Stop to sketch

Up to now I have never made time to sketch while on holiday , this year I set out to change that making a little time to stop and sketch.

After you get over the strangeness of getting your sketchbook out in public, making time to sketch and not to just grab photographs, makes you more aware of the place even if it’s not always captured in the sketches.

Got to get into the habit of doing this more as it’s more personal record of the places you visit, I am sure they will help me remember if I want to make paintings later.

 

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Come to my Senses

Just finished a short term at art class, closing for the summer.

This term we looked at the senses  and the parts of the body we use for them ears, noses, eyes, lips and hands looking at the anatomy and how they fit into the face really good  stuff, if like me you like faces.

we  made  some 3D heads from dough, morphed animals into faces and faces into animals, sketched each others bits and looked at cartoons and how the artist simplify the features to capture expression.

I have planned two final pieces to complete over the summer,  one painting which I have  posted my sketch here and a set of 5 tarot cards covering each of the five senses and  hinting at the sixth.

Thanks for dropping in.

 

 

 

Return to Reality

I try to think of a different approach to  my paintings and this idea came when I was photographing my pictures, I noticed the great distortion you get  from selecting a  strange view point.  The idea was to start with the distortion and perhaps return to reality when  viewing the picture.

It didn’t really work, l need to think this one out again.

like all my paintings it went through a few  different looks, I  am pleased with the final slightly graphic feel.

Drawing days

Attended a one day workshop Drawing with Confidence, hoping to pick up some new stuff to help me with my drawing.

Some good advice on sketching landscapes, looking at the shapes and tone without getting lost in the details.

Discovered some new pens in shades of grey to add to my nice to have equipment list.

A good day sketching with others is always a pleasure.

Art class on show

Alice’s art class is having an exhibition, going to put some of my work up, please drop in if you are local and want to see what the group get up to .

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.

Getting back into my life

Getting back into my life drawing class, still not comfortable with the quick draw warm ups. The tutor is full of encouragement and suggestions, we are encouraged to share our work and I am learning form my fellow students too.

Working with line, tone and now layering, this is all helping me bring things together.