Sandy's Sundays - Art In The Botanics

A couple of sundays I went along to Sandy's class in the botanics where you have about four hours with the model in the same pose - I hadn't been for a while, as sundays seem to fill up easily, so was glad to finally get along.

This was where I first tried to paint the figure in oils a few years ago. There has been a bit of improvement since those first efforts, but it is still a very useful thing to do, to try and record what I can see, with the light shifting, the model moving, and all the other difficulties. Somehow I seem to learn something new each time - or notice where there may be deficiencies in my work. Part of this is because of the other people - all a friendly bunch - there is nothing like seeing the magic other people can create with the same model and in the same time.

Anyway, it has been a long time since I painted this model and it was great to try and paint her hair. I really should go along more often.

Life Drawing - Oils in 40 Minutes.

Well, today I'm cheating as I painted this at yesterday's life drawing session. But I didn't get the chance to photograph it yesterday so here we are.

It was painted in two twenty minute blocks - a long pose, which this particular group is quite keen on. You may notice it is the same pose as the watercolour, but from a different position - looking down and from behind rather than from the floor and on her right. Long poses are great as they give me time to paint but bad as it tends to lead to static poses, often lying down. As I am mainly sit on the floor (shoulder problems means that using an easel is difficult) this means I often get very foreshortened views. Luckily not yesterday - partly as I got the use of a table, so could paint standing up.

The board was pre-painted with leftovers of the palette - from this painting I suspect - which enables me to go straight in with the darks and the lights - a technique I developed first in watercolours. The mid-tones are then added on and in this one I wanted to exagerrate the difference between neutrals and brights - so pushed the reds. This was an experiment but may well feed back into my other paintings.

Which is why I go to life drawing - to try things out. Success!

Hanson Street Open Weekend 2012

It's that time of year again - the Hanson Street Open Studios!

This year I will only have the one little painting on show with the life drawing group - we normally have a live (clothed) model during the day in the big room in the right hand corner diagonally from the front door. Our work is shown on the walls of the room and is generally an eclectic mix - despite all being based on work done in the life room! Mine, for example, is a little oil painting sketch, done in about an hour and a half.

As there will be a cafe, I will be around most of both days, and will try and have the time between coffees to actually do some painting - although not in oils! Watercolour and ink will be my mediums, which will be quite a challenge as the model will be clothed and I therefore have to take into account different textures.

But I will also definitely take the time to explore other artist's studios - such as Linda O'Grady, Frank To, Joe Hendry and Moira Buchanan.

Also this week will be an opening of a mixed show at Art Exposure on Friday the 5th October from 5 til 8pm. I have a small selection of the oil painting life sketches as well as a teeny landscape and figurative work on show. My work has been selling well this year (both works at the RGI have sold already) so this is a good chance to see them before they move on to nice new homes and maybe even get one yourself.

Oil Painting Figure Studies

A quick post today, just to show what I've been doing in the life room recently. These figure studies are all done from life, generally in less than an hour.

Since I don't have much time, they are pretty small - I now keep a supply of boards ready prepared in various colours - these ones are away to the framers presently, so I can see how they look framed up - then I will decide on a couple of colours to use more consistently. At least in theory. As you may have noticed by now, I can't seem to resist experimenting . . .

Working with limitations - both time and size - seems to stop me overworking. Maybe if I get a studio I'll put them up on the wall to remind me to stop!

The Open Studio at Vytlacil

On the 24th May, a special day for me, was the Vytlacil Open Studio event. Although I have attended many group openings, this was the first where I was on my own, responsible for the look of the whole thing and looking after my guests. (Although, of course, the other residents were also hosting their open studios. I will post about them some time soon).

For many reasons I had decided to work small during the residency - ranging in size from 10x10cm to 25x50cm. My subject matter was what I had encountered since coming to New York - especially the people in Central Park, where I had spent a fair bit of time, walking from the 57th St studios of the Art Student's League to the museums on the Upper East Side.

