Self Educating in contour and watercolour

watercolour on book page, A Bold Venture

It's tempting to do the same thing and perhaps repeat the same errors.  I guess one of the questions the NEAC drawing scholarship has made me think about is what assumptions do I bring to my drawing that are interfering with my observation? I am learning (anew) to look critically at what I am doing in order to do it better the next time. Sometimes, maybe even often, I return from one of my life drawing classes, a workshop or a studio visit feeling quite inadequate. In a way I also feel like a performing seal who hasn't learned the routine. But, of course what I don't want to do is to perform.  What I do want to do is learn and progress.

One of my big 'fails' has been the three watercolour workshops I have taken part in.  The teaching was good but I didn't have the time and head space, at the time to test things in a way that was relevant to me.  I was trying to think like the teacher, because that seems to me to be the best way of getting the most out of a workshop. As a beginner with watercolour,  I knew after the workshops that I would need to do a lot more of it later - until now I haven't had that elusive time. I have been thinking about things though, and in preparation for my exploration, I bought something that I learned about from Rebecca (life drawing) called 'watercolour ground' to paint on surfaces so the watercolour adheres in a similar way to watercolour paper. While at Great Art in London one day, I found some Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground.  There were other varieties, but the one I bought was on sale and in a smallish tub, so afordable. There wasn't any white, though, so I bought buff titanium. I painted that on a gessoed book page in my ongoing altered sketchbook, A Bold Venture. 

Before beginning a watercolour, I began another project I have been wanting to start. My friend and mentor, Jack Heliker told me (when I had graduated from Stanford) that I should read Kimon Nicolaïdes' book The Natural Way to Draw, and complete all the exercises. Heliker and Nicolaïdes had both taught at the Art Students' League. In New York, I worked my way through some of the book.  Recently, I decided that alongside my current Drawing School learning, going back to Nicolaïdes would be a good discipline.

The rules for the first session (3hrs total, of which I did 1 hour) were that you needed to not look at your paper, to draw the contour with a very sharp 3B pencil and to work on a piece of manila paper 15 x 20 inches.  I couldn't find a 3B, so used a 4B and used a pink pig sketchbook, standing at an easel. 

30 minute contour drawing

Beause I don't hold my pencil properly, my hand got very tired.  My brain got very tired and in the first drawing I looked at my paper to find a place to start quite a few times. In the second drawing, below, my drawing became smaller and smaller, but I really tried to feel the contours.

30 minute contour drawing

After really looking for that hour, I moved over to the watercolour experiment. I explored the techniques Neil had shown us.  My book was on an easel, so it dripped, but I used paper towels and Q-tips to mop up. Lots ot think about… quite a challenge!

Green Scrolls

Whoop, Whoop, I finally have had a little time again and my studio and house are pretty clean and tidy.  The annual deadline for the Pastel Society has passed and that means I can turn my attention to the other media that I work in and although I am itching to paint, I wanted to explore an idea that's been buzzing in my head that I thought might be interesting.  There is an open submission coming up that it might work for. 

By titling these I have given you an in into what is in my head.  I didn't tell Patrick anything but showed him the top fused plastic collage and asked him for three words.  He looked worried, but when pressed, his first word was 'Chinese'.  I was so delighted by his first word that he never gave me the other two words. As I worked on the 'Green Scroll' over a few days, I began to feel something Asian in it. I wanted to play with the power of different colours in the arrangement.  I was thinking about my night light drawing. The medallions are landscapes and may tell stories.

Green Scroll II was even more difficult to realize.  I wanted a companion piece and as I worked in a similar way, the plastic melted differently, my shapes shrunk and contorted and when I finished working yesterday it was a mess.  The background colour began as yellow then became whites and finally today I masked the medallions with tape and painted in tones of blue and green acrylic paint to float the focal plastic shapes.

A Fan of Colour and Complexity

Fan, Figurine and Flowers, 16.5 x 16.5, pastel on paper

Yesterday was a Wednesday and I wasn't volunteering with the refugees as it's half term so I treated myself to a carboot outing. I bought a few things all for 50p or less.  There are four in this drawing. I used a little lighting as it's another overcast day.  The frame (Mick Kirkbride) helped me to organise the space but in the drawing and redrawing (Peter Clossick) I moved the fan a bit and it took absolute centre stage, which wasn't what I intended when I began. 

