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.

Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2015 - Day 8

A week tomorrow I'm off to London to see this painting at the opening of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize . I'm terrifically excited as this is my first London exhibition and looking at the other choices there are many amazing paintings hanging along with mine. Once I'm down there I will report back with how everything looks - or if you are in London, come along - it will be open all of next week at the Mall Galleries.

But even fancy-pants arty farty painters need to learn and do their daily drawings - so today I gave Mrs Cat her own teacake. She didn't seem overly impressed.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie - day 4

This morning I felt I wanted to do some fine line work and use a brush and watercolour, after the annoyance of yesterday's pencil. This is a technique I am more familiar with, having used it for years at life drawing to get quick poses down fast.

The paper I used was also my favourite paper - mi-teintes touch, which comes in a good colour range, doesn't seem to fade and comes in 335gsm so is fairly robust feeling - this was my first try at adding a waterbased media, and it behaved perfectly. My only complaint is the size - a maximum 50x65cm.

Todays drawing was on a quarter sheet, so around A4 size and I was happy with Dr Martin's liquid watercolour. Not so happy with Derwent's white ink - ended up having to apply around 3 layers as it seemed to sink in and fade - not sure if not was the paper's fault, or the ink's - I'll try watercolour and gouache in later drawings so will be able to compare.

Oh, and I meant to go back and add in the black pads of her feet, but forgot. May do it when I get home tonight!

Dr Sketchy New York

A visit to New York without visiting Dr Sketchy's seemed unthinkable, so I duly went on my last Sunday.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photographs - the main reason I attend Dr Sketchy's here in Glasgow.

A couple of years ago, when I was a newbie oil painter, I really needed photographic reference of faces and bodies to work from. I was still too unsure of myself (and skint) to hire a model, even if I had known one available. Dr Sketchy's was the answer, and when attending regularly I met lots of interesting people who are now friends - including, of course, Fiona Wilson

Not only were we not allowed photographs, there were an awful lot of very quick poses. That can be interesting, if you have the right media with you (the watercolour would have been fine, but the paper was far too thin for using a brush) and if the model holds lots of different, athletic poses. This one didn't - they were all variations of her lying or sitting on the table, with her head almost always turned in one direction. Even worse, although her costume was lovely, it covered a lot of skin as well as her hair, with virtually no bony landmarks visible. For some reason, I like to start with the clavicles, which generally weren't visible - or even guessable!

So I left. Terribly rude, and very disappointing, but I was pretty tired and had packing to do for the trip home the next day.

Oh well. Maybe next time. Meanwhile I am thinking about revisiting some of those old reference photographs.

Blue Hair and Aquaboard

This one is a study done for a bigger painting that if you have sharp eyes you may notice in the studio shots. The big painting has been a lot of hassle and I am still not entirely happy with it - will post it sometime soon. This little one (13x13cm), though, just worked first time and is why I decided to go bigger. It is painted on aquaboard, a new thing to me, but appears to be quite common in American art supply stores. It is made by Ampersand (who seem to do a big range of boards) and claims to be of archival quality - "watercolors on Aquaboard can be sealed and framed without glass, keeping colors and textures true to life". The surface certainly feels like cold pressed watercolour paper and is ivory in tone. The paint seemed to take longer than I'm used to, which made me impatient as I was wanting to layer. But this could be a strength, as it would maybe give lots of manipulating time. Will report back after I have used it a few more times.

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.

