Sadie in under thirty minutes

Sadie, 20 minutes, 17 x 12 cm, pastel on paper 

 Sadie is slight and not tall.  Fitting her on the page when she is stretched out is problematic… she only fills a little of the space. I took the Felicity House approach to masking the background with white and then erased the white to find the body in the drawing at the top.  Sadie grew and shrank into the space until I got her proportions right and her right heel into the frame. I wasn't sure about the bright pink ground but surprise.  It worked.

Sadie, 10 minutes, 12 x 18 cm, pastel on paper

I suspect this drawing was less than ten minutes.  Sue had lost track of time and when she called time I had only just begun. Later we returned to the pose but Sadie's head was entirely different so I began again in a book.

Sadie, 25 minutes, 13 x 20 cm, pastel on book page

Sadie, 20 minutes, 13 x 16 cm, pastel on paper

Sadie, 10 minutes, 10 x 10 cm, pastel on paper

Everytime I come to Cranberry..I see something new

From the 'Beach Party', pastel on paper 17 x 16 cm

I find myself in a place that I have been in many times before but as I find my pastels and look at what's in front of me the light is just a little different, the position throws something new into focus and I can't translate/record it fast enough. Above I stood at the end of the dock while tens of young people 18-27 and a few parents jumped off the dock, lounged on towels and played jazz from a speaker. It was a high ozone day so everything was a bit bluey haze.

The First Beach Trip, 2019, pastel on 'opened book' The Friendly Road.

A New View, Goergie's point, pastel on 'opened book', The Friendly Road.

Old Pine Story, pastel on 'opened book'  The Study Reader

I found a stash of used hardbacks at the new resale/antique shop on the island.  I created an 'opened book' for later and assembled a series of pages for single images with book pages.  I may donate this one to the fair for the raffle.

Trying time for Little Plants, pastel on 'opneed book', Gardens.

An Afternoon of drawing with Annabel

drawing 4, Whatfield, - looking uphill at sun, 16 x 18 cm

Even though it was a bit misty, the pastel colours glowed yesterday. Annabel took me to some of her favourite spots.  I had my french easel that I use as a table and my travelling pastel 'kit' -just little bits of broken pastels in two tins: hots and colds. I also had some chinese ink, a couple of brushes and my sketchpads. 

drawing 1, Semer, Blackthorn and Hill, 17x 15 cm

drawing 3, Annabel and the Sheep, 16 x18 cm

drawing 4, The Colour of Spring, 12x13cm

Spring and the Still Life

Ibbi Bowls and Green, pastel on paper, 29x29cm

Lifetimes ago when we were living in Rome I went to the market and bought some peaches.  It must have been the summer.  I had a tablecloth of blue and white that I got at an off-cut supplier in Warwickshire and apparently it was the same upholstery fabric they'd used in the BBC studio.  It was calm and perfect for our table in Rome.  The peaches spilled out of my bag and I noticed the most divine still life. I brought my drawing pad into the kitchen and drew the scene in pastel and later painted it adding some made up china. 

Today I woke ready to incorporate the divine bowls I was sent by Claire McAlpine from IBBI interiors. Claire discovered my work on Instagram and ended up buying two pieces.  She sent me the bowls after an aside comment I made about loving their china. As I started putting together my set up, I couldn't help feeling the excitement I felt with the peaches in Rome.  I sold that painting to Lena and Hennig so only have the memory of it.

Last night I was in Colchester at a talk by Charlotte Verity.  Her work is beautifully spare and she explained that her still lifes are not just still lifes. I'm not sure mine are more but I think I do my best work when I feel enchanted by what I am looking at and like Charlotte sometimes my subject becomes a portrait. Perhaps these bowls were my people this time. 

Digressing, this morning Henry Finkelstien was talking about Chuck Close's comment,  “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just go to work”.  Everyone commenting disagreed with that. I think I remember Charles Williams or maybe Jason Bowyer saying he doesn't value 'work'. I know what he meant, the struggle is a particular way of being an artist. Then there's the playful thin. I know I'm for inspiration. and if you want to call my work nostalgic, and sometimes playful that's OK.

Drawing to fix things in time

Voluptuous Bouquet, pastel on paper, 23x22, 2019

For Mothers' day, Figgy got me a bouquet of flowers.  There were protea, some heather and some dried fuscia flowers. I had never had my own protea which was exciting. Today I combined some of the flowers with some tulips that have been in the house and were on their last legs and set up a new 'story'.  

