Getting the whole figure in

When I begin a drawing I don't look long enough before I begin, and I am sure I was taught to do this.  The truth is I am usually so excited by what I see in front of me that I begin drawing what interests me and work from there. Antony Williams, who taught a portrait workshop at the NEAC recently, begins with the nose.  I don't have a go-to body part! This time I made a few marks at the head and the feet to fit everything in.

 At my classes with Mick Kirkbride on Friday evenings I felt self concious because I didn't always get the whole body on the page. Of course there is no reason to always contain the whole figure on the page, and Mick encourages us to say zero in on the chest, but that sort of intentionality hasn't always been part of my practice. The composition is creted by holding up two fingers and squinting through it and then just getting going intuitively. So today while I was warming up I decided to get the whole figure on the page.  The portrait black and whites are both ten minute poses and the paper is A3.  The square in 30 x 30 and that was a five minute pose.  Mick taught me a system to help me do this and if I look carefully and count at the start I can do it!

The last pose was 30 minutes and I wanted to work in colour.  I also wanted to use some new chalk pastels I had bought for a song at Atlantis art. I started with my thin vine charcoal and thought about the tones then started with the turquoise and was quickly juggling orange, blue and puce.

Turns out sketching on holiday in Orkney is possible

Down From Old Man of Hoy 7.7.17

Dwarfie Stane 3.7.17

In preparation for our trip to Orkney with our friends the Hawkins, I hurriedly created a new altered sketchbook the afternoon before we travelled. The words on the spine are Histories Book One and it was the title that helped me to choose the book. Of ocurse you can imagine the pattern and the colour appealed to me. I think I may give it a different name eventually.  I have painted over the title for later. Pages are only 13 x 18cm and I glued and gessoed first and then tinted with acrylic and schminke pastel ground, taping around the edges with removable tape. that way I was ready to begin each day.

Near Tomb of the Eagle 4.7.17

Nousty Sand, Rousay 6.7.17

Orkney Museum Garden, Kirkwall 5.7.17

Sketching while others in the group aren't is a little bit challenging in that I am not very good at asserting myself or rocking the boat, and I hate to miss anything the group does… so I only drew when it fit in with the rythmn of the day, while we were eating our sandwiches, waiting for a boat or a car, early in the morning, when someone else wanted to do something different so we were waiting. As a result I didn't so much find my spot as find something in the spot that was interesting. Also there was time pressure, so some of these sketches were made in ten minutes, others half an hour and I spent about an hour on one. My goal was to say something about the place.

Overbigging Orkney, 2.7.17

Path Midhowe Beach 6.7.17

Rackwick Beach 3.7.17

I took my pastels and a few pieces of charcoal in my two vintage tins. I limited my palette. What I did differently was I used the charcoal to think tonally before I began using colour.  I learned that from Melissa Scott-Miller, NEAC by watching how she worked in her plein air painting during the workshop she taught. 

Waulkmill Bay, Beachcombing 8.7.17

Finding my way in other's techniques

Fen - 65 x 46cm, pastel on paper

 Fully realising that I have never attempted to make portraits, I started this week by inviting a friend to sit for me.  I transformed a corner of the studio into a room and primed a large piece of Fabriano paper with a bubblegum pink. I drew Fen for two hours with pastel and then after she left, spent a few more hours working from the set up. This is not finished, but I think it represents an exploration of using the model to create a story, a likeness, something beyond simply a colour study.  I don't know where this will lead but I feel I need to explore some of the things I have learned over the last week.

Feven - 16.5 x 16.5, pastel on paper 

Feven - 13.5 x 20.5, pastel on altered book page

Today I did two small hour studies of Feven in pastel.  The first is in a square sketchbook.  The second is in my altered book.

A Week of tuition and travelling

As part of the New English Art Club scholarship, I am encouraged to attend as many of the NEAC classes as I can. I chose five out of six to attend, the sixth was during my open studio.

Ruth Stage taught her version of egg tempera and gave us each a sized and gessoed MDF panel to use.  Some of us went outside into the stifling heat and drew durng our lunch break, others copied something.  I discovered that the rubbish bins were just the right height to work on. Egg tempera is a fascinating process and it seemed to me that I should try to work the way I do in preparation, with a plein air sketch.  When I met Gabriella the next day she told me she doesn't like egg tempera because she finds it tacky, I sort of understood, as I made a sufficiently tacky painting in my attempt. Working from drawings without changing, inventing, adding to is always problematic for me; doing this with an egg yold and pigment was doubly complex!

Ruth Stage NEAC 

Seeing Ruth's egg tempera paintings after hearing her talk about her process and experimenting myself capped off a fascinating day and made me appreciate her work even more.

