Cutout

Looking at negative and positive space, in my art group last term , I had to have a go at a cutout, loads of respect to the artist creating cutout, this took me about 4 hours and it’s not that complicated.

Got there

Been working on my  art class pathways  picture for a few weeks, this one has been a real journey, even with all my planning it kept changing direction , after the finish it made one final turn, l guess knowing where you are going in your pictures is not always straightforward.

I framed it up now so there’s no going back.

Small faces

A invite to exhibit really cannot  be passed over, all I had to do was make a postcard size portrait. Everyone who makes a submission is exhibited in the exhibition at southamptons Solent gallery, exhibition opens on the 2nd of March.

 

 

Planning

Planning a painting for my artclass project, started with a sketch in my book and moving onto a larger effort on paper, I am trying some really grungy techniques splatter runny paint and torn tissue paper,  under painting started it will be fun seeing where this one goes.

Charcoal and paint

Always trying things never feeling like I make a finished image, something I am going to have to get my head around, perhaps it’s the doing I enjoy and I should not really worry about making a final image.

That’s enough pondering, I have been doing some charcoal and paint stuff it’s interesting the charcoal works into the paint and you get some interest marks and effects, it all feels very free.

Thanks to Lee Jeffries a very talented photographer for his reference pictures .

Ink and a pointed stick

Life class and we are using the  wrong end of a paint brush dipped in ink to  produce some really uncontrolled sketches, tried to focus on hands perhaps that was not such a good idea. as always I enjoyed the experience and its yet another thing I need to explore more.

 

Instruments and rags

As we continue in my art class with our still life theme, we have tried musical instrument and mono printing, this is a wonderful technique where you paint glass or a ceramic tile with oil paint and by using pressure, transfer the image onto paper, it was suggested that you could only take a single print and to use smooth paper, I had a go using watercolour paper and water with my water soluble oil paint and got a very pleasing result that I might work up some more.

Then we went back to basics,  pencils and  cloth I am told this was first principles for artist and they would spend hours studying the folds in cloth, I loved this exercise and became completely lost in it for far too many hours in class and afterwards.

Charcoal and Watercolour

This week I have been messing with charcoal and water colour, sketching out another slightly surreal illustration for my strawberry tale, I think this is a little closer to the darker feeling of Jeremy Hush paintings and my starting inspiration.

 

 

 

Last Class

My last life drawing class this week, 10 weeks and I feel I have made some progress, I know what side of the easel to stand on, I have a better understanding of shape and size, learning to look at the outside and inside shapes and using different features as reference throughout the drawing.

My use of charcoal has moved on but still it’s not subtle enough (more practice)

Here is a bit of a lookback-

 

Burnt stick charcoal

I have been struggling with line and tone in my portraits with everything feeling very drawn and too dark.

Today I tried using some burnt stick charcoal instead of my usual compressed charcoal.

In fact I used both and my charcoal pencil, feels like a step forward, thanks to Minnie Ashley for her wonderful source picture.