Black and white to colour

More progress on my new drawing, which I think I'm going to call 1947 Ford.

I'm playing around with a colour version too, this is the start of it.


My working title is 'long golden'.

I've been trying out ideas for colour work in my sketchbooks, I've an idea of calling this one Golden Stretch, or something like that. The foreground tree has the presence of a figure for me, which is something that happens quite a lot with my tree drawings.


Both of the colour works are pure colour pencil, using Coloursoft and the wonderful Luminance.

Oak tree without a name...

This is as far as I've got with my new drawing...

It hasn't got a name yet though.

GOLD (HOPEFULLY NOT THE FOOL'S KIND)

I'm working on a small mixed media piece at the moment, having just finished the Shap Abbey drawing. I wanted to try and stretch myself a bit again, and try something new. I'd already painted a small piece of acrylic pre-primed board with gold acrylic and acrylic ink and begun drawing on it with dip pen and Indian ink. Then I overpainted the shiny acrylic with acrylic gesso (the ink rubs off the shiny acrylic surface really easily, which is good for amending bad lines, but not good for permanence).



I like the contrast of shiny and matt between the glossy acrylic and the gesso, though I'm not sure how this type of layering will age. I've made a point (as always) of using only the best quality materials with best ratings for permanence and lightfastness, but there's always the element of the unknown with any experiment.

When the gesso was dry (it dries fairly quickly) I flicked gold liquid acrylic with a stiff brush, then began working again with pen and ink.

I'm pushing on with this piece, though I think it's a touch bitty and vague at the moment, there isn't much drama. But I do like the constrasting textures of shiny and matt, and it's making me think about how I can use this in future.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING...

I'm keen to find a personal style, perhaps a more distinctive style, for my artwork. Because the only medium I've really worked at with any steadiness over the years is pen and ink, my colour work is lacking in direction and impact.

I'm also aware that I'm lacking any real philosophy in my artwork, and that I don't really have an intellectual approach. I have ideas but they're not really heartfelt enough for me to get obsessive over them, or to really believe in them enough to carry them through.

One idea I'm toying with came about through my photographing work in progress, especially the mixed media pieces I've been doing. At the moment I'm working on 2 very different approaches to a landscape based on a photograph I took of a seaweed strewn beach. Posted here is the mixed media approach, two stages of it plus various detail shots. Today I've been working on another image based on the same photograph but worked in coloured pencil. I've posted work in progress on my Flickr Page.

Whilst I worked today and yesterday I've been listening to Radio 4 Sports Xtra's coverage of the Ashes. I got into cricket in 2005, when the BBC still had TV coverage rights. I watched it with my Dad, who explained the basics to me of this complex game. This year is the first time I've been able to listen to it since Dad died in 2006, I'm enjoying it, but the enjoyment is bitter sweet as it brings back so many memories. I guess this will always be the case.

RBSA PRIZE EXHIBITION

Dark Water, Cumbria, one of three works exhibited at the RBSA Prize Exhibition

Last Thursday I went with Mum to see the Prize Show at the RBSA, where I have been lucky enough to have 3 pictures accepted for this exhibition. This is the first time Mum has come with me to see my pictures exhibited at the RBSA and I think she enjoyed the show. It’s a nice selection this year, mostly figurative work, all of good quality or better than good, plenty landscape and a little abstract work too. There is also a small selection of sculpture, and a few interesting constructions, the one I really liked was a mixed media piece called ‘Necklace I “Treasured”’ by Kathryn Pettitt (ARBSA), a long chain of mermaids purse shaped purses made in some kind of embroidery, each containing some token, it hung from the ceiling like a fishing net full of interesting mementoes dredged up from the sea bed. What appeared to be 3 small landscapes on the upper floor were actually embroidered pieces, immaculate things which I enjoyed looking at (by Jacque Wakely). There were many pieces that caught my eye, and I wish the RBSA could produce an illustrated catalogue, as it’s difficult to remember what was by whom. Two immense pieces that immediately got my attention were pastel drawings of disembodied heads rendered very slickly indeed on what looked like some kind of coarse pastel paper mounted on stretchers. These were ‘Nathalie’ and ‘Big Issue – Colmore Row’ by Oliver Jones. Each piece was framed in a Perspex box. They had an eerie impact, as well as being obviously virtuouso performances. Another piece I was attracted to, though it was on a much smaller scale, was an intricate and moody pen and ink drawing of what seemed to be a nocturnal scene, ‘Woodland & Water’ by Richard Dunne. I remember seeing work by this artist before, I particularly like finding pen and ink work as I specialise in that area myself, and you don’t very often come across pen and ink on a gallery wall. This piece held its own very well amongst the paintings, prints and drawings, it had a pretty hefty presence, and made my own pen and ink drawings seem much less substantial than I had believed them to be.

One other piece that sticks in my memory is a tiny work, maybe one of the smallest exhibited, it’s in the upstairs gallery in the far corner next to a window. ‘Silver Spoon’ by Deborah Pennack is a simple little still life of a spoon, and in the bowl is a tiny face. The self-portrait of the artist perhaps? The spoon and the gigantic faces were my favourite pieces in retrospect, though also memorable, and extremely impressive, were 3 paintings by John Shakespeare (RBSA). Two of these paintings are actually of the handing in day of works, presumably for one of the RBSAs several annual open exhibitions. It’s a familiar scene and a little startling to see such a familiar scene frozen into art on the gallery walls.

