The Long Pose, Heatherleys and colour studies with Sarah, NEAC Drawing School

Sarah, charcoal on paper 53 x 75 cm

I arrived late at Heatherleys and found a place far back with a slice of the model between two easels. The light was beautiful and Sarah was fun to draw. Antony Williams let me get on with my drawing for the most part, his insights, or even just having him stand next to me, made me see things I needed to change. I could see better than I am able at the Learning Centre, in a light infused space and I never tired.  I stuck to willow charcoal, using my various erasers, measuring distances in my head, looking for shapes, trying to see marks to make, squinting most of the time, I'm sure. All in all, above was probably just under four hours of drawing and looking.

Pose 1 9.10.17, pastel on paper 16.5.x 16.5 cm

The model was on a stool for the first pose and I was very close.  I mostly just put wedges of colour together, having a hard time fitting the part of the model I wanted on the page onto the paper. I did a lot of erasing with my putty rubber.  It was a joy to use colour ater a day of charcoal, though.

I think the top pose is more successful, I had longer.  I was looking down on the model for the second pose and began with an almost  flourescent pink chalk. As I drew I kept thinking about the Buddha I had bought at the car boot sale and drawn recently and that was a little distracting, but made me smile.

Pose 1 9.10.17, pastel on paper 16.5.x 16.5 cm

Sunrise Over Suffolk Poplars

Sunrise over Poplars - monotype: Akua Intaglio  on zinc, printed on Heritage 215gm paper, 10 x 10 cm

When the wheat fields were still growing, not yet dry or harvested, I made a little sketch of how it felt, what I saw.  Today I dug out the drawing and tried to remember the air, the light and the way the pinky orange rose up behind the poplar trees.  It was a Harry Becker morning, but there were no labourers in sight. I'm not sure if this will be the replacement print for the Miniprint exhibition. I'm going now to walk Lyra, look at the fields and find something else to say about Suffolk next time.

Watercolour another way

I spent yesterday in a light-filled studio at Heatherley's Art School exploring the properties of watercolour, mark making, collage and 'breaking the page' with Jane Lewis. 

http://www.janelewisart.co.uk/JaneLewis/Jane_Lewis_Art.html

Jane's paintings have a 'je ne sais quoi' that those of us who know her work find irresistible. As an associate member of the RWS, Jane agreed to teach a workshop to coincide with the members' annual exhibition at Bankside. 

I am not a watercolour artist, so it was fabulous to have a day to  think differently, to get inside Jane Lewis' head… And Jane was very generous, explaining her process and giving us license to test her approach. 

Like Neil Pittaway, Jane added colour in different ways, allowing layers to show through and demonstrated how the paper towel is like the eraser to charcoal, removing, some of what you have just done, leaving a trace. 

With Neil I spent my whole time removing and had nothing but a ghost of an idea at the end.  This time I was determined to celebrate the colour of my St Petersburg (White Nights) colours. I also brought and used Gouache, something Jane never mixes with her watercolours.

I was particularly interested in what happens when you paint onto a non, or not very absorbent surface.  Jane showed us how a piece of Pink Pig paper doesn't absorb  the same way 'proper' watercolour paper does, encouraging us to test this ourselves.  I had brought paper I had painted with oil paint and gessoed book pages to experiment on. 

 As I began trying out the watercolours I realised how similar the process felt to my fused plastic.  Although usually not involving paint until the end, I felt I wanted to cut up what I had made, to reassemble it even stitch it together. At the end of the session I had time to do that with what I had made and what I had brought.

Petals fall as I paint

Yellow Dahlias pastel on paper, 28 x 28 cm

This is the second time, lately, when I have integrated the serendipity of petals falling in my drawing or painting.  I suppose it says as much about how long I am spending on drawings (or my stop and start schedule) as it does about compositional elements and colour in a drawing or painting. But I find it interesting.

It usually takes me at least half an hour to arrange what I want to draw.  Then I stand in front of it and find the view that is most compelling. Sometimes it's hard to tell, so this time I used my camera to take a series of pictures and then reviewed them in Bridge before I assembled my drawing table. I stand when I draw so I will often stack boxes to change the height of what I am looking at. My studio is getting more and more crowded as I move my mother-in-law's furniture from storage  to create room like set ups.  The latest object I've brought indoors is a metre high corner cupboard.  This still life is on top of that. 

