WIP 16th Sept 2016

Another mainly drawing week - as you can see I've been doing more 12x16 inch drawings as I really like this format and am planning a little series - out of the 14 drawings I can see me painting about eight of them, to join the two paintings I've already done. (you can get a glimpse of those in progress back at the start of August ). I've also started planning some bigger paintings, but feel I'm still very much in the beginning stages of this - and I feel that I'm going to need some time and experimenting to get this right. So for the time being I'll mainly be sticking to smaller things, under a couple a feet.

Oh, and I've started tidying in preparation for the open studios at Hanson St on the 3rd and 4th of October - would love to see some of you there!

WIP 2nd Sept 2015

Mainly painting again this week - started four new paintings and done more work on six others, from changing the background to fully finishing. Eight of these should get finished over the next week and then I'll move on to finishing the five still lifes that have been in progress since before May. It will be a relief both to finish the uncompleted works and to get a batch of new paintings up on the walls.

Although I'm itching to get started on some bigger paintings based on the drawings I've done so far that might have to wait a few weeks until after the Open Studios at Hanson Street in the first weekend in October. Up until then I'll mainly be limiting myself to smaller works - I've been having ideas about a new series of works, all 12x16 inches. The plan presently is to spend Saturday doing drawings in preparation for these, so we'll see how it goes.

WIP 25th August 2015

Finally (finally!) I've managed to spend a whole day painting - woohoo!

So what did I do? Well, I finished the two back views that you could see a couple of posts ago but they are now at the framers so aren't in this pic. I'm very pleased with them, which is good as they are the first paintings done entirely post-op and as part of the new project.

I also got started on a new little portrait and put a basic layer of colour on all the paintings I had started the week before. In the coming week I hope to finish at least a couple of these. And I did some work on paintings that have been up on the wall for months - there's a little more to be done with the still life and a lot for the girl with the hat. The dragonfly winged lady though is done which is a relief as she has been causing an awful lot of trouble and at once stage I was worried she was just on too small a scale for me. But in the end it was the colour that needed balanced more than anything.

What else? two new models and two new drawings as well as the start of a studio clean/re-organisation and a trip to Edinburgh - it's been a busy week!

WIP 19th Aug 2015

It's been almost a fortnight since my last WIP and this is what I've done. Not a whole lot, really, but through a combination of car trouble, visiting the Edinburgh Festival and photographing new models I've only had two actual painting days.

One of which was my first full day painting since the op. As well as finishing the teacakes I started four new paintings. I'm starting small, since I have a lot of small canvases lying about and I have various ideas I want to try, so the bigger ones will have to wait a little while.

WIP 6th August 2015

A busy week, so not much studio time. Did get some painting done though - think I'm finally done with the big still life, and have made progress with the teacakes and the two back views, may be able to finish all three next week. Also did the two little framed works from start to finish - they are drawn in graphite on gesso panel, then a layer of oil paint added, which gives quite an interesting effect. They were an experiment, for a show at the Glasgow Art Club on the theme of oil and water, and like all good experiments have given me more ideas to try!

WIP Thursday 23rd July 2015 - Composition

This week I was reading about perspective and thinking about composition - I think I've been making progress and am quite excited about what I'll be able to show you next week.

WIP thursday 16th July

Beginning to get more familiar with my materials and my subjects. Expect more exploration to come.

WIP 2nd July 2015 - a day late, sorry guys!

Had a busy day and night yesterday (was at the Glasgow Print Studio opening of Comic Art: Millarworld and beyond, well worth seeing) so didn't manage to post up my last two weeks efforts.

Sadly I'm still getting a lot of pain in the hand so am limited in how long I can draw. Which is why there are only 5 drawings. But I do think things are getting better, and having less art making time means I've had more thinking time and more reference gathering time - which I really expect to get the benefit from over the next few months.

This weekend I'll be at the comic-con and then I have to do some really boring grown up stuff, so might be another fortnight before there are more drawings. However, I should move on from the single portraits into more imaginative grouped figures in this time - which is really exciting! Watch this space!

Liquid Pencil - WIP Thursday 18th June 2015

Liquid Pencil (made by Derivan) is my new favourite medium - using it lets me draw on the same scale as my paintings, really giving me a good idea of whether to progress or not. I also find it much easier to control tone than with charcoal, and using different pencils, graphite sticks and powdered graphite along with the liquid version lets me get different textures fairly quickly.

The above three drawings were done today in under six hours - so although drawing first may seem a waste of time, it really isn't. All three show potential to become drawings - although the top one (at 18 x 27 inches) is just a wee bit too big and if it becomes a painting I think would look better at maybe 15 x 24 inches.

Presently I'm working on doing portraits of each of my models before moving on to more complicated, several person compositions - doing this seems to make it easier to get a likeness later on as well as just generally being quite fun.

W.I.P June 11th 2015

My first full day back drawing since the op and I'm fairly pleased with the results - I did have to stop and start more than normal though, and finished early as my hand was just getting too sore. Never mind, it is a start and it feels really nice to finally begin to put down on paper some of all the ideas that have been percolating.

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.

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.

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.

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.