Another Set of Freezing Fingers

When you are away from home you've got to take the chances that arise. The family party were all well occupied in hitting beaches, local shops and little museums so I took myself to a favourite spot to take in the view. It is one of the most photographed, drawn and painted views in the North East of England but it never fails to thrill. Unfortunately the old wind chill made it a less than comfortable experience and I found myself having some difficulty making accurate marks. Never mind more fun was had.

Bamburgh - Watercolour on Not paper 12" x 10"

Nithered in Northumberland

I've not posted here for a week or two, nothing worth troubling you with, just a few little attempts at different styles, none of which I'm comfortable with. I'll maybe put together a post at some date in the future but at the moment it would mean creating a huge amount of text and I'm currently having a break with one of the kids and the rest of her family. Needless to say my activity is currently dictated by an assertive three year old who fortunately for me declares me to be his 'best friend'.

We spent half a day in Warkworth and whilst the youth and their parents with Nana in attendance I sneaked off with the watercolour box and one of my sketchbooks. So excited was I that I embarked upon a silly project. I parked at the bottom of the hill and decided to draw the view up to the castle. Foolish boy. Not only was the drawing a sore trial but by the time I got to wetting the paper I was starting to feel the effects of the wind chill. Nithered is a local expression that covers the feeling. In English, so reduced by the feeling of cold that effective activity is difficult.

Anyway here it is with all its flaws, deficient perspective, ineffective value placement and limited control of the palette choices. Enough of that it was a fun session that blew away a few cobwebs.

Warkworth - Watercolour on Rough paper 14" x 11"

Portrait WIP - Day 2

Well here's today's progression of the Sargent portrait. After spending last night looking at the picture it became apparent that there were a number of flaws in the work up to that point. Things like the size and shape of the moustache, some of the colours and value relationships. Consequently I approached the day's work with a few concrete ideas in mind. They provided my starting point.

Once I'd addressed those issues I began to work on refining some of the brush work and took the decision to attempt to make quite a few soft edges in the relationships between the planes of the face and hope that I'd end up with a mixture of smooth and harder transitions. I realise that there is still work to be done, for example with the hair, and I think I need to live with it for a little longer before deciding on the finishing touches.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Carolus Durand (after Sargent) - Oil on stretched linen 12" x 12"

Portrait WIP

A few ideas came together this week. Prompted by the cold weather and an urge for some artistic stimulus I decided to pop up to Edinburgh to catch the annual exhibition of the Vaughan Bequest of Turner watercolours. It's always a pleasure to go to the National Gallery in Edinburgh, whilst not the largest gallery in the world it still contains some real gems. After visiting one of my favourites, the Edwin Church Niagara and an appreciative look at the Canova Three Graces it was off to see the Turners. This collection only appears during the month of January so you have to take the opportunity while it is there. Regular readers will know that I am a fan of Turner so viewing his wonderful subtle small pieces is a real joy. It's also wonderful to see his pictures of one of my favourite buildings, the beautiful Durham Cathedral.

Having satisfied the need to see the Turners and before heading to the Oxford Bar I had a quick walk upstairs to catch a few of the gems therein. One of the first things that strikes one on entering the upper gallery is the stunning portrait of Lady Agnew, a masterpiece from the brush of John Singer Sargent. A few minutes study of the magnificent brush strokes prompted me to think of a conversation I had with my friend Dan Corey last year. It was about a series of painting studies that he did, which were based on a number of Sargent's better known portraits. I remember making the bold suggestion that I might have a go at that myself some day. Consequently I left Edinburgh with a mission, have a go at a few portraits.

Well I got started today. I selected a 12" square stretched linen canvas and set up with a picture lifted from the Internet, copy of the Carolus Durand portrait by Sargent. The original is a half length portrait but I decided to limit my effort to a head shot.

This is my underpainting, where I've attempted to get the important shapes in place with a first shot at beginning to establish the colour and value relationships. As I've never made portraits in oils before, I'm finding this process quite daunting, even more so as my subject is so well known. I've used my usual medium, Galkyd and Gamsol to place this paint so it should be relatively dry tomorrow which should make it easy to work in the next layers of colour. We'll see.

As always any suggestions are welcome.