I have been searching for figurines at the car boot sale.  When I was in Maine I discovered my mother's wonderful Asian figurines and incorporated them in a few of my drawings. I seem to feel I need some of my own.  The Buddha is the only one I've found so far and I had to break my £2 rule to acquire it.

I began this drawing on Monday afternoon when we returned from Glasgow. I had chunks and snippets of time and kept coming back to it, but never drawing if it was too late in the day so that the light was different.  

I sold a few things last week: an oil on paper that Henry from Art Unlocked had as well as one of my mini prints at the mini print exhibition at the Garage Gallery.

Bouquet Afterstudy A,  oil on paper

Nightlight Battisford, monotype, Akua Intaglio on paper

Arran with a few pastels

From the table in Ardbeag, Whiting Bay, Arran 29_09_17, Pastel on book page 

Just back from a whistlestop tour on the Isle of Arran.  In the morning I got up early and tried to make sense of the view from the kitchen table.  The weather in Arran is capricious and the clouds moved across the sky as it changed from pale orange to grey and blue.  Trees and shrubs fringed my view of the water. I had to put my pastels away  before I had really suceeded in pinning down what I saw so we could eat.

From the bench at Whiting Bay, Arran, 29_09_17, pastel on book page

After we returned from climbing Goatfell, Jonny encouraged Hudson and Figgy to swim. We had walked about five hours and shopped for supper.  I didn't go swimming but when they returned everyone told me I'd love the light and should go down to the water to draw, so I did.  It was never drawing weather again - they were right. I had much less time than I needed, but enjoyed every minute of looking at the horizon from the bench on the beach.

And this really is what it looked like from the top of Goatfell.  It was very windy and my hands were numb so there was no chance to draw.  Miraculously, the clouds and fog lifted for a few seconds and we had a bit of a view of the staggering mountain tops. as we climbed down, a rainbow touched the water.

Forced Breaks

Fan of Colour, pastel on paper 28 x 28cm

I've had a busy week +.  It takes me days to prepare for journal workshops in schools because I am so out of shape when it comes to that kind of thinking.  As Queen of the over-planners, this time I may have spent five days getting everything just so.  That means I didn't paint or draw, just made pages of my journal, cut copious amounts of paper and cardboard and worried. Once I was teaching I realised, as I always do, that if I'd just kept it simple… Still it was great to spend two days with little people and to be part of their energy. 

I had one day between that and the opening in Aldeburgh of the mini print exhibition which I have work in, and the Friday trip to London for Mick Kirkbride's life drawing in London. Yesterday I just about finished the cover of Pauline Manders' next Utterly book cover so today I could draw! I painted on thrusday and drew on sunday.  All the rest of my time has been a forced break.

Below is the painting I had begun before I went into school mode, initially right after returning from visiting Melissa Scott-Miller. On Thursday I worked until it felt finished. Of course it was like beginning all over again.  I couldn't remember what I had been thinking.  I did a lot of looking first. I promised myself that I REALLY am going to keep a day book with notes to myself. Luckily the colours I was using were still Ok to use form my palette.

The set up stayed up, falling down as the tape gave out and drying up, so that today there were a pile of petals.  I have been inhabiting the colours, though.  I went to the carboot sale on Saturday morning, as a treat, and bought the vase on the left with the zinnia (above).  That was my starting point. I thought this time I would make the set up on the table and keep it flat, that I'd bee looking over and down on it. I liked choosing fabric to create shapes and form, as well as colour - those Kanthas! I gessoed and put a grey blue coloured ground on three sheets of paper, all 29.5 x 29.5 less the tape. I chose the first to dry.

It's so intersting how when I am drawing and use yellow or dark blue I always hit a place in the drawing where I feel like it can't possibly work and I want to give up.  I persisted and I think it has a drama that might just be the result of the recent forced break.

A different way to begin a painting

Inherited Textiles Flowers Teacup and Vases, oil on canvas 27 x 35 cm

On Friday I collected work that hadn't been selected from one of those open exhibitions and tied that chore in with a studio visit to New English Art Club artist, Melissa Scott-Miller http://scottmillerart.com. Melissa had led a workshop earlier in the summer and from that brief encounter I knew that I wanted to visit her, luckily she agreed, she also offered to take me plein air painting and although it was wet, we managed to fit a bit of painting in to the day too.

