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!

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 2 - Being A Dafty Cat

Day 2 and I've drawn kitty-cat in one of her characteristic dafty poses - this is "please scritch me under my chin".

The drawing is in charcoal and chalk again, using pencils, and less than 10 cm. The paper is Strathmore 500 charcoal paper. I was excited when this first became available in the UK, as I have read a lot it about it from american artists - but was terribly disappointed - it is very thin and creases at the drop of a hat. The colours are reasonable, although not generally as dark as I'd like them to be.

28 Drawings Later 2015 - day 1

Hello everyone again - it's 28 Drawings Later time of year again.

This year, my plan is to draw my neighbour's cat, Vader, every day - she's not always up, so some will be drawn from life (like today) while others will be from photographs - she really doesn't seem to like being photographed, though.

I'm going to be using all the bits and pieces of stuff that have been shoved to the back of drawers. Today's drawing is on a piece of ampersand pastelbord I brought back from New York. It was quite lovely to draw on, using pan pastel initially, then chalk and charcoal pencils.

If you'd like to see previous years, they are at 2014 , when I was preparing for my first solo show, 2013 , when there wasn't an organised thing, so I blogged every day instead. In 2012 I just kinda drew what was around me, similar to 2011 which was the very first one and I was new to sketching, new to blogging and just generally a beginner - the encouragement I got that year really encouraged me to keep developing ever since.

Review 2014

The Kitten

This time last year I wrote about being very excited about the year to come as I felt I had discovered what my paintings should be about. I finished the post with "So, this year the aim is to put together a body of work of which I am proud, dealing with how people present themselves." And have I achieved this? Yes.

I am proud of my solo show in August and although I still have a lot of work to do in exploring how we tell stories about ourselves visually I do feel I've made a decent beginning. Thankfully, buyers do seem to agree with me, as almost half of the works from the show have now sold.

Which is terribly encouraging - all the paintings were bigger than I had tried before, and two of them were 3 x 4 ft - so I was working on quite a different scale from previously. Big canvases are clearly in my future.

This was my first solo show, so I had an awful lot to learn, not least how to create a group of work that hangs well together and making sure the paintings were done on time. Through doing this I learnt a process that works well for me where I draw the proposed painting on a smaller scale. On some occasions I also did a colour study to try out options or to see if a bigger version will be possible. Which is very traditional but in my case updated with the use of digital camera - if considering a change if tone or colour I would play around on the computer. But sometimes there is no alternative to doing it in oils.

What else was new? Well, several of the people I painted were folk I had never met before but had volunteered - I was nervous that I couldn't paint someone whom I didn't already know, but fortunately it worked out well which hopefully means that my first commissioned portrait to be done soon will not be a problem.

What else happened this year? Several new galleries have been in touch with me, so I will be showing at various new places next year, which is quite exciting.

So I had quite a good year, unlike Glasgow in general, which suffered greatly in various ways. But onwards and upwards.

RGI Postcard Exhibition

Two Forks

A couple of weeks ago I listed the christmas shows that'll have my work in this december - but I forgot one - the RGI Kelly Gallery Christmas exhibition .
As I was included in the last RGI show, they've asked me to put in a postcard sized work - The Two Forks, above, for sale unframed at £250 along with everyone else's small works. The private view will be next friday (the 5th) from 5 til 7 - the chances of picking up a bargain are fairly high, so I'm disappointed I'll probably miss it - maybe next year I'll declare the last week of november/first of december a holiday and just float around all the openings without having to worry about getting some stuff done - might be fun!

Christmas Shows 2014

Fourteen of my paintings have been delivered to four galleries in preparation for their Christmas shows.
First up is Mansfield Park Gallery, who will be having a changing show, as buyers will be able to take their paintings with them, rather than waiting for the show to end - my contribution is two paintings of tea-cakes as well as one of a magic wand and a tiny 10 cm painting.
Leiper Fine Art have also started hanging their Christmas show but won't be having the opening until the 4th. It will be my first time showing with them - although not the first time at one of their openings - and it will be interesting to see The Beauty and The Innocent in among other painter's work.
Art Exposure Gallery is now on Great Western Road, a couple of doors down from Dominoes and across from the underground, and will be having their opening on Friday the 28th. They will have the upstairs area all finished by then so I expect it will be a great night to see a good range of work - along with Peek-a-boo (above), The Crest , Metamorphosis and two of the clown drawings.
Finally there is The Glasgow Art Club with their exhibition open to the general public from the 24 th. This one is particularly not to be missed, as it includes work from past as well as present members so provides a bit of a survey of painting in Glasgow since it opened - there is a watercolour painting of roses by Mackintosh, an oil by his teacher Fra Newbery, a couple of Muirhead Bone's prints, several luscious David Donaldsons and John Cunningham's fab Garden Festival painting, for example. Hanging the show, getting a close up look at these, was a real pleasure, and I do feel honoured to be hanging on the same walls as them - The Fool and the The Queen are both near the bar, while The Fall is in the newly restored big hall.
See you there?