to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the warmth. A lovely friendly lady brought me a leaflet on the history of the marina.It was a originally a wharf of warehouses for goods brought in by the narrowboats, then a woodyard, then a marina for a boat hire firm and finally they've revamped the warehouse and made them into these des res apartments.The marina was buzzing with owners working on their boats - a few chatted to me, others left me alone.The nearby Grand Union Canal goes all the way to London and this canal was built to c
an old pen and ink sketch along the canal 2007-04-14 23:54:00 I looked this out in an old sketch
book as it fits with the current series. It was done in 1995 with a Rotring pen.I don't use pen and ink very often as I find it too scratchy for me - I like pencil or charcoal better as I can get areas of tone down in a way I like better, I usually used water with these Rotring pen sketches to create washes, but only used a very little on this one. I really like other peoples pen sketches but just don't enjoy doing them myself as much as other media.I want to go back here and sketch again. It's on the canal in the city. The old factory buildings and higgledy piggledy roofs and building shapes probably won't be there much longer as the area is being redeveloped. Such a shame - I expect it will be more ticky tacky boxes, looking as though they were made from lego :( ...... and all the same. Read more:along
revisited tree and old sketches 2007-04-16 12:42:00 I sketched the tree again, that I'd sketched at the very beginning of spring - Link:http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2007/03/sunset-in-shires.htmlThen it was very cold and the sun was setting, the tree only had tiny leaves beginning to show. Now it is in full leaf, fresh bright fierce spring greens and behind it - at midday - the fields of rapeseed glowed bright golden yellow with bluey muted hedgerows crossing in the distance. It was warm :>)I may well look at this tree again from time to time as the seasons and weather change.I'm not totally happy with the lights and darks in the branches that were waving in the breeze. It got a bit overworked :>(Next is a page from an old sketchbook from 1993 shortly after I first started painting and sketching again in 1992.I was really pleased with the sketch of our cat and disguised another disastrous attempt by covering it with the doodle on the left! - always disguise the mistakes! :>)I really should get that ink out, I can't remember when I last
back to the marina 2007-04-18 20:15:00 Today I went back to Union Wharf to look again at the tangle of boats, shining water and expensive loft apartments.This is a photograph of the sketchbook - the scanner (image below) didn't pick up quite all of the image but shows the colour, composition and marks better.The book was too small (11 inches square) to fit in the whole of the tangle of boats - there were lots just below that lamp that I couldn't fit in. I need to go back with more time and a larger sketchbook.There was a colder wind blowing today but I was sheltered from it and it was positively hot in the sun.I had thought it would be a nice place to live but after sitting there on a weekday with a car alarm going off, another car parking with a loud radio playing and children passing on a walk with their parents from time to time and shouting to each other ..... maybe not. At weekends I bet it can be pretty noisy. I like peace.I'd like to get out into the countryside now and look at the river with the friends who are d Read more:marina
The old packhorse bridge 2007-04-20 18:32:00 (slide show - if you subscribe you'll probably just see a little icon that says get your own!)I didn't have time to sketch today but I did manage to get out with my camera to a nice spot on the edge of the city at Aylestone.You go under an old bridge
carryng a disused railway line to a little car park overlooking ancient willows. A Victorian bridge takes you to the other side of the canal and looks onto the water meadows surrounding the River Biam, a tiny river, crossed by a 15th Century packhorse bridge. It's popular with walkers because you can walk for miles along the canal towpath with occasional side trips like this and you can walk or cycle into the country to the south or through the city and out the other side to the north alongside the river or canal.Marsh land was the biggest barrier to travel and trade in ancient times - rivers could be navigated or forded or crossed by bridge, but marshes were treacherous and changeable and a major problem. The website says:The bridge i
Frog island - river and canal in charcoal 2007-04-22 23:33:00 photograph of sketchbook:I spent the afternoon sketching along the canal in an area called Frog Island with a friend.The other side of the weir is the canal and boats passed occasionally, this side is the River Soar and to the left is one end of Frog Island. With all the industry I somehow doubt that there are any frogs now - though there were 2 swans nests just below and moorhens scuttling about on the water and amorous pigeons strutting and cooing near my feet, so still plenty of wildlife.It's an old industrial area of Victorian factories and in the distance are cranes, they are extending one of the shopping malls in the town centre.This sketch has christened my nice big A3 landscape book ~:>) - it's about 3 feet across a double page spread so is nice to use with charcoal.I hadn't sketched out in charcoal for a long time and I really enjoyed it, I'll definitely be doing more. I really do like charcoal - it's such a painterly medium. In this I used willow charcoal and a charcoal
Aylestone: The Old Packhorse Bridge (15C) 2007-04-28 11:04:00 Yesterday I did a couple of really quick sketches of the old Packhorse Bridge at Aylestone. It dates from at least the 1400's, possibly earlier.It's a long stone bridge, originally 200 metres but only 50 remain, with 11 arches, some slightly pointed and gothic looking and 'cutwaters' - buttresses that stand out like the prows of boats that presumable 'cut' the water and relieved the pressure on the stonework in floods. It's about one cart width with little refuges over the cutwaters to allow pedestrians to move out of the way of oncoming carts.aside: look at this very funny blog to see an interesting story sort of related to this :>) http://idlethoughtsofanidlewoman.blogspot.com/2007/03/le-derriere-du-cheval.htmlIn the past, marshland was a bigger danger and obstacle to travel than rivers - rivers often have a place where they can be forded safely or bridges can be built. Marshland stretches over larger areas and is impassable. 50 metres of the bridge survives, the canal cut thr
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