Carolus Durand (after Sargent) - WIP Oil on stretched linen 12" x 12"

December/ January Challenge

The latest in the little challenge series that Peter Ward and myself indulge in. Peter set this one and sent me a number of pictures taken in this location, I believe it's a village called Newton St. Loe.

In this photograph there is a lot going on and so decisions had to be taken as to what might be included and what might be the more interesting elements. The obvious place to start would be the cottage but I became a little more interested in the 'furniture' around the green. So I decided to crop the image and leave out extraneous things like the waste bin.

Newton St. Loe - Photograph

After taking the decision to crop it became a question of arranging the elements and I haven't moved far from the organisation in the photograph. I then made a couple of studies, one of which was in the previous post. Finally a larger piece of paper was broken out and the final piece completed. You can find Peter's version at www.watercolourfanatic.blogspot.com

Newton St. Loe - Watercolour on Not paper 16" x 12"

More Messing About

The holiday spirit is just about gone from the household and I thought it time that I start to get my brushes wet again. I'm still in the experimenting mode and came across an artist I'd not heard of before whilst watching art videos on TV. The artist was called Jean Haines and she has an interesting way of working with water and pigment. So I decided to have a go at her techniques. I discovered a picture of hers that is some castle on a hilltop and decided to use it as the basis of the piece although I selected some shapes from my sketch book that relate to Durham and used them as the structure of the drawing.

The basic technique is one of using lots of water, letting the pigment flow and then introducing lots of colour variation to create interest and a base for viewer interpretation. I'm not sure that the whole approach is for me but there is a lot of fun to be had from working the paint like this. I'm sure that I'll remember a lot about the way the colour flows from this little exercise.

Durham - Watercolour on Not paper 12" x 9"

I post the next picture purely as an indication of the preparatory work that goes into some of the pieces that I produce. As regular readers know my friend, Peter Ward, and I challenge each other on a monthly basis with a photograph and then we both post our interpretation on our respective blogs.

This is a preliminary watercolour sketch that I made the other day to explore some aspects of the current challenge. I was interested in ways of depicting shadow and the compositional relationship of the elements. I have others that explore value relationships. In the next week I'll review the material and make the final image.

December/ January Challenge Study - Watercolour on Not paper 12" x 9"

Exercises

Not a lot of time this week so I decided to keep going by trying a couple of exercises. The first one is something I promised my friend Dan Corey that I'd be having a go at some time soon. The object of the exercise was to observe the range of values in an object and render them in monochrome. Value recognition and rendition are at the heart of producing convincing images in paint and concentration on colour often have one forgetting the importance of values.

To do this I first of all mixed a range of greys so that I had them to hand and could concentrate on observation. The concentration required was intense and I was totally absorbed maybe to the point of convincing myself that there were value shifts that weren't there.

As an aside, I produced this work on a gesso panel, the first time I'd used one, and was surprised at the way it sucked in the paint rendering it almost dry in a short space of time.

Value vase - Oil on gesso board 6" x 6"

The next exercise that I tried was more an attempt to familiarise myself with some new acquisitions, some squirrel mop brushes. I came to buy these after a conversation with fellow artists, Colin Joyce and Peter Dimmock. They came along to introduce themselves during the recent Art Fair. During the chat they enthused about having worked on courses with Alvaro Castagnet and also of their admiration for the work of Joseph Zbukvic. I also enjoy the work of these two so I dug around in my library and the various video clips on the internet to find out a little more about their working methods. Central to the approach seemed to be the creation of large washes of colour laid down with mops, particularly Castagnet. Never having used them I decided to pick up a couple of mops from my local art store.

Brushes in hand I discovered a Zbukvic demonstration in one of my books and decided to have a go. The brushes felt really unfamiliar, my usual tools being Kolinsky sables. Judging the amount of pigment to add to the large reservoirs of water held by these brushes was something of a trial. The one thing I learned was that it would take a bit of practice to get the hang of the technique. The feel of the softer fibres lends itself to a much looser approach and from that point of view make the effort well worth while so I'll persevere. Anyway the attempt is below, crude though it is.

Venice Fish Market after Zbukvic - Watercolour on Not paper 12" x 10"