Another strange mixture

Last week I was talking about a strange confluence of events and this one has proved to be in a similar vein. Sheila and I took the opportunity to go to our caravan in the Lake District for a few days - beautiful, then on Sunday we joined the rest of the family for another baptism - our granson Oliver Joseph. In between times a lorry attempted to total me and reduced the car to something less than it had been. All in all the opportunity to paint has been somewhat lacking, but I have managed a little.

The first piece was something I did late last year after watching a DVD by E. John Robinson and I heard last week that he had passed away so I place it here as a small thankyou for the stimulus he gave me to look at the sea with a clearer vision.






Wave Study - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Tuesday night is life class and after posting an oil last time I decided to listen to the exhortation of WC contributors and spend some time concentrating on drawing and this piece resulted from our last session. I found the pose extremely difficult to draw. Lots of problems with perspective and proportions. The page shows evidence of the many restatements required to get the drawing to its current state. I need to work even harder at this.




Hannah - Graphite stick on paper (touch of watercolour) 20" x 15"



An occasional indulgence of mine is to open a book that I treasure. It is a bound book of watercolour paper that I reserve for images drawn from a holiday that we took in Venice. I have the Venice tourist's compulsory cache of photographs from that glorious week and I use them from time to time to inspire a watercolour sketch. This one is from last week.



Venice - Watercolour 12" x 10"

Hopefully, this next week will yield something more substantial in terms of painting as I am travelling down to Norfolk to attend a two day workshop with Martin Kinnear who I'm sure will give me plenty of guidance in terms of the next stages in my development. I'm looking forward to reporting on it next time I sit in front of the computer.

Mixed Week

The last week has been a strange one. Two funerals and a baptism. Lots of people from family, school days, college days and working life as well as good friends picked up along the way. A mind seething with memories, events and expectations. Maybe the emotional roller coaster has had an impact on the picture making. The main work of the week was the painting of St. Mary's Island but not the only art in my life. Tuesday is life class and the last one was problematic. I started my laying a ground that was a greeny blue for no reason that I can remember, planning in a haze. Having knocked in my drawing I began to mix some flesh tones and applied a stroke or two of my usual mix and stepped back. It was not going to do. Then began a search for colours that didn't offend my eye too much when placed in combination. The resultant melange is shown below.
I've posted this in the Wet Canvas Figure forum and been inundated with quality detailed advice that is going to take me some time to process. I'll maybe get back literally to the drawing board and hone the draughtsmanship before launching into colour again. Nevertheless there are some interesting value and colour relationships in the picture from which I can learn. The model does show one of the difficulties that we have in the current working space, that being the range of different light sources meaning that it is difficult to avoid placing highlight and shadow in the expected places.




Fiona - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"


After the palette adventures at life class there was a goodly range of paint left on my board so I decided to use it in a quick still life exercise - the result is below. Forty five minutes entertainment that distracted me and sent me to bed feeling better than I had all day.



Still Life - Oil on canvas board 10" x 8"