What I liked about the still life as I composed it, was the subtle repetition of form and colour and the way the white in the feverfew became the brightest spot in the drawing.

This drawing took me a long time but it was fun as there were many complex patterened spaces that were fun to work through. I chose 14 colours and two whites and didn't need to find any more asfter I'd started.  Because it's a small drawing and I wanted some detail I did need my pastel pencils in places. when it got too fiddly, I got my eraser out and removed the fiddle.

Drawing Practice

5pm Trafalgar Square, pastel on altered book page.

What with birthdays, anniversaries, and family visits, this week has been a case of snatching drawing time where I've been able to. Yesterday was a Monday NEAC drawing day.  I hadn't arranged any studio visits so I left later and had a few hours before drawing began to visit the National Portrait, to find Great Art in a wander around Shoreditch and to do a 40 minute sketch in The London Silent Traveller in London sketchbook, that I hope to fill up before the end of my NEAC term.

Peter Clossick has been the tutor at Life drawing for the past two sessions as Mick is away with his family drawing for a week. Peter helped me to think differently about my process and although the resulting drawings are certainly mine in feeling, while I was doing it,  It felt alien and challenging and the struggle enlived the process.

Life drawing (Sudbury Life drawing) at the Quay, Pete

Inherited culture working to a brief

Inherited culture, pastel on paper, 17 x 16 cm

Today's job was to build on some of the things I have learned so far on my NEAC year and to make something that could be construed as meeting the brief for 'inheritance', an juried exhibition at Norwich Castle Museum with a deadline at the end of the month.

I began by asking myself what exactly I have inherited from my mother.  These are the relevant things that I came up with: a love of flowers, a love of colour, a love of making things, a love of collecting things and a love of other cultures.  With that in mind, I gathered objects. The central picture is a photo of me when I was young that my mother gifted to me, from her collection.

While visiting Mick Kirkbride in his studio last week, I talked about how I am trying to internalise all that he says and all that I have discovered so far.  Last week at life drawing class I finally understood about how a ruler and a window can help me - that the angles and the position don't lie.

I began by framing my subject by holding up a cardboard window and checking the height, checking the angles with that and a ruler.  Wow, it was much easier to understand the space. I used Melissa's approach of composing the picture with charcoal (in places).  I kept checking with the rule and the mount. 

Another thing Mick talked about last week was the focus, bringing it in and out of focus to direct the eye.  Of course I think about this and make choices every time I draw, but today I experimented actively with it.

Another thing I've been meaning to do but until now havent…I wrote some things down in my day book! I chose 32 pastels and I used most of them. 

Seasonal Reds

Seasonal Reds, pastel on paper, 16 x 16.5 cm, 

As the garden wanes I've noticed that the remaining flowers tend towards the vibrant reds. So in October I find myself with dramatic arrangements that look forward to December and all that. For me, reds and pinks and fuchsias are colours I love to explore.  One year when I was in school I only wore reds for the whole month of December. Some people think putting all those related colours together creates a clash. As I assembled the objects, including the harlequin stripes, I just felt excited.

The drawing has been stop and start all week and bringing it to a conclusion has proved more difficult than anticipated. Luckily, I concentrated on the flowers in the first instance as the flowers as they are now are rather sorry. 

Hedge meadow picnic

Monotype: Akua Intaglio on zinc, printed on Heritage paper 10 x 10 cm

Every summer we spend time in the beautiful Suffolk Meadow we are 'babysitting' for as long as we can.  Earlier in the summer on one evening I did a little drawing and took a few photos to help me remember the space for later,  when it would change beyond recognition and would be too cold for sitting in.  We were hoping for the owls to come out on this particular evening but, alas, we didn't see them. Still, what could be better than a picnic in the field with a view of the ancient hedge, flowers from the garden and a tall glass of something delicious.

Patrick thinks I should use this one as my replacement for the mini print.  What do you think?