28 Drawings Later - The Party

And to end it all, there was a party!
This drawing is from before people arrived, after all the helper monkeys had plastered the walls with reproductions of everyone's work - there was so much great work that I didn't remember seeing. Upstairs we had space to hang the originals - this was fab as we got to meet each other in real life - it is always great to actually talk to people you've only met online and to see there work in reality - it is always so much better!
Now it's all over it seems an appropriate time to write about my favourites of the year - like Fiona Wilson and her absolutely amazing sketchbook from Argentina (mega inspiring) or Donna Nicholson-Arnott's delicate line drawings, or Neil McChrystal and of course Victoria Evans our very hard working organiser who stunned us all with her great portraits this year (and her even more stunning sketchbooks!) - she is now accepting commisions for drawings at an unbelievably low price - a bargain not to be missed if you are in the Glasgow area. Joe Hendry stunned everyone with his graphite drawingsthis year, and even Frank To managed a couple of drawings. Moira Buchanan showed lots of lovely studies (especially liked the apples) as well as appearing in one of my drawings. Penny didn't do any drawings that she was willing to share but was the subject of at least 2 artists work as well as mine.
Above are all folks I know, so the following is a list of those that stood out - Graeme McNee's series of lost friends was charming - I hope he met up with a least one of these people. June Russell's work was as stunning this year as last and it was a real pleasure to meet her. She was probably the furthest travelled artist and I hoped she enjoyed her stay in Glasgow. Another returner from last year was the Cameron family - just brilliant. And Holgar's number series was tremendous - and very original. Also enjoyed Eileen Shona's work and Drew Johnson's bananas. Lin Chau was another I was pleased to meet, as I was the very imaginative John Grieve .
Oooof I'm running out of energy and I know I'll have missed several brilliant people off the list - this year it was so big it was hard to keep track of everyone. Looking back there are so many drawings it is next to impossible to look at them all. Still, I will try and come back here and post o few more later.

day 27 - blue skies ahead

Jumping a little ahead here, to day 27 - but thought this drawing the most appropriate to finish the 28 drawings saga. The last week was a real struggle for me, partly due to life events but also I think because I've been so busy recently I've let the life drawing slide only twice in a month! Looking back of the last couple of months I can see that although I have been able to paint, I haven't been able to finish any of them. This may party be because I am attempting various things I haven't tried before - clothing, full figures, interior scenes, a lakeside scene - but I sense is also because I'm missing the life drawing. Many long term life drawers tell me how essential it is to keep the practice up and how it feeds into all kinds of artwork. Now I really believe them.
So, next week its back to the classes and it will be blue skies ahead. Hopefully for all you readers out there, as well!

days 23 and 24 - Glasgow Wellington (without his hat)

On the 23rd day I got out and about into the centre of town. For lunch I had a coffee at Royal Exchange Square, with a good view of the Wellington statue - without the traffic cone on his head, which must be a rare event! To start with he did have pigeons, though, but by the time I was ready to paint them they had all flown off. Maybe next time. Having never tried to draw or paint a horse before (living or statue) I was not prepared for how really difficult it is. In life drawing it can be a little hit or miss whether the feet really look as if they stand on the floor - a problem multiplied by four. The next days posting was a little bit of a cheat - on fridays I work till 6pm, then go out for dinner with my husband ~(days 10 and 17). It had been a struggle to have drawings for those days (on day 17 I posted a painting that I had started the day before). So this week I did two drawings in town - the second the view from my car parked at George Square of the Glasgow Eye. Working with white watercolour and ink line feels rather satisfactory - another thing to explore further in the upcoming months (when it is a wee bitty warmer for sitting about outdoors on concrete!)

Day 22 - JKPP - Drew Ferrie

Yesterday I decided to have a go at drawing Drew Ferrie from the photographs he posted on Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr. The four as a group I thought made a really strong composition, so that's what I did. First stage was a very quick pencil drawing - just the rough shapes, much less detailed than with the penguins. Last month I wouldn't have even bothered with that, but the challenge has shown me that a little bit of pre-planning goes a long way - not least in giving me more confidence at the ink stage.
Next comes the white. Why I do this first, rather than last, I have no idea - should maybe try it in reverse sometime soon. At both stages so far I debated stopping - which to me is a sign of things going the right way. But it was the strength of the lights and darks that grabbed me from the photographs (kudos to Drew - they are fantastic to work from) so I continued onto the next stage.
So the last stage was floating in the darks. I should have chosen a smaller brush, I think, but never mind. And I shouldn't have accidentally crumpled the paper on its way to the scanner. Oh dear. Hopefully time will flatten it out a little . . . As normal with me, the final image doesn't quite match up to what I had planned. But I think it does work, and I hope Drew likes it!

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 20 - the passport

Applying for my passport has been more difficult than I thought it would be - this work is based on the second set of photographs, as the first lot were not acceptable. Also, my signiture wasn't dark enough (?!?). So, more form filling, more photographs, another signature.
It is, of course, all in effort to go to New York for the Art Student's League residency so I'm sure it will all be worth it.

As long as I'm not turned away at the border for looking like a criminal.

