Channelling Gabrielle and Paula

trees 1 step c

This is new for me, I’m doing a painting based on a sketch done en plein air a few weeks back. I’ve been practicing my paint skills with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook throughout the lockdown and now I feel confident enough to do one of my own. I love the German Expressionists, especially Gabrielle Münter and Paula Mödersohn-Becker. I love the way they express feelings though colour and gestural marks, rather than copy nature. So I guess I’m channelling Gabrielle and Paula for this one.

Here’s the original drawing, willow charcoal on Khadi paper, and the first two stages of the painting before I started to add colour, using transparent Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics.

 

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Doing My Own Thing

step 1

I’ve been doing a fair bit of painting during lockdown. I challenged myself to improve my skills as I hardly ever paint. I’ve been doing a weekly practice session with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook, which has been great. I’ve learnt a lot. But today I decided that I should start to do my own thing instead of copying others. Another thing I’ve been doing during lockdown is a load of drawings en plein air with charcoal into my Khadi sketchbook. So today I used one of the drawings as source material and worked up a very basic underpainting onto a stretched canvas with transparent Liquitex acrylic paints, thinned with water.

cat and landscape

Later, I tried to take a photo of an abstract painting but Sparta Puss had other ideas!

 

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Turn It Around

on the side

I spent about an hour today finishing the fake Picasso I started on Friday with The Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. It’s my lockdown challenge to improve my painting skills and this is my twelfth one. I’m learning a lot, studying the greats, and Ed Sumner, who leads the sessions, is an entertaining and informative teacher.

For the final bit, I turned the source picture and my painting on their sides. I find it’s easier when you’re copying an artwork to look at it from a different angle, it helps to see what’s actually there rather than what you think is there.

final

Here she is, Sleeping Girl. I used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paints, Daler-Rowney brushes for acrylics and a cheapo canvas from Wilkos. The next Cheese and Wine Painting Club is on Friday August 28th and the subject is painting abstract flowers. It’s not a subject that I would normally choose, but this is about learning and improving, not enjoying myself (although mostly I do).

Another Faking Friday

 

girl 7 b

 

It’s another faking Friday with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. It’s been running weekly through lockdown, inspiring people to learn something about the techniques of, mostly, famous artists in a very accessible and enjoyable way, building a nice community during the pandemic. Today we had Picasso’s “Sleeping Girl”. I really liked this one, it’s very free and simple. There’s probably another hour or so to do on it – that’ll wait until tomorrow.

 

 

This is my twelfth fake and I’m learning a lot about painting, which was my reason for doing it in the first place. It’s up to you how much you want to chip in for each session but they’re free for people who can’t afford it. The next one is abstract flowers, using a palette knife. Click on the link above to find out more.

 

 

 

Messing About With Gouache And Buttercream

figure 1

I had a bit of gouache left over from a design I was working on so, waste not want not, I grabbed some Bockingford paper that was knocking about and messed about with it, not using any source material, just brushing the paint across the paper for the sheer fun of it. It flows so well and makes great marks. Then I made a cake for one of my young relatives who got his – good – GCSE results today, a three layer lemon sponge filled and covered with lemon buttercream. I’ve no idea what it tasted like, because I rarely eat cake, but he seemed happy enough.

lemon buttercream

 

Cake And Chaos

coconut and sultana

Sometimes you have your day planned out and there’s plenty of time to do some artwork but then life just gets in the way and everything turns a bit chaotic and that’s what it was like today. Nothing bad, just unexpectedