ROYAL BIRMINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTISTS

I'm very proud to announce that I've had 3 pictures accepted for this year's RBSA Prize Exhibition. It's an annual open exhibition held at the Royal Birmingham Society of Art's lovely gallery in near Paul's Square, Birmingham. It's about 10 minutes walk from New Street Station, off Newhall Street (where the old Science Museum used to be). Although I've exhibited in this open exhibition before this is the first time I've had 3 pictures accepted and I'm extremely proud and happy.

The pictures I've had exhited are all new works, two pen and ink drawings and the third an experiment with pen and ink combined with colour, it's called Silver Birch - Red, and I blogged about it earlier this year.

This little drawing here is an oldie, unfinished, but I liked the fragment and kept it in my portfolio. I thought it was St Ives in Cornwall, a place I love, both the place itself and the memories it holds for me, but now I think about it the drawing might be of Mousehall in Cornwall. I'll have to hunt out my reference material! I.e. my old photo'!

I've been spending a lot of time at Andrea Joseph's blog lately, I love her wonderful pen drawings, a fantastic blend of skillful observation and imagination. I do like it when she incorporates writing in her images, as combining words and pictures (storytelling to a certain extent) is an interest of mine.

Via Andrea's blog, I travelled across the webosphere to Flikr, and have at last given myself a kick and signed up for an account. I've posted a few artworks there, and was thrilled to find a few comments waiting for me there. Although I don't spend a vast amount of time on-line, I can see what an immense networking resource Flikr is. There are so many groups to join and so many talented artists displaying their work. My only problem is motivating myself to visit as often as I should. I try not to spend too much time on the PC these days as my ol' eyes aren't what they used to be. Also, I'm one of nature's hermits, and I'm afraid that I'm not as conscientious socially as I should be either. Nevertheless, it's heartening and inspiring to see what a wonderful creative place the Internet is these days.

Black and White

I've been busy getting pictures ready for competitions and open exhibitions I'm hoping to enter. One pen and ink piece I'm just about finishing, based on a photograph I took back in 2004 (5 years ago! Time frightens me) of a Cornish NT garden called Glendurgan, a beautiful sub tropical garden that leads down to the sea.

There's a place in the drawing that troubles me where the detail's got a bit fuzzy and any defining contrast has become lost. I'm thinking of trying to add a bit of definition with white body colour, but I'm afraid of causing more harm than good, so although my deadline is next week, I'm trying not to be too hasty. Once the deed is done there will be no turning back. That's the one thing about pen and ink, you have to get it right first time more or less, it's very difficult to right your wrongs.

I'm ever aware of the lack of colour in my work, and yet at the moment, just as the impulse is to draw instead of write, it is also to work in black and white as opposed to colour. So far my attempts to buck the trend have fizzled out as my enthusiasm fails me. One attempt, the Neolithic barrow I posted last month, is unfinished, though there are things I like about it. Another, below, in coloured pencil, has failed to spark my enthusiasm. Here's the work in progress then, but I'm not promising that I will ever finish it.

PATCHINGS IN THE RAIN

My 'studio' with various work in progress or waiting to be delivered to open exhibitions and competitions.

Today my friend G drove me to the Patchings Art Centre to deliver the 2 artworks (one mixed media piece and one pen and ink drawing) I've had accepted for the Artists section of the Patchings Exhibition. The weather was atrocious, and visibility down to almost nil on the motorway, and it took us almost 3 hours to get up to Calverton, just up above Nottingham, where the exhibition's being held. The arts centre seemed like a very nice place, based around a courtyard with a series of small studios, shops and a restaurant. Unfortunately we didn't stay long, but hopefully will return to see the exhibition next month.

Although it rained most of the day, we managed to visit Rufford Abbey and Country Park. The Abbey is maintained by English Heritage. Until the mid 1930's it was inhabited, and pretty plush too judging by the photographs on display on information boards, but since then it has declined and is now barely more than a shell. It's amazing that this can happen over the space of what is really the blinking of an eye. Makes you realise how fragile everything mankind puts on this earth really is.

Rufford Abbey Country Park also has a really lovely art/craft gallery space and an art school. I loved the gallery in the orangery, a beautiful, tiny space at the head of the formal gardens. When we visited there was an exhibition of ceramics accompanied by a soundrack of ambient music, looking out upon the rain drenced gardens made for an extremely peaceful and transporting experience.

On the way I enjoyed listening to England actually doing well at cricket. I discovered cricket during the Ashes tour of 2005, introduced to it by my father. Since my father died in May 2005 (3 years ago Friday) it's been too painful for me to listen again, but now I'm finding it a comfort. Radio 4 or Sport Xtra coveridge only though, as I don't have Satellite TV.