Melissa begins her paintings by drawing in charcoal on her canvas.  I decided to try her approach as we stood in St Pancras station with our plein air easels.  I used charcoal and soft pastels to establish my composition and to pin down some of the confusing elements. We were there for a little over an hour before we were asked to move on by an official, so neither of us got very far, but drawing and watching Melissa draw was instructive!

Yesterday I set something up in the studio and began my canvas by drawing in charcoal and oil pastel/paint sticks.  Another thing that Melissa does that is totally different to the way I have worked before is that she doesn't use medium, she uses pure paint, so as I had at St Pancras, I did that again back in the studio. In fact, I used the same plastic plates I had bought when I realised I had forgotten my palette.  This process is much closer to the way I draw with soft pastel and I wonder if day two of this painting looks more like my drawings than my paintings? 

Drawing Alexis

I guess summer is coming to an end because the routine is returning.  Today was the first day back at my portrait group where I began drawing a new model, Alexis. 

Drawing the model has always been something done in silence, but in this group there is some talking.  It's interesting, you get to know the model more when you talk with them and I suspect the conversation helps you to see the subject differently.

I tried to think about some of James Bland's techniques, finding the lightest spot and comparing it in temperature and value with other parts of the composition.

Monotype experiment after London

Nightlight with Zinnias and Cosmos, monotype with pastel,  10 x 15cm

I took some work down to London for one of those open exhibitions yesterday and had a ticket for  Matisse in The Studio as well.  The drop-off was quick so I was able to visit many galleries on the way and after my visit to the RA. I went to London in a problem solving mood so was looking at technique and approach as much as enjoying the art. One of the artists I found at Panter and Hall was Christine Woodside. http://panterandhall.com/artist/christine-woodside/Available-or-Enquire I can't see the exact paintings online - the ones I saw were painterly and joyous and featured colourful flowers - they were strong.

I saw Matisse twice and ranged from Renoir to Lucas Arruda and Emma Stibbon, through the Mayfair galleries. 

Back home in the studio today I wondered what would happen if I put some clear gesso on top of a monotype to create the nightlight behind a vivid bouquet; I wondered whether I could suggest the joy of both nightlight and that thing that flowers do to me. With Matisse's Middle Eastern delight  in my head, I explored the possibilites. I found that the monotype didn't change and the pastels went down well. I'll explore this again.

Summer Corner

It's Labor Day  tomorrow and this house, this view, has that poignant summer feeling.  I can remember early September in Maine, when I was a child, and how we'd do all of our favourite things one last time before the end of summer and the drive back to NYC.  Our friends, the Sullivans, bought the house from an islander, Winslow, and lovingly restored it beyond its former glory.

Thinking of Deibenkorn, I played with their view, looking at a black and white photo, turning it over, reversing the shapes in my monotype way. My childhood friend Don designed the porch and another friend Michael constructed it. As I made the monotype, I was not only sailing into colour and light, but into the past and a place that I love.

The To and Fro

Zinnias and Fog day 2, oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cm

Painting after drawing after painting takes me down a different path. Each iteration throws up other conflicts and my personality is to jump in head first and thrash around until something feels right.  There are still some things to straighten out.. the bottom of the frame, for one but finding the right colour for the right place seems to be the challenge of the moment. Scroll back a few days and you will see what I mean. In focus, out of focus, painting and drawing all at the same time.

Sam's Asters and my Zinnias

Sam's Asters and My Zinnias, pastel on paper 28 x 27 cm

I have had a pad of Sennelier Pastel Card since Christmas 2015 and never used it. I'm not sure why I decided to do the next version of this Maine/UK still life using it, I've been meaning to try it but the colour of the ground has always put me off.  I like my bright pastel grounds.   Maybe I didn't think this still life would work, and that it might be the occasion to try something new. 

I cut the pastel card down to 30 x 30 and gessoed around the edge.  Then I moved the tape to the gessoed area once it had dried.  It was a naples yellow ground. You can't erase the way I have grown accustomed to erasing, but the pastel seems to stick to it amazingly and it takes many layers easily.

I did many things differently for this drawing. I began by printing a photo of the current set up and turned it upside down, chose some pastels and with my back to the still life, I blocked in underpainting colours. 