Day 19 - The University Library

Yesterday morning I went up bright and early to the 11th floor of the University Library. This is a place I went to a lot as a student (although my subject's floor was the much more boring 5) and it has been quite special going back over the last year - around this time last year during the 28 drawings challenge I rejoined the library. Since then I have been up and down those lifts many times - they look the same, smell the same, and I swear pretty much have the same people in them. The alarming thing for me is that enough time has passed that the new people could be my children.
Anyway. The views are also largely unchanged - the University itself is the same as ever. It is, I think, too much part of my life for me to judge whether it is good or bad. It just is. And all that gothic-ness is fun to draw. The art gallery - that you can see peeking out behind it - I will come out and say is a bit of a monstrosity. But like all good, properly built buildings, it is capable of keeping renewing itself time after time, and remains a magical place to visit. Except when the organ plays. I still hate that organ.
The science tower is new, the armadillo went up in my final year. The wind cranes out on the skyline are pretty recent, too.
The sun shining on a bitterly cold day, backlighting the University tower, has been around much longer than me.

Day 18 -The Conference - Work In Progress

Today I thought it would be interesting to record the stages of today's work. I decided to draw the penguins again, as I wanted to practice composition a little, pre-planning in pencil, moving stuff around etcetera. But almost the first of my photo's was kinda perfect as it was. So no pre-planning done.
Started with a pencil sketch, on which to base the next stage. This I rarely do but feel that maybe I should more often.
Next was adding the colour. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to do a line drawing using ink at this stage, or whether I would go for more depth using watercolour. Or stick to the graphite - the combination of small areas of watercolour and graphite can be very delicate and beautiful. However, I didn't feel that would be right for these guys.
So I went with the watercolour - I was using HP watercolour paper - but disaster struck. I wasn't used to the paper and the paint seemed to dry instantly, making it very difficult to keep a leading edge. It also made it impossible for me to charge the wet areas with thicker, darker paint - a technique I use a lot in life drawing. But that is on Bristol paper . . .
This is the next layer, trying to improve matters. Daylight was beginning to fade by this time, making the photography difficult (the drawing being just a little too large to scan). As you can see, I am trying to make a virtue of the uneveness and add in darker tones. But it would take a few more layers before we got to the final image.
Photographed at night, so not a great image. Oh well. Ended up with something I quite like and I learned a fair amount doing this. But I still prefer the original drawing.

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 13 - I Will Not Swing

Today's drawing is a bit of a homage to Donna , whom I recently did a swap with - two of my life drawings for this fabulous little sculpture. She is taking part in the challenge too, so I really hope she likes this one!
The second picture is, of course, the drawing with the sculpture. You can see that although I don't use classic sight-size methods, everything does tend to end up very similar in size to how I see the original - in this case I was sitting very close, the better to see all the details.

The challenge is half way through today and I am realising that this year I really want to try harder from now on - last year was great in getting me to use a sketch book and getting out into public spaces and drawing. Which is mainly what I've been doing so far this year. But in the last couple of days I have been thinking less of the sketching side of drawing and more of producing finished works - not something I have ever really done. It6 is also time for me to not depend just on watercolour and ink - to maybe start planning, drawing in pencil, really thinking about the best use of media for the image. So, a challenge!

day 12 - the tiger at Edinburgh Zoo

A few months ago I went to Edinburgh Zoo, and I am still working my way through using the photographs as reference - there is something about drawing animals which I love. The Tiger, however, was not happy that day as the other tiger had been quarantined. This meant they were both pacing about at either side of a fence - and it was difficult to get a good shot of either. He was so handsome though that he could not remain undrawn!

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.

Penguin Walk, Edinburgh Zoo

It is Boxing Day, so I'm posting a couple of my favourite drawings - this year had been the first year (Thanks to Victoria Evans's 28 Drawings Later project) that I have got really into using a sketchbook, drawing in ink and using watercolours, especially outside of the life class.

The penguins are from a day in the zoo (can't remember ever being to a zoo before. It is quite a depressing place - and sells a awful amount of alcohol in the cafe) Drawing animals is a nice change for me, so expect more penguins/flamingos/tigers etc to appear over the next few months at the Etsy shop.

Bones are also very satisfying to draw - especially when spot lit as they tend to be in museums these days. So much room for exaggerating claws and teeth! This ceratosaur drawing has been given to my nephew - all kids go through a dinosaur phase, don't they? - and has been a favourite, I'm sure, of generations of Glasgow kids.

After all, drawing should be fun at least some of the time, shouldn't it?