Painting Frocks (And Some Jackets)

Thurs 4th Feb

On thursday I began to tackle A Century Of Style , an exhibition I'd been to a couple of weeks ago at Kelvingrove. I was very taken by the exhibition, especially the mirror used so we could see right round the clothes, and thought they's be a good basis fr exploring space and composition as well as colour.

Two Frocks

Three Frocks

Masculine Red

These three paintings are the result and I am fairly pleased with them, but am aware they are a beginning - this is very much a theme I will be returning to later.

Inspired by Mackintosh

So the challenge of the day was to make work inspired/based on a particular artist - I chose Mackintosh, since he is such a local hero and his work is quite different from mine, loads of sharp edges and geometry as opposed to soft organic curves.

Relatively pleased with the results, learned a fair bit and the second painting's viewpoint is something I will develop into bigger paintings later on.

The Little Dancer

Degas is one of my art heroes and I knew as soon as I started this challenge I'd be including this little lady. I intend to do a whole series eventually, hopefully with her in various museums around the world, but to start with here she is in the Musee D'orsay.

(Rather enjoyed painted the little paintings in the background of the first paintings, and the man in the second - he really did have his feet in a very similar position to the statue! )

28 Drawings Of Cat - Day 28

Today is the last day so I've collected all the drawings together. It has been an exhausting month, starting when I had that horrid lurgy, progressing to a very enjoyable but tiring trip to London and then onto the last stretch where I tried to be much more experimental.

Along the way I have learned all sorts of things through the making, reading all the comments and looking at every one else's work. In particular, I am going to think more about the use of line and incorporate it more into my paintings. Graphite was easier to use than I remembered and I'm going to be exploring this more in future. There really is something about charcoal I really don't like and using it always feels like a battle, so I'm giving up that fight presently.

Here are all the prints I did - many failures, as you can see but I really felt I was learning while printing and later, bugging people with questions. I am keen to do more printmaking - it was so much fun, gives strong results for the time spent and will really let me experiment with tone vs line and composition.

Every year of the challenge it has been knackering but moves me on tremendously in my art-making, widening my ideas and techniques and deepening my understanding - so I'm looking forward to what the rest of the year brings and will be ready to start all over again next february - but who knows what challenges I'll set myself then?

Red Cat - day 27

The other day I was reminded that I have some chunks of burnt sienna. It can be a messy thing to use so did this in the studio, at an easel - the only drawing this month that has been and I think you can see the difference - more movement, more swing. I also used the whole width of the paper - still only a4 sized, but it'll be the biggest drawing of the bunch - for me charcoal, chalk and my bits of sienna rock are for big drawings - unlike ink, pencil and watercolour that seem to suit small better. There are always exceptions though - I can see possibilities in using the liquid graphite on a big brush, getting big sweeps of tone on the paper, then going in after for detail.

This kind of idea getting really has been the big benefit of doing the 28 drawings later every year for me - I'm all fired up with possibilities now and hopefully you'll all see the benefits in my work over the next year.

Oh, and I just had to do a cleaning one at some stage - after all, it's what she does the most, after sleeping.

Oil Painting of Mrs Cat - Day 26

Finished - maybe. For today, at least. At this stage I generally stop, put the painting up on my studio wall somewhere and see if it annoys me while I'm working on other stuff. In a week or two I'll take it down, have a closer look and either do more to it or decide it is done and put a layer of retouch varnish on it.

Then it goes back on the wall until I decide to either do more to it (it it's crying for attention) or send it to a gallery. Depending on how long it's been it then gets a final coat of varnish or gets taken directly to the framer.

After that it depends very much on other people what happens - although I have a sneaking suspicion I might just keep this one for myself!

Monoprint Failure - day 25

OK, so today is a cheat in that I actually did the print yesterday - but I had the ink out for the linocut and really wanted to experiment a bit more - that's what it's all about, right?

Sadly my experiments didn't go very well - there clearly is some kind of trick to doing monoprints, either that or the ink I've got is just too cheap - it was drying out before I had finished drawing. Also the charcoal paper I used was probably not the best thing as the lines on it have come through clearly. Again, more research needed - this is one of the reasons I like doing the 28 drawings later challenge - it gives me so many ideas to explore until the next one!

Linocat - Day 24

The lino was cut on sunday night in front of the telly, but I've not had a chance to try printing from it until today as I suspected it might be a messy business.

Which it was. Having never done any print making before the whole thing was new to me so I didn't expect quite so much mess at all the stages - from all the little bits of lino cut out to ink getting everywhere. I also didn't expect the ink to be quite so sticky and thick - none of the finer cuts really came out, sadly, but on the plus side the ink being thick has given the fur a lovely mossy look.

But I think I might read up a little before my next linocut.

Stretch - Artgraf Watersoluble Graphite - Day 23

This was done with water soluble graphite from Artgraf, that comes in a little tin I bought at the Royal Academy last week. I thought that graphite might suit a picture of kitty with the grey winter trees behind her and I am fairly pleased with the results although as always with new media I can think of a few ways to do better next time. I used a chinese brush, which is my favourite for life drawing - I can really see this stuff being very useful indeed in the life class, especially if using pencils as well. The finished work has a lovely granulated, slightly sparkly look, which might suit a future project I'm thinking about. So although not entirely pleased with this drawing really glad I did it as I think it will lead to lots of other, better works.