I set up my table easel near to the still life but also had my bouquet sketchbook with my drawing from Maine opened. You can see how I edited, moved things around and substituted from the original drawing. For example, the bouquet on the left is a mixture of the bouquet Sam gave my mother in Maine and a bouquet I created yesterday - the blue rose is an aster and there is a yellow echinacea! Bob's painting is behind the bouquets instead of the paper I had tacked up. The mug is a pewter mug with the handle from the agate wear mug. I found that the drawing just needed all of those changes.

reconfiguring a drawing experience

Zinnias and Fog, oil on canvas 35 x 27cm

 This is a couple hours worth of painting on an idea I have had for a few weeks. The question is, how do you take a drawing and make a painting with it later?

Today was the first day I have really had free to work in the studio since I returned from Maine. Even so I had to get some canvases ready, clear a space to work, water parts of the garden and do some grovery shopping.  In the end I only had a couple of hours to paint.  I would have gone on and I will return to this to see if I can resolve it.

I don't have the same objects here as I had in Maine so rather than work directly from my drawing, I decided to use my drawing to set up something reminiscent but different. I have never done that before. I don't have Bob's painting (behind the bouquet) but I have 'notes' in the drawing and I have looked at it often over the years. 

Sam's Bouquets, pastel on altered book pages (Bouquet Sketchbook)

Three days of workshops

So I've been in London again for most of the week, taking workshops with NEAC artists in the Mall Galleries learning centre, but we've mostly been outdoors doing things I never do. It's been hard and I like a struggle, even when the results aren't to my liking, but it's been hard. 

Julie Jackson's plein air 'painting the summer light' was set in St James' Park.  Most of the day was overcast but the sun did peek through around lunch time and it was that light that I tried to capture.  People came and went, benches were moved and because I arrived late (someone jumped in front of a train) I didn't have my distance glasses or my reading glasses, I had my 'occupational' lenses which are middle distance.

Julie was brilliant at planting seeds of advice that helped me through my stuck periods.  I liked painting at my smaller plein air easel but found the palette a bit small and I didn't really have the best brushes for the job.  This was my first oil painting outdoors from observation, ever and I think working bigger would be better for me.

 I had about a 1/2 hour to begin something else, the intention was to paint morning and afternoon light on two canvases,  and this was the start of another view from my easel. I enjoyed working looser and the blue ground was probably an easier base for painting. I didn't clean my palette and my turps was pretty grimy, but the scene inspired me more. 

 Neil Pittaway showed us the properties of watercolour in the morning in the learning centre.  We experimented on sheets of paper, blending, mixing, trying new techniques.  In the afternoon we went out to St James' Park.  Neil demonstrated how he works and we went off and found something nearby to paint. I enjoyed looking with a brush but I never got beyond watery nebulousness. Neil's work had so much variety and energy and hopefully I will apply some of his approach in the future.  This day mine was dreamily dull. Above is a detail. 

Yesterday was painting the figure with James Bland. James did a wonderful demo of approximating colour by comparing light, value and saturation.  His painting was full of colour. I found bending behind to mix my colour on a chair with the glare of the lights difficult, and my palette became a muddy mess. Stella was far from me and silouetted by a window behind. I ismply ran out of time to pull it together and looking at it there are many problems.For one, Stella is much, much prettier than this. Although this 16 x 20" painting feels disappointing and I will paint over it at the first opportunity, I feel I learned a lot from James.

Remembering London

Although I intended to paint using the drawings from my workshop with Paul Newland, it occured to me that a monotype might be a better medium than a painting for me to use to evoke a place . I also didn't have a canvas the right size.  So this afternoon I found my 8 x 6" zinc plate, looked at Maurice Pendergast monotypes and watercolours as well as some of Whistler's urban landscapes. I also visited Paul Newland's website again (looking for answers) and felt even more of a resonance with his work. You can see it here:  http://www.paul-newland.co.uk

I rolled two blues on the plate horizontally and removed ink with my sock, q-tip and the end of the brush.  As I worked I realized working 'backwards' with the chaos of the intersecting roads was almost impossible. When Patrick dropped in, I told him I was not having fun.  I was more confused than I had been standing on the street corner… Anyone who has stood where I stood would be able to point out the errors in this representation but I'm telling myself that maybe that says something about memory and the way we record things rather than my poor hand eye coordination!

