I’m using an A4 sketchbook for this, at least for the preliminary phase. I liked the effect of combining ink wash, pastel, and charcoal pencil so I’ve gone for that again. I sketched first with HB pencil then applied the … Continue reading Part 4, project 2, exercise 2 Longer study
Quick sketches of live model. For all sorts of reasons finding a model to sit for drawings has and will prove difficult but I do have one that’s always available and generally cooperative – myself. A couple of weeks ago … Continue reading Part 4, project 2, exercise 1
In the absence of people to draw for the first part (I’ll come back to it), I’ve made a start on Part 2 and since I’m not going to use nude models but still need to find anatomical form that … Continue reading Part 4 Project 2 exercise 1 – form
Breugel‘s Winter landscape with skaters and bird trap 1505; Monet‘s Grand Canal, Venice 1908; and Stuppin‘s Catskill Moon 2013. Three landscape artists whose images caught my eye when I was trawling for examples of the genre. I already knew of Breugel and Monet but hadn’t come across Stuppin before and actually thought it was one of our local artists, Sarah Duffield who uses very bright and largely unrealistic colours for her work. I was driven to have a go myself on the black sugar paper I’d pasted into my sketchbook, just to see what would happen. These are Faber-Castell pencils and … Continue reading Part 3 Project 2, landscape
Sketchbook walks. It’s still a bit nippy hereabouts, also damp so this was quite a sprint. And my biro gave out so luckily I had a piece of conte about my person, as you do. This is a quick gallop round the village at around sunset so when the sun appears there are long, deep, shadows. Otherwise it’s a grey, dismal, flat light. I can’t say this is easy, compared with sheep which are a doddle because of where they are, for quick sketches, I find streets over-stimulating – too many lines, too much material, and too unaccommodating in … Continue reading Part 3, project 2, exercise 2
Clouds. The day I started this exercise there sky was completely cloudless so I’ve resorted to some photos I took earlier. I really like the clouds we have here; flat bottomed things that often appear in regiments following the river valley as if they’re mirror images of each other. I can imagine some of them as intergalactic tourist boats come to look at us the way we do at fish. White and grey charcoal on black sugar paper. Inktense on parchment coloured sugar paper. I keep forgetting sugar paper is very absorbent so there’s not much fluidity for the likes … Continue reading Part 3 Project 2, exercise 1
Replicated from a previous post in which my ability to keep track of my parts, projects, and exercises was exposed to be lacking. After some tutor feedback encouraging experimentation (also ‘try not to make a picture’ but let’s park that one for now!), this is what throwing acrylic gesso-prepped support [<– new word for my artist’s lexicon], pastels, oil pastels, and inks looks like in a first draft [is there a word for that?]. The white strokes down the centre are new gesso as I’d messed up (in my view) the transition between the first object and the second. When … Continue reading Part 2, Project 3, Exercise 3
I’m feeling enormous resistance to this exercise; partly because static objects bore the socks off me [and I know they shouldn’t but there you go], and partly because it takes two pairs of glasses to switch between the looking and the drawing [grr]. But, after having a word with myself about sucking it up and getting stuck in, I ripped a piece of bark off a large section of log I use as a door stop and deployed my secret weapon – a ‘brass rubbing’ of the surface to give me the guidelines. This is 6B pencil + Faber-Castell coloured … Continue reading Part 2, Project 2, exercise 1 – natural objects, detail and tone
Going tiny today; two ceramic birds that fell off a wind chime in the garden, a shell, a pencil, and an eraser on a black paper background. The sketch took about 10 minutes because I’m trying to be quick and loose (careless? casual? nonchalant?). 9B pencil and my trusty Derwent battery operated eraser with a new bit in its teeth. Conte crayon with objects picked out using the eraser. Similar quality to those first photos of Ultima Thule! The next page is that (totally self-inflicted) mauve. And the still life has been rearranged; cheers Flora. I set out to pinch … Continue reading Part 2, Project 1, Composition 3
A pair of quick sketches just to see what I could achieve by being a little less concerned about messing up sketch books. This is [please forgive me!] the Parrot Sketch* I covered the paper with orange and yellow charcoal to break the pristine feel of the white paper, dribbled yellow ink down the centre where the parrot – a balsa wood object that I’ve repainted several times and now sits in my conservatory in front of a large red container I’d given to my parents some years ago and that came home after they died. They’re both surrounded by … Continue reading Part 2, Project 1 – Composition 2
Strayfish Arts 