WIP 23rd September

Finally a painting week - 5 probably done paintings and three more started.

Some studio tidying/clearing as well, as it is Open Studios on the 3rd and 4th October. It's really nice to have some space again and to get some new finished works up on the wall.

As you can see two of the new paintings are the 12 x 16 inch size - and one is my first big paper mask painting. Can't wait to see what these look like finished, as they look pretty strong already. The other one doesn't have as clear tonal differences and I'm more nervous about it but the plan is for there to be some subtle painting things going on, to counteract the dramatic subject matter. Next week you should be able to see how I've progressed - I might completely change my mind.

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 9th September

A bit of a drawing week this one, partly because I didn't have a lot of studio time and partly as I wanted to explore the 12x16 inch format more. One of the changes that I'm planning is working with a more limited range of sizes and this one seems to fit a single figure quite well. Not all of these drawings will become paintings as some ideas are just better than others - the top right in particular I think should be a smashing painting, although I prefer the ones on the left as drawings.

So I had a day painting, in which I may have finished the top two and have made progress on the other two - if they have dried enough they will get more done tomorrow, with the little cat probably being finished then. The other one I suspect will take some time - not least because the aluminium is new to me and I'm still not decided if I'll leave part of the surface bare or not. Any opinions?

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 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.

W.I.P 28th May

A week ago on monday I had carpal tunnel release surgery done on my painting hand.

So normal painting/drawing hasn't really been possible - instead I asked for volunteers to come and pose for me. The response was amazing, with quite a few lovely people being very willing to come and let me do a quick drawing and painting and then take loads and loads of photographs.

These little studies are a gathering of these little first impressions - over the next few weeks I will use these and the photographs to start putting my ideas together by making drawings and then finally paintings.

Which is very exciting and I'm sure will be great fun - everyone so far has been absolutely lovely so that this has possible been the best sick leave I've ever had - even if the actual hand continues to be pretty sore.

WIP 14th May 2015

Well, doesn't look like an awful lot of progress, as I've only really had one painting day since last thursday - as you can see the only big change was darkening the big double flamingo still life - and comparing it with last weeks photo I think I've gone too dark.

Not so clear is various bits of fine tuning, which should let me finish pretty much all of these in a couple of days painting with a bit of luck.

This is what I did when not painting.

And what fun it was! The lion and unicorn masks are based on instructions in an old school book, the helmet I've had kicking around for a while but have never found the time to put together, the little rabbit head is from the internet somewhere and the rest were pretty much made up as I went along.

The plan is that over the next few weeks, while I'm recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, some models and I will get to play with these props (and others, out of shot). If you'd like to be one of these models, please contact me - it would take a couple of hours at my studio and much talking and you will eventually get repaid with a drawing. All types welcome!

WIP Thurs 7th May 2015

Some of the works in progress on the wall today - there are fifteen paintings here, two of which are possibly finished. I'll decide the next time I see them.

As you can see the majority are still lives - presently I am thinking a lot about pattern and composition and using things rather than people lets me explore this more. I'm not sure all of these paintings will work out, but the trying should give me ideas of how to do better next time. Sometimes you just have to take a risk!

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!

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.

Where's The Cat? - Day 5

Day 5, and after enjoying using a brush yesterday I thought I'd do the same again - only this time with white gouache on black card.

The pose I chose perhaps wasn't the best one for this, as her lying with one of her paws up on the side of her cheek, at the base of her ear, perhaps isn't a very common cat posture - she does it all the time, though, and even sometimes lies with her paws over her eyes.

The blanket was fun and is related to a lot of the paintings I'm doing at the moment - I have recently become a little obsessed by pattern. The painting below shows how I start - with rough tonal values, In this case, I didn't like the original tone of the background and decided to add a leaf pattern today - and I really like the way the pattern looks now, so may not paint over it in a more finished way as planned - we'll see.

Nosy Cat Day 3

Had a bit more time today so thought I'd try a ore detailed pencil drawing. Unfortunately black fur doesn't lend itself to that kind of work and I chose the wrong pencil - a derwent sketching light wash hb. It just wouldn't go dark, or layer satisfactory - I tried adding water, and that seemed to help a little, but still not happy with it. Oh well.

One reason I had more time was because although today was a studio day, I had to do various collecting/delivering paintings type of stuff. But I thought it would be nice to share how the studio looks presently - a tip, as I have been photographing for still lifes and everything has been pulled out. Anyway, here are some photos.

Day 28 - All The Work Done For 28 Drawings Later 2014

If you count you will find there are 27 drawings here - all the ones I have posted, in order. Day 12 I posted a photo of the drawings and paintings I had done by that date, and of course today I'm also posting photographs instead of a drawing. Day 23 two drawings were posted although that was not the only day that I did more than one drawing - there have been plenty of maybes and rejects along the way.

I've also been painting. Comparing this to day 12 is a little disappointing - although there are six finished, in comparison with two. But since I can't paint full time yet I've only had six painting days since then it is actually a fair bit of work - especially if you remember that two of those days were spent messing about with lovely model volunteers.

Day 12 - Turning Drawings Into Paintings

Nearly half way so I thought I'd let you all see the progress in the studio.

The only finished works are the two framed ones. The rest are in progress - generally I start by drawing a loos outline in watercolour pencil, then block in dark, medium and light tones, as can be seen in the three paintings on the left. Next is a layer of colour, like in the Jester, Lace and Cat in the Hat paintings. At each stage I try and make it as correct as possible - the idea is to leave nothing that needs to be changed, although there may well be areas that need added to. If I am lucky, that is the painting done. More usually I notice stuff, or change my mind about the tone of the background, or suchlike. Then more work is done. Sometimes paintings can sit for a while before I realise what needs to be done - or I decide it is finished. The Satin Bow is at that stage - I haven't quite decided if I am happy with it or not . . .

On the board on the right side are the drawings which have started being painted. On the left are the drawings I want to start soon - but have to wait until the canvas is ready. Putting them together like this lets me check the sizes are right - Touch Not (upper left) is a little too big, so although I've drawn it at 16 cm, think a 14 inch canvas will be better.

Yesterday I got the stretcher bars for the bigger paintings - Peek-A-Boo and Two Coins - which is very exciting - can't wait to start with them, but it will take me about a week to get the canvas ready. Oh well. Also I am having doubts about the sizing - one of the reasons I am doing these drawings is to try and get the heads all similar sizes, which works well for head and shoulders. However, the half and full length ones are too big to draw easily and quickly, so I have been halving the size again. This works in telling me that the image works but I suspect is not good enough to check the sizing - thinking I may do full size b+w acrylic paintings on paper for these ones - canvases of these size are not cheap so spending an extra half hour to get it right may well be worth it.

Who knew painting was such a complicated business. Or is it just me?