Recent life drawings

Drawing on the road

We went to Cornwall last weekend and this time I took my pastels. While H and P watched the rugby at a pub, I sat outside at a picnic table in the wind and drew. The beach was bursting with activity as it was the start of some nice weather.  Lyra even dipped her toes in the water. I limited myself to using some new Conté à Paris colourful but hard pastels and some rembrant grey tones. These are 6 1/4 x 5 1/2 ins.  

Again, while H, P, Steph and Ben watched the rugby and some revised for their AMK, I looked for something to draw. The boys keep their glasses in the window that overlooks the neighbour's house.  The Conté à Paris were in the car so this time I had my big box of assorted very soft pastels and no eraser.

Orlando Still Life

These daily drawings are small.  5 1/2 x 6.  I am trawling through photos I have taken, looking for inspiration.  I change them from RGB to grayscale so that local colour won't distract me and project them on the wall so that it feels as if I am looking at the scene.  I try to forget anything I know. This time I opened a page of Matisse, Le peintre et son modèle: Interier d'atelier to find the first few colours, then I diverged. 

Once I was finished I was suddenly uncertain. Was it childish and naïve, or successful? It was fun to draw and as I look again it keeps my interest. I'm falling in love with this way of working, as the rain falls and I have little desire to go anywhere else.

Yesterday I reworked an earlier drawing of the barn table, that was trapped in local colour.  I painted over colours with surgical spirit and then began again, trying to find colours that would evoke the scene instead of colours that were correct. 

Applying what I've learnt in life drawing

Earlier in the week I heard that I will be showing some work at Stowhealth, a local health centre that has rotating arts events. http://www.stowhealth.com/artist.php

I showed in their innaugural show, quite a few years ago.  It's fascinating to look at your work in the context of 'what will I show?' 

What I noticed as I looked over my more recent work was that because my monotypes aren't a feature of what I'll call my 'finished work', I haven't been drawing interiors or stilllife much, both of which are pretty central to my work. Once I made that connection, I wanted to begin, applying what I've been doing in life drawing with those other motifs.  

When I went to see Jo, my wonderful artist friend, framer, we chose one of these new interiors with figure.  I didn't scan it but this is today's little drawing.  When I got stuck I looked at Dorothy Eisner.

Collage to fused plastic

 Pauline Manders, author and my neighbour, comes into my studio regularly, so she sees what I'm up to and occasionally I show her things that others might not see. I am interested in versions of things and how to translate between media.  Colour studies became mail art books and pages of books become fused plastic collages. Pauline likes to see the progression.  It helps her to understand the end result.

To see what Pauline is up to, visit her blog.  I make her covers! http://paulinemandersauthor.blogspot.co.uk

painting from drawing

The first job is to look back over what I've done before.  I was surprised to see that in my paintings value and line  have been very secondary to my thinking, not always, but often.  My drawings are about colour too but line and value are much more dominant aspects.  So, I decided to work on that.

the top painting is very close to the original drawing.  The one below began with a drawing and then took on a life of its own. 

Drawing in colour

In the split second after a model strikes a pose, when you know you will only have minutes, to tens of minutes to say something, grabbing colours can be almost arbitrary. I usually start with three colours and then choose the next few to get a range of values and to complement my first choices. Sometimes the model is really quick and I barely have time to choose the first few and rely on what is in my hand to begin again.

I am starting to draw in order to paint, although in that split second I don't think I'm thinking about anything like that.  I am just trying to get the shapes in the rectangle to work together.

 Not all poses or choices work, but a piece of something unsuccessful may inform something later.