The following is my statement for the night - "Coming to New York from Glasgow has been quite a voyage, forcing me to reconsider attitudes and decisions as well as illuminating many possibilities. My first week was spent at Peter Cox’s workshop at the Art Students League 57th building in the mornings and strolling round the museums in the afternoons. Another place I spent a lot of time was in Central Park. Many of the people I saw there became the basis of my paintings shown here today. The museums (and the sunshine) led me to a realisation of how crucial colour can be in loving a painting and has encouraged me to be more expressionistic. Since then I have attended life drawing here regularly and have benefitted from critiques. Once back home my work is likely to experiment more with colour and composition – the journey has only just begun!"

The reward of night was the looks on folks faces - an entirely unfakeable look - and the many great conversations I had. Maybe I might even do it all again, sometime!

Life Drawing and Fun

Life drawing again - yesterday I had a particularly good session - as can be seen more fully over at my flickr page. But that leads to the question, what do I mean by a good session? For me, the process of life drawing is more important than the result - in some ways this is the opposite of oil painting. If I feel that I have spent my time really translating what I see into graphic form, I am happy. Every session there are different problems I am trying to solve, and months can pass trying to figure out one thing. Yesterday was particularly good, as I felt I caught the movement and character of the model (the lovely Mimi) more than I usually do. This is sometimes important, and sometimes not - after all, when anyone other than me looks at the drawing, they are not judging it on its faithfulness to the model. However, I prize life and character, and often feel looking at other folks drawings that what little character is present belongs entirely to the artist. Models (and by extension, as most life models are female, women) have character and thoughts, and moods, too, and this is something I am trying hard to portray, both in life drawing and in oils.

The history of art is littered with empty women, especially in oil painting, and I know this is partly the ladies fault for requesting a painting to make them more beautiful, younger looking, etc. But that can only be an excuse for portraits - not for Titian's mythical ladies, or Renoir's daft teenagers. (to pick on just two - they are still outstanding paintings). There are, of course, exceptions - in the field of life drawing, Watteau's delicate heads come to mind immediately.

Boy, I've lectured for a bit! Anyway, I had fun and I enjoyed letting go and seeing what the watercolour wanted to do. Hopefully people looking at the results will share some of that joy.

Sketch Class

Tuesday night is life drawing night here at the Vytlacil Campus, except they don't seem to call it that - it's "open sketch" instead. This particular chap (Robert) was great, very athletic, and we seemed to decide n mainly 10 minute poses, which really suit me. Longer poses tend to be more static and I get bored, end up doing to much.

These are done with a dip pen and Dr Marten's Radiant Watercolours (with the white being chinese wite watercolour). I bought several different papers in Pearl Paints the other day and this is me trying them out. Think it will take me another few sessions before I make my mind up which papers I like, though.

day 21 - All The Young Nudes

Back at All The Young Nudes for the first time in absolute ages. Wasn't really positioned right to see the guy doing the short poses, despite remembering to wear my highest heels so that I was tall enough to rest my board on the balcony. However, after the break was this pose - an absolutely stunning model I don't think I have drawn before. She managed to hold this for about 20 minutes, although leaning on her arm like this was obviously beginning to cause some discomfort. She has my thanks, at least!

Day 16 - Derwent Waterbrush and Dr Martin's Watercolour

Life drawing again at Pam's Thursday morning life drawing group and we started with 2 minute poses as always. The time wasn't quite enough - or I was doing too much with most of the drawings - this being the only one I was happy-ish with. Mind you, these are meant to be warm-up exercises anyway.
Clare was our model - she has been seen previously in this blog and is always a pleasure to work with. She was drawn most excellently earlier in the week by Victoria so I had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately I was feeling rather tired (but not emotional) this morning and bailed out after about an hour. So not many drawings were done.
The group decided on using the rest of the time as a long pose (broken into 20 minute segments). Which meant a lying down pose, positioned up on the box we use. I had planned on doing much experimentation with new watercolour (bought, and first used, on day 3) but feeling ropey meant that after doing these couple of drawings I called it a day. During the last drawing I discovered that the combination of tap water and Dr Martin's Radiant Watercolour in my waterbrush had separated out - which rather suited the pose, as from my point of view on the floor she looked rather like a series of hills. A happy accident on this occasion and one I may exploit again later on. But it does mean I am still searching for my perfect media. Maybe the answer will be in America (where I believe they have better waterbrushes, if nothing else. Mine seem to leak.)

