After yesterday's drawing I had a wee think about what it was I hated about charcoal (the mess, the difficulty in getting different tones, the lack of accuracy) and on spotting a big thick bit of charcoal in the box thought I'd try a diffemore direct approach.
And enjoyed myself much much more.
Have I mentioned how much I hate vine charcoal? No? That may be because I've been wise enough to avoid the stuff for the last few years - when I have used charcoal, it has been charcoal pencils and dust, and has been at an easel.
Using it in a small scale (about a4) on the couch was just murder - at one stage I had to open a window to shake all the dust off as it was just moving about the paper and not adhering. Gah!
Anyway, done now and I hope you like it - a wee picture of us together, even if she is clearly just putting up with me.
From the top, letraset promarker, neocolour paynes grey and white, without water added, and quink ink withfine sketching nib and brush.
Not the most interesting pose, but she was on the cough so I got to draw her live for a change. What interests me is how small these drawings are - I seem to have automatically pretty much made them sight-size. Mind you, not having all that much time before going to work might have influenced things. One of the things I love about drawing from life is that you just do stuff, use whats around, and don't over analyse anything - and often thats how breakthroughs get made. Although not this morning!
Which is your favourite?
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.
Day 7 and I went shopping today for art materials - I realised that I didn't have any good, dark, 8b pencils - I think I must have used them all as I really, really loved these pencils once upon a time.
Now my hand has cramp as I'm really not used to this kind of intensive drawing any more, using a brush is so very much quicker. But being forced to take longer is possibly a good thing, I certainly felt that I was making more adjustments and decisions as I went along than I do when using watercolour so that it actually felt more like oil painting.
Next time, maybe a more scribbly, line based style - we'll see. There were a few other purchases which I'll use before the month is up - one of my aims this year is to broaden my drawing skills, both in what materials I use and how I use them - I hope you are enjoying my efforts so far.
Day 6 and I didn't have much time at all this morning. Kitty here was determined to be awkward, refusing to let me draw her on her chair by keeping moving, then following me through and jumping up to be stroked as soon as I sat down - very nice, but no drawing could be done. Eventually though (when I was almost late leaving the house) she got bored and decided to stretch out in the hall instead - hence this very quick brush and ink sketch. Then I threw her out and went to work!
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.
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