Paper Cat - Day 22

Finally caught up, day 21 done on day 21. And what an unexpected bother it was. Maybe I should have used glue, or photographed it, rather than trying to scan it, which meant thinking in reverse and trying to move teeny bits of paper around underneath other bits of paper. The blanket is of course her favourite and we shan't mention what she's doing.

Cat Statue - Day 21

Right from the start of the month I knew I wanted to do a little statue at some point. But I've never done any three dimensional making so wasn't sure what to use. Initially I thought I'd use fimo or clay, but then I saw some plasticine in the art store and since it was both much cheaper and less complicated it seemed like a better option.

However I may have bought too small a pack - this little statue is only a couple of inches high, so adding any kind of detail was pretty difficult, especially without tools. If I do it again maybe I'll use a pencil or something to draw on whiskers. Still, sometimes simplicity is a good thing, and thinking in three dimensions was a nice change.

Kitty Portrait - Day 20

Only anther week to go so I've looking back to see what I've done and what I've not yet managed - next week should have more experimental (for me) works, as hopefully I'll have a wee bit more time. I'm also getting more familiar with cat anatomy, which should allow a bit more freedom, and have already used all my normal ways of working.

One of the things I noticed I hadn't done was a close up, so here it is. Using white pencil in a tonal manner is new, too, of course, and more difficult than I expected.

In The Studio - day 19

A wee update of what is going on in the studio

Another layer has been added to the kitty painting - really just darkening the darks and finding the pattern on the blanket. Hope to finish this in one more go over the next week sometime - you can see the earlier stages at day 12.

In comparison with Day 3 there hasn't been any huge changes - two new tea cup paintings started, two much closer to being finished and one done. Various bits and bobs have been done on the portraits as well so that they are pretty much all at the stage where they have had most problems sorted and just need finished. I haven't had the time to do that recently though as need at least 4 uninterrupted hours - here's hoping the next couple of weeks will be better!

Yawn - Day 18

It has been a busy few days and I am knackered. So, it seems, is Mrs.Cat, so this is a very quick drawing from us today. I was trying to get some energy into the drawing, use the pencil in different ways and so on, will have to have a look how well I managed tomorrow.

Trafalgar Lion - day 17

A day late with this posting - not a lot of internet access yesterday, sorry folks.

Anyway, hopefully this chap is instantly recognisable!

Ruben's Tiger - Day 15

Today I traveled down to London so had no time to draw the cat. Instead, I went to the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy and drew the tiger from his Tiger, Lion and Leopard Hunt painting.

The exhibition was very interesting, had loads of different artists so you could compare styles as well as having sketches and drawings - very interesting to someone trying to learn how to paint better. Also the lighting was good for a change - no problems with glare, lso for most of the works you could get up real close.

I'll be down here for the next couple of days, so will do my best to keep drawing cats - just not mine!

Valentine Kitty - Day 14

It's Valentine's Day and I thought I'd share the love a little to the cat. But I don't think she was very impressed by her rose and she tried to eat her ribbon. Oh well.

You Dancin? Day 13

This morning I got the ink and dip pen out to see if I could capture how kitty looks when in play mode - we did a little photo shoot last weekend and I've been itching to use these photographs.

I really wanted to get a sense of movement so thought I'd layer the drawings. The first two worked well together but I'm not so sure about the third (on it's own) drawing - but it is an experiment, and something I may try again or incorporate into a painting - we'll see.

For me it is also a relief just to draw in line - I know teachers really really hate people doing this and I know you don't get the sense of depth or tactile qualities that tone can give you but it is just so much simpler and easier and I think more suited to momentary things. What do you think?

Starting A Painting - Day 12

A little slide show of a painting that I started this morning, showing the stages of the first stage of a Jane painting. It seems to run too fast, so will post each photo seperately.

First is the drawing, squared from photoshop, using watercolour pencil.

Next are the darks - if it doesn't read at this stage, then I need to go back to the beginning, re-draw, re-think. Not this time, though!

Then I add the mid tones, and generally things look much worse as the white of the canvas is still showing. In this case the white is oil primer on aluminium - an experiment!

Lastly I add the lights - these are much darker than they will be eventually, same as the darks are generally not as dark. Everything is grey/brown as well, so I can judge easier the colour of the next layer easier - in this case, there will be lots of blue toned greys and black, which is why the colours here are more brown, which should add a bit of contrast.

At this stage I stop to let things dry and for me to consider the painting while stuff is still changeable. It'll probably lie about my studio for a week or so while I work on other stuff, then hopefully I'll be able to finish this in one more layer, maybe two.

Reach For The Stars - Day 11

After yesterday's drawing I had a wee think about what it was I hated about charcoal (the mess, the difficulty in getting different tones, the lack of accuracy) and on spotting a big thick bit of charcoal in the box thought I'd try a diffemore direct approach.

And enjoyed myself much much more.