Day 9 - Life Drawing

Poor lighting, so poor photo - but the painting not yet finished, so will get a much better image once I'm done. It is currently still wet, having been painted at Wasp Studios this morning at the life drawing class. This I do think is on the border of drawing and painting - it took about an hour or so and was done in one sitting. Once I have played with the background and possibly a couple of other changes I will feel it falls much more into the painting category. But it was done as part of the challenge, so here it is!
Life drawing this morning with the fantastic Penny (who tells me a painting of her has been chosen as the people's choice in a Canadian art exhibition. Not suprised at all.)
As you can see, one of the purposes of doing this regularly for me is to experiment. Often this means that I get wildly different drawings of varying success. However, I feel that this means that when I really want to make something I have a wider range of skills to use. The drawing with the pony tail was drawn using the stopper of the watercolour bottle - it seemed to really want to skitter away from me! However, I really like the balance between the softer hair and the dense line and may well try this again - although possibly with a brush for the line drawing rather than the stopper.
This drawing just makes me smile. Penny pulls such energetic, crazy poses that are extremely challenging to draw in 2 minutes.

What is a Drawing?

Have entered The Scottish Drawing competition, but am struggling with their definition (gad I hate art speak!) - "Mark making with intent" For the purpose of the competition, a drawing is defined as a representation by means of lines and the arrangement of these lines which determine a particular form. Form being the arrangement of individual shapes and volumes and their relationship depicted in a work of art, whether figurative or abstract as distinct from its subject matter or content. Drawing in any medium is acceptable. (phew!)

The above drawing I decided not to enter, as I felt it was too close to painting, whereas I am entering the drawing from Previous post as well as a more straight forward landscape drawing. Did I make the right decision? I have no idea . . . and will wait and see if I am accepted.

Personally I feel that any work which uses the support as a major element and mainly consists of marks laid down in one layer is a drawing - so I would include the above, and most of my watercolours. They are made with a brush making one mark as I go - so the mark varies in width, but to me it is still a line. Am i nuts? All comments welcome . . .

Tease Exhibition at Virginia Gallery

New exhibiton opening today at Virginia Gallery" - a new venue for me. Fiona Wilson asked me to put a few small things in, as there are 4 big walls to fill. I am actually quite excited about seeing five of my works up together - especially as it will be the first time I've displayed my little ink and watercolour life drawings in public. And, of course, seeing Fiona's work is always a pleasure.

The first image is also the first that I did at All The Young Nudes, way back in February - it has become quite a favourite on Flickr, so it will be interesting to see the response to the real thing.
The opening party will be on the 23rd, so anyone in Glasgow quite welcome to come along - the gallery is below Luke and Jack's, which sells fancy condoms and such like, so be warned. The two chaps who run both the shop and gallery are absolutely lovely though, and quite welcoming - this may well be that the start of a long and hopefully fruitful collaboration!

Cattitude and Life Drawing

Recently I met a cat sitting amongst rose bushes outside Glasgow University Library. As I had partially gone there to paint and having all my stuff with me, I took the opportunity to quickly draw her - and I am so glad I did, as not only did I make a new friend (although she wasn't quite friendly enough to come out from the roses) but I discovered that doing three minute sketches at atyn had prepared me for animal painting - not only in the speed used, but also in the skill of capturing the essentials of a pose.



I feel this is even more important with animals (especially cats!) than with humans, as they are often more expressive through their posture than we are - Another cat-friend of mine (in the loosest sense - he is my neighbour's cat, and has taken daily delight in hissing at me on the stairwell) is never less than composed and commanding - even when watching the other neighbours dog, as can be seen in the second painting.



Whereas the third painting shows my childhood pet (who lived for 24 years!), who was almost a disgrace to catdom in having virtually no dignity and unlimited curiosity about everything and everyone. When we were moving, and showing people round the house, she had to be put in her basket and taken to a friends - otherwise she would follow people around and talk to them. She even joined in on conversations on the phone . . .

Anyway, my point really is that life drawing really does prepare you for everything - and helps you decide where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Expect much more animals in future . . . .