I am hoping to make a second version, using the ghost on the plate, tomorrow.

Last Bouquet

Leicester Bouquet

While in Maine I nearly completed the Bouquet (altered) Sketchbook I've had kicking around for some time.  My garden is full of a hotchpotch of flowers and today I went to the car boot sale and found the man with the Leicester lock-up who was selling incredibly affordable textiles from India. I stuffed a bag with them and after pulling up thousands of stinging nettles and running with Lyra and Patrick I decided I should turn my attention to the final page of Bouquet sketchbook. I gathered an arm full of flowers and set to assembling textiles and studio paraphenalia. 

I intend to start painting tomorrow!

Drawing London with Paul Newland

Just back from a two day workshop with Paul Newland, thanks to the New English Art Club. Paul's  course description intrigued me.  However, it was with some trepidation that I went to London, the day after getting back from Maine, to draw plein air somewhere near the Mall Galleries. 

                                      

This is a 2-day workshop about investigation and exploration, it will take place near or within St James's, with the Mall Galleries Learning Centre as a base. The aim is to record your evolving perceptions of place. The space, changing light, architecture, traffic and human activity may all be seen in numerous ways and in the course of these these two days we want you to explore your own vision of these phenomena. This may be done with numerous studies, or with one large work. You may enrol for one day only if you wish. There will be a plenery session at lunchtime and at the end of each working day.

After speaking to Paul, my goal was to make a series of what I will call 'gestures' to establish a sense of place that I will work from to make a small painting back in my studio.

I stood across from a few dynamic streets so there was a stream of traffic between me and the subject.  I learned quickly about how big the closest buses are and how much they obscure what I am trying to see.  

Paul wanted us to consider 'space' first and although he asked us to use line to begin with, I used pastel. Without even deciding to, I edited much of what I saw.  The goal was to get many done quickly. 

Next I moved onto light and what I noticed was that the sky was the lightest area - a little swathe of blue might appear, but the sky was mainly white with grey punctuation.  The cream coloured stone of the buildings and the column appeared darker than I might expect.  I limited my palette in both cases as the light seemed to require that. I never felt finished and I have included everything I did over the course of the two days here, even the things that don't work!

All of the drawings are contained in an altered sketchbook I'd prepared the day before: A Silent Traveler in London by Chiang Yee. Most measure 12 x 18 cm - with one taking two pages, so 24 x 18cm.

Paul wanted us to capture elements of human activity and traffic as well as the architecture and folliage that characterised the space. He encouraged us to experiment, to gather a range of drawings.  As a countryside dweller and never having drawn plein air in a bustling place, suggesting, let alone pinning down a bus, a car, a person on their way somewhere else was thrilling, exhausting and difficult. I tried tone, I tried line and I tried colour. Much of time I was in full struggle mode trying to juggle all the competing demands.  I wished I knew more about perspective and spent lots of time holding my pastels up to check the acute angles of the roads, realising the scale was all wrong or the distance between things didn't make sense.

All the individuals in the group were drawing in different places and Paul had to find them.  He found me quite easily, I think, and he and I had a series of short talks about different directions I might explore and he helped me to see where something didn't work.

I have to tell you that to make the sight of me even more comical than simply a scruffy middle aged woman with a trolley and a table easel drawing in a book (with lots of people, traffic and delivery carts going by), I was wearing two sets of glasses, one on top of the other in order to see the scene. I believe this version of me is not an intimidating version, as I had many curious onlookers and quite a few conversations.  One young man took a panoramic video of me, my subject and all the chaos.  Another handed me his phone and asked me to type my name in it.

The person I spoke with longest was a man named Skye from Bejing. He designs museums and was in the UK for a month.  He had been to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London at least. He showed me some gorgeous photos of museum art, his parents and their acupunture images. We spoke twice, once before he played a game of table tennis with a man who found him on the street and then again after.  I nearly missed my train… 

Skye noticed that my book had Chinese writing in it, which you can see in the drawing below on the top page.  This thrilled him! We'll see what I can make of all of this… I'm not feeling very confident but Paul in standing by to give me input.

I took a slightly later train back.  After dinner I noticed the sun setting over the hedge - of course the light faded fast but it felt good to position my easel right outside the front door and to observe my non-urban view,the sun going down behind the hedge for a short time, pastels in hand, no head torch this time.