Story suggests intentionality.  I liked the green in the kantha and found a green cup then my rubber stamp tin for the spots and for the cup to sit on … the figure is me, languishing in the scene. I suspended a fused plastic collage from a staple and then edited out the frame as I worked. The vase is a charity shop find, vintage Honiton, as I discovered.  It conjures up Duncan Grant for me. There is a deco linen tablecloth with a green, beige and ochre motif and a pashmina in the background. In the front, the kantha some velvet and the back of the velvet, a swatch of fabric from a fabric book and a mexican belt. As I drew the tulip moved and the leaves withered. I wanted to fix the bouquet and the only way to do it justice was to draw it. I had to learn a new language to say soemthign baout the protea.  

Drawing the model like a still life

 Having spent the last few days making lots of little still life drawings, directly, I wanted to think of the model as a still life today and see what that frame of mind would do to the drawings. I moved around the paper looking for shapes and colours, tones and light - swapping pastels, adding ink, beginning with ink, Using a big fat brush, working small, smaller, bigger - trying to hold the pastel gently, to use both the end and the side, to keep it dry and to work into wet and to think about the edges. This is the order of the poses. The first was 15 minutes then Sue decided we needed some quickies - 3 minutes, then back to two fifteens and finishing with a thirty.

While it rages outside, I create my own little worlds indoors

African Palette, pastel on prepared mount board 23x22

Today it rained and gales raged, rattling the windows of the studio. I barely noticed as I was immersed in my African Palette, finding the depth of the colour.  It was another one of those drawings that didn't paint itself. I could match the colour but every piece needed layers to get the excitement that the colour had in REAL life. 

On Tuesdays I often call in at the Mind charity shop in Hadleigh after pilates. I often buy something.  In this still life, objects from that charity shop are: the purple tablecloth that is the bottom rectangle and the jug above the orange. It took me at least three weeks to succumb to the jug, though. I planted the primroses in another jug from the Woolpit car boot.  

sketchbook project page - African Palette

I often set up my still life the night before.  That way I can sketch it quickly first and then sleep on it. 

House of Cacti, egg tempera on panel

This is the third of that bright object egg tempera series.  It is a smaller panel and the objects were arranged in a very convoluted way.  In the back is one of my old faves - a Cacti I drew years ago after visiting the Botanic gardens in NYC with my dad. The cacti soldiers marching East are from Woolpit but they are IKEA, apparently. Can you find the real cactus?

sketchbook project page - Mexican Table

 

Andrew, charcoal on paper, A4, RA live life drawing

And last night I tried something new… I projected the RA  live life drawing on the studio wall and had a life drawing session.

How the tiger got into the drawing.

Placid Stalking, pastel on prepared mount board, 30x33

When my day is uncomplicated it begins with an hour or more of drawing in my sketchbooks. As I draw I explore, I revise and dream about the future. I try to keep THOUGHTS out of my head but that's pretty tough.  On a good day the planning for what's next comes after when I look at what I've done. Drawing in my sketchbooks can mean something finished, or it can be something open and about the next idea. That can be because I am impatient to get on, or it can be because I run out of time, or because I want to retain something unfinished for later. The drawings below are the pre-drawings for the drawing above. 

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I added the tiger and used it later in the bigger more finished drawing. Here I paid no attention to scale. Perhaps all of these ideas will translate into a painting?

Objects as inspiration

Jugs, Egg tempera on Panel, 23x16cm

The husband of one of my friends is giving a course on hoarding.  We went to the car boot sale on Saturday and I couldn't resist a few more ceramic objects.  The vase below is one of them.  My mother is drawing objects too. She sets them up and creates beautiful zen brush drawings on her iPad. So does my sister and my brother and our daughter buys jugs when she can. My mother tells me one day she will take all her objects back to a charity shop for others to be inspired by.  Whatever, I can't help arranging my own and working in all kinds of media to create a story with them.

Sympathy in Green , pastel on paper, 46x46cm

Capturing the Weight of Flesh

 Erin is an athlete.  She is tall and slim with broad shoulders. As I draw I try to show the weight of the pose and that weight can be in the feet, the hips below the frame, forward or backward.  Esme is petit, slim and athletic. Erin (above) and Esme (below) are the models we drew at Sudbury life drawing this week and last. Because I've had a headcold and been very busy preparing for the Heart of Suffolk Exhibition, my expectations for product have been even less than usual.  I have tried to do one thing… to show the weight of flesh.  Colour, line, marks and gesture are some of the tactics I have used.