Neocolor 2

This is my first trial of a neocolor crayon that I picked up when in the art store the other day . . . Recently I have been thinking a lot about drawing and process - partly as it seems to me to be the next thing to learn and partly because it is frustrating to spend hours in the life class and have little to show for it.
So, I am thinking that either I need to start selling my drawings (Etsy) or be able to use them to make paintings.
The average class has a variety of timed poses - the quick ones seem to lend themselves to outline drawing, with maybe a colour addition for tone. Longer can be used for oil sketching (but need at least 30minutes!).
So, that's sorted. But what do I do with them next? put them in a pile? re-interpret them in different colours/medium etcetera? use them as a basis for a painting?
Presently do all three - this particular drawing is based on both a drawing and a photo I did when the lovely Anna was modelling for me recently. I painted her when she was here as well, and in due course there should be oil paintings appearing, quite possibly with one using the same pose.

Etsy Watercolours

Just opened an Etsy shop - as I seem to be having so much fun with watercolours! I have been thinking about how to experiment/work further on my drawings, using different colours/materials/papers/sizes and so on and hopefully Etsy will provide a way for me to get feedback and sell on these work. This is one of the first works to go on sale, a mirror image of the original image, with the natural differences working in watercolour provides . . .

Art Fusion at Gibson Street Gala

Showing some work on sunday at Gibson Street Gala as part of ATYN - The very first time I have ever shown any of my life drawing watercolours in public!
Hopefully it will be a nice sunny day so I (and everyone else,of course) can browse all the stalls in comfort - last year there was an interesting selection, and I wish I had had more time to talk to folks.
Recently I have been thinking of where to show my life drawings, and am presently thinking of Etsy. My main gallery says that life drawings don't ever sell . . . anyone any advice out there?

Artworks Scotland

This tuesday, Artworks Scotland were filming at All the Young Nudes, so we were there from 5:30pm onwards - pretty knackering. Unfortunately I found out the bad way that the banister I was leaning my board against was just too high for my shoulder (as in, cramp, pain, hand going numb . . . ). Bah. Oh, and I managed to set fire to my hair . . .

Still, I met the lovely Anna Lehr, who was modeling. Hopefully at some point I will be able to do an oil of her - such a great face, as well as great posture.

The shoulder problems are what has lead me to watercolour and ink - they are small, and portable - no big sweeping arm movements for me presently - so it's not been all bad. The surgery is planned for next week, so wish me luck (and don't expect any posts/flickr updates for a bit!)

All the Young Nudes

This is from my third visit to All the Young Nudes, which runs at the Flying Duck every tuesday night - you can stand up on a sort of balcony thingy looking down at the models, which gives a quite different viewpoint for me - being short, and often sitting, I'm generally looking up! Also, there is a mirror, and a big comfy chair, and ikea flexible lights, which give very intense spotlights. So, all in all, new challenges for me, which appears to be proving productive.

This one is for Daniel, who implied I didn't like purple.

This month I am taking part in the "28 days challenge" that Victoria Evans is running on facebook (brave woman!). Although I have been cheating rather by including life drawings and drawings in paint that I would have done anyway, it has been good for me to think more about drawing, and to try and come up with ideas - normally I just go with what's in front me, so spending some time thinking is a new experience!
Also, Over the last few months I have been thinking more about how to use my time effectively in the life class, which is leading me towards watercolour/ink for the short poses and oils for longer - although I love to look at other folks pastel/charcoal/pencil work, I have never really been happy that what I produce in these media reflects my viewpoint. Umm. More thinking to be done, I think, to try and express what I mean - oops.

Friday Life Drawing

Most fridays I go and draw naked people with a bunch of other strange clothed folks -and this exhibition is the result!
There is a big range of reasons for people attending and everyone is at a different stage of progress. Without the group being welcoming, I doubt very much that I would have got together the courage to progress as much as I have, to the stage of being a professional artist (boy, does that sound wierd).
One of the oddest thing about it is that I can spend three hours of frustration, producing nonsense that goes straight in the bin, but the next day manage to really move on in a painting that I thought was stalled.
So, life drawing is much recommended, and if you happen to be in Glasgow, please come along.
(We don't know exactly what is going to be hung until the day, so it's all very exciting)