I do have Digital TV however, and watching the amazing Cesar Milan on the Dog Whisperer re-runs is helping me cope with the loss of Rossie. That man is amazing and the dogs are gorgeous.

16th Patchings Art, Craft & Design Festival

I'm extremely happy to have 2 works accepted for the 2009 Patchings Art, Craft and Design Festival. More details can be found at the Patchings website.

In addition to the 2 pieces which will be shown at the Exhibition which lasts from the opening of the festival on the 4th June until July 12th, I've had one drawing highly commended, this will be displayed on the website at http://www.patchingsartcentre.co.uk/

More details can also be found at my own website at http://www.kayfletcher.co.uk/.

I've got a few pieces in progress at the moment, mainly pen and ink, but I've also been experimenting with combining pen and ink with colour. The images below are of a piece called Silver Birch - Red. It's based on a digital photograph I took a few years ago, and is worked on board on an acrylic gesso base with pen and ink, then layering acrylic and pen and ink on top.

A Scottish Diversion

This is the picture I mentioned in my previous post, the one I began in order to divert myself from my Yorkshire picture.

Actually, it's not such a bad idea to have a few pictures on the go at once, it's useful to give yourself some distance from a piece, in order to gain the perspective necessary to judge it more accurately. The Castlerigg picture, for instance, is now looking a touch less impressive than it did last week. Too flat, too smooth, a bit clumbsy.

For the Scottish picture I printed the photograph on my inkjet printer, I had an idea that I'd like to do something that was almost black and white, perhaps to bridge my pen and ink work with the colour work I'd begun doing. So I begun by working on a white gesso base on paper, drawing in 3b pencil. The drawing was a bit lame, and the photograph, though clear, was confusing me. I wasn't doing a very good job of copying it, and this knocked my confidence somewhat. So I painted over the pencil, as had been my plan, in gesso again, made semi-transparent with white acrylic paint with a tint of blue. Then more pencil work again. Okay, but not brilliant. Another coat of gesso, just plain gesso this time, a thin coat just to stop the pencil from coming off on my sleeve and hand. I worked over the gesso and original pencil with coloured pencil, a nice set produced by Derwent, 12 Drawing Pencils, which are produced in earthy colours. They're nice to handle and the pigment feels rich when it goes on, but I'm not sure how lightfast these pencils are. I worry about the lightfastness of materials, and am trying to find out more about the archival properties of the materials I use. It's not something I used to worry about too much, but as I get older I suppose permanence is something which plays on my mind more. A few years ago I invested in a set of Signature coloured pencils, these are advertised as being superbly lightfast, but I'm not certain how coloured pencil, or oil pastel or that matter, would compare to the light fastness of say oil paint? Again, it's something I need to research.

The Scottish beach drawing has had its ups and downs so far, and as it currently stands I'm not too pleased with it. I made a tiny graphite sketch, in order to work out the tonal strengths of the image, and altered the viewpoint of my composition, as I realised that I had over estimated the amount of the photograph I could reproduce on my small piece of paper. I used a pallette knife and acrylic paint, more oil pastel and coloured pencil, as well as a little Indian ink and dip pen in an attempt to add a little crispness to those rocks, but so far I'm still a bit down in the dumps about it. I plan to have one last go at it and then call it a day.

The size of this piece by the way is approx 42cm x 33cm.

Standing Stone Picture almost finished, I think

I'm quite pleased with parts of this picture now. I worked more using oil pastel and Signature and Caran d' ache coloured pencil, mainly Diox Violet, which I dipped in water so it goes on mushy and rich, in the heat of working I did actually moisten the pencil by sticking it in my mouth, but I decided that this might not be the wisest thing to do, health wise.

I made a conscious effort to draw the picture together using tone and colour, in particular the rich reddish purple colour and texture of the heather, which I achieved by using coloured pencil and oil pastel. I was also aware that the 2 diverging pathways could open up the perspective of the piece, this, and the contrast of the pebbles/scree in pencil picked out on barely worked gesso ground against the surrounding almost impasto oil pastel work, are effects and themes which interest me and which I will be exploring in future pictures.

The one area where I'm uncertain and unsatisfied are the distant fields, most of this work was done in coloured pencil, with just a little overlay of oil pastel. I was unwilling to work much in oil pastel in this area, as I didn't want to flatten the picture, but at the same time, I'm not sure if the effect is a little more sketchy than I had wanted. I think I'll put this picture aside now for a short while, turn it to the wall like a naughty child, and check on it later. See how I feel about it then.





Oh, and while I'm here I should give the dimensions of this piece. They are 54cm x 37cm approx.

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.