The RBSA gallery, which is in Brook Street on the fringes of the jewellery quarter at the top of Newhall Street, is about 15 minutes steady walk from New Street Station. It’s a shame I don’t get to go there more often because it’s a nice space, with the main galleries on two upper floors, while on the ground floor are smaller exhibitions of crafts and arts and a little café. Many years ago, when I was a student, the RBSA had its exhibiting space in New Street, a long corridor shaped gallery, narrow, dingy and smelling permanently of fry ups and cigar smoke. I used to go there when I was a student and often felt a little superior to the badly displayed work on the tatty yellowing walls. Today’s RBSA is light years away from that old space. And the selection for this open exhibition is of a very high standard. I’m proud to have my work exhibited here.

MARK MAKING AND ANCHORING WITH TONE

Once I got to the situation where I was actually happy with the way my picture was developing, I got scared. At first, time came to my rescue. There wasn't enough of it to work on my picture. Then when I had the time (or at least the slim crescent moon of an opportunity) the fear got worse. I began another picture, from a photograph that I'd taken last September in Scotland, of a beach I can't remember the name of now (I'll find out), a beautiful, windswept expanse of black volcanic rock and pinkish, almost white sand. I'll make a separate post about this picture later, needless to say the anxiety I had begun to feel about my North York Moors painting infected this new picture, because it very soon began to go wrong. Then, determined not to stumble twice, I pulled the Scotland picture into something of a decent state, and found the courage (literally) to work some more on my North York Moors picture.

I realise that often, my need to do something tempts me to rush on in my enthusiasm, and draw (or write) blindly, without really looking or thinking about what I should really be doing. The need to achieve something is so strong that I tend to get a bit headstrong when I should be more cautious or contemplative. This was in danger of happening with my picture (both of them). So I tried to look at it and think about those tonal values a bit more, and also to work at the picture bearing the whole thing in mind, as opposed to getting carried away with one little part of it. There was little 'parts' of my picture that I was quite pleased with, you see, the way you can get pleased with a line in a poem to the detriment of the rest of the poem. So I have to try to fight my vanity, even if this means letting go of that little patch of oil pastel that I really quite liked, but to think of the whole of the composition, how it works tonally (as that seems to be the key for this piece for me) and texturally too. Texture plays a big part in my memory of the moors, so I would like to convey this in some way with my picture, using layering and juxtaposing of the various media used (in this case oil pastel, coloured pencil (both in dissolved and dry state) and possibly later, Indian ink) to create a lively and co-ordinated image.

CASTLERIGG STONE CIRCLE, MIXED MEDIA

With my nose still glowing from the aftermath of flu, I have been working on my picture of Castlerigg Stone Circle, overdrawing and stippling in Indian ink to give more definition and contrast to the stones themselves and distant foliage. I then worked a little more in both coloured pencil and oil pastel, mainly on the distant foliage and misty hillside. One thing I've learned from this is that it is possible to find a happy combination of oil pastel and pen and ink, this surprises me, as I'd thought the pen would slip off the oily surface, or the nib would scratch and clog up, but this doesn't seem to have happened.

I'm also surprised by how quickly I've got to that fearsome stage, where I'm afraid to do anymore work to this piece in case I spoil it. This seemed to come much later when I was younger, or maybe it's the toffee-state of time that grows more brittle with age. I dread to think what the future might bring if this is the case, an artwork finished in the blinking of an eye? Maybe it's just that fear becomes more familiar a reaction as I get older, in which case, I have to be careful how I progress from now on, finding courage to proceed while at the same time, retaining the judgement not to rush ahead for the sake of it. This, I think, is one of the trickest aspects of artwork in progress.

The work as it stands so far. Not sure if I'm going to be working on it some more yet, probably best just to let it rest for a while before looking at it with fresh eyes.

Detail of the above picture - showing pen and ink work over oil pastel and coloured pencil. The yellow colour is underpainting in a mixture of gesso/acrylic paint and acrylic ink.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I've been experimenting with oil pastel, and mixing this versatile and quite comforting media with other media, such as coloured pencil, water colour, liquid acrylic and Indian Ink. I've posted a small piece on my website here.

Working from photographs, within the last few days I've attempted to escape the dregs of flu I've had since the day following Boxing Day, and also the apathy (and basically, dithering-sickness) that's the bane of my life, by begining a new mixed media piece based on a photograph of Castlerigg Stone Circle taken in September 2005.

Here's what I started with, the photograph, which was taken by my good friend G on his digital camera (I somehow lost all the ones I took at the same time).

Hauling myself out of apathy, I found this piece of paper which I stretched some time last year, I think I began a drawing on it, hated it, and painted over it with a mixture of gesso and acrylic paint.

I began working very loosely in orange and green liquid Acrylic and coloured pencil. When the ink was dry, I began working in a mixture of coloured pencil and oil pastel. As I was losing definition on the stones themselves, I began working in black Indian ink and dip pen on these.

Today I worked some more in a mixture of coloured pencil, using Derwent's Inktense pencils dipped very briefly in water so the colour is very dark and intense. I also worked with oil pastel, I'm using Faber-Castell Goldfaber Studio oil pastel and Daler Rowney's Artists' Oil Pastels, which are lovely soft, crumbly and give a rich covering of pigment.

Here's a close-up of the work to-date.