Using the Colour of Autumn for Seasons' Greetings

Fried Green Tomatoes, pastel on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 cm,October 2018

It's that time of year again when I need to send an image off for a christmas card. I had an idea to use red foliage but on walking around the property, discovered that we don't really have any.  I toyed with the idea of buying one of those bushes that turns flame red at this time of year...  I could plant it, I thought (after I gave it a haircut), but that seemed silly.  I  wondered about knocking on a neighbours door with my pruning shears at the ready, but that felt like procrastination. Instead  I gathered what we had and thought about how the shapes could create a different kind of arrangement. In the end I couldn't resist picking one of my roses, a daisy and a dahlia too. It was a confusing mish mash  that took more focus than ever to untangle.

I made a few changes to this image but it was too dark to photograph the final product, but you get the idea.

Domestic Bliss

Nectarine and Dahlia 15 x 17cm

So I am back in the studio! The garden is full of flowers and before I went to Maine i reorganised the place and can remember where I put everything! That means I can find my stuff and have the time to arrange things and draw them.  My objects speak about domestic bliss, perhaps? 

Life drawing group began again today so the morning was devoted to that but yesterday and today I made these two pastel drawings. I used some prepared paper that I found in a sketchbook and a box of Jaxell and Rembrandt pastels.  Nectarine and Dahlia was made after e next few weeks I hope to make a series of drawings with the aim that I will find a few to submit to the Pastel Society exhibition. 

Echinacea Autumn Tea 15 x 17cm

Slow drawing on a blustery Afternoon

Spring Flower Ceremony, pastel on paper, 16 x 16cm

The forecast for rain never materialised (until now) but it was dark, cold and windy and I had house tasks to help with. I had planned to walk around the shore and to stop and draw, but who wouldn't be inspired by the collections here - what a fall-back position. Mom lit a fire and I set something up in one of the living rooms.  I don't have much yellow at my house.  I found a Kantha with a yellow panel and a wild euphorbia to plunk in the lustreware creamer.  Aren't those figurines so cherry blossom spring? It got darker and darker and I didn't want to put on any other light. I can see that there are things I need to change in a few places but it's been the perfect way to spend my final afternoon on the island.

Looking Down on the Garden

View from Katy's Room, pastel on paper, 16 x 16 cm

I was determined to fit a drawing into my day today and as I was getting dressed I realised I have never drawn from an upstairs window. It was 8:30 am and the shadows made sharp diagonals and that appealed to me.  There were reflections on the glass to contend with and I had to sit down to avoid the window frame obscuring my view… I always stand.  It felt complex as I worked but I tried to think about the rhythm of light and not to get too bogged down with naming things. 

Cold drawing in Morning May Light

Cypress Boatshed and Atlantic, pastel on paper, 16 x 16cm

Before my second day of gardening, I went to the barn and retrieved my easel and pastels. I love coming back to my Maine kit.  I have things organised differently and it feels like a new beginning.  The views change a little every year too. Since drawing, Ben has pruned the cypress.  Today he will reshaped the box 'balls'. 

It was 8:30 and cold.  I didn't want to go in and get more clothes because I knew the light would change beyond recognition so by the time I came in my hands were tingling. There was dew on the grass that had got in through the holes in my crocs. And the fog rolled in, hiding the water and the trees as I made my last few decisions.

The Land, The Land

oil on panel, 15 x 20cm

It got almost hot today and I had a whole studio day.  I gathered my plein air 'kit' and walked until I found a vista that interested me. I began with a tonal study.  I was on an information gathering outing.  I had two small (6 x 8 inches) gessoed panels and thought I might be able to record something that would be useful in a studio painting later. That's what I'm exploring at the moment, using drawings and oil sketches as a starting point for a painting.

oil on panel, 15 x 20cm

Back in the studio I worked for a few hours on my four-canvas painting and when I'd resolved that for the time being, I turned back to my London river view.  I really liked it in its unfinished state so was quite hestitant to return to it, but the only thing to do is to keep going… the image below isn't really true to colour.  The sky is a light cerulean and the water is a muddy aqua. I used what I had so far, tried to remember what I felt about the place, used my drawings and my other oil sketch and referred to a photo. 

oil on canvas, 22 x 30cm

A few weeks ago I I drew in the same spot as above but the barge had gone and the sun was out.

pastel on paper, 10 x 6 cm