We went outdoors with Melissa Scott-Miller to find what makes Carlton Terrace characteristically itself.  Melissa wanted us to find landscape still lives.  Many people brought oil paint, which was what Melissa used.  I brought my tins of pastels and a chair. The light changed throughout the day and was it ever hot! I found I got bogged down by drawing accurately because I was drawing architecture and struggled to keep things open and energised. It was fascinating to see how Melissa works.  First in charcoal then with paint.  She  seems to use the black of the charcoal in her painting.

the start of Melissa Scott Miller's plein air painting of Carlton Terrace

Wednesday was life drawing with Julie Jackson. We started with quick poses in charcoal and then an hour pose where we covered the page in black and worked removing the black to make marks. For various reasons I had trouble making an interesting drawing woring into the black. In the second half of the day we used ink in five cups with different dilutions of ink to create tones. 

Thursday there were no workshops and I went to my portrait group.  I decided to work in ink to see if I could use it to capture something of Feven.

Antony Wilson taught portraiture in black and white to our group. We made 10-15 minute drawings first and then Antony showed us his technique. 

The second half of the day we made a more sustained drawing of the model's head, life-sized.  Antony wanted us to try to take some of his techniques onboard which I tried to do, but with very limited success!

Open Studios 2017

Open Studios Saturday,  pastel on paper 16.5.x 16.5 

It's the second Saturday of Suffolk Open Studios and I've had a few people today. In a break from the trickle of visitors I stood up my plein air easel (that I use as a table for drawing) and got out two trays of pastels I hadn't put away from previous drawings.  I chose seven pastels but ended up with about 16 and tried to make order from the view out of the studio door. 

Yesterday I took a class with Neil Pittaway at The Mall Galleries as part of the NEAC scholarship. His main task was to make thumbnail sketches of various paintings and then to draw them together into something to use as our own art.  In a funny way that's all drawing from life is. I see lots of little vignettes bumping up against each other here and the challenge is to make them into a whole.

When Craig Jefferson was talking about his paintings he talked about how he chooses a different background priming colour.  His very vibrant picture began with yellow so I began with a lime yellow today.

It's a beautiful day and I look forward to a big run at five pm.

A departure - drawing a clothed model

charcoal on paper 17 x 17cm

A few weeks ago a circular went around asking if anyone wanted to share the cost of a clothed model to draw, for portraiture. When I finished my Still Red Room pastel, I thought I might like to set up an interior in the studio and possibly hire a person to sit for me in it.  Then I went to Maine and now it's open studios so I haven't tackled a new big project yet. 

Today I went to this new group.  I was hoping that the model would be in a really inspiring setting, wearing wonderful clothes but she was in a portraiture setting. She has a compelling face and the light was beautiful.

I began with charcoal. I haven't drawn a model in this way in years and years. I thought I'd work tonally. It's a three hour drawing session andI was working on the top of my pastel 'table', a box easel with the easel part taken off so I couldn't work on anything big on that. I had brought a few sketchbooks appropriate for life drawing shorter poses. Never mind.

It turns out it doesn't matter how long the pose is.  I can begin again in a different way when I'm done.  The second drawing was on book pages.  Teven, the model,  liked that one and took a photo of it.  The final drawing was looser and I rearranged the room in my head and thought of Dorothy Eisner.

Pastel on book pages 13.5 x 20 cm

pastel on paper 16 x 16 cm

Sometimes there's no time to look for another colour

16.5  x 16 pastel on paper

Back to the discipline of the ticking clock, the fleeting pose and Sue calling, 'change please' before  I have managed to tie things together sufficiently.  Begin again. Today I forgot me tea.

I love to draw Emily because her poses are so natural and believable, but creating the mood in colour in ten minutes isn't always possible.  In a ten minute pose I need to choose a book to draw in, find a backgrouind colour that feels 'right', choose seven or so colours and begin in a place that will make a strong composition. 

Very often I find I mis-measure as I begin making marks.  I go round and round on the page adjusting with each subsequent mark. Sometimes my figures are not in the right place.  I may choose to rub things out or I may try to find a way of making bad placement work.

Today was a day of feeling like I never had quite enough time to finish, let alone choose colours or think composition.  There were six ten minute poses and one 30 minute pose. Sue had placed Emily in my favourite location, in front of the mirror, so there was plenty of complexity, too much to understand things, which is the way I like it.

With any luck there will be something that interests me in each of the drawings, something that I may be able to use somewhere in something I do later.

17.5 x 17 cm, pastel on paper

17 x 19 cm

13 x 13 cm

13 x 13 cm

17 x 19 cm

17.5 x 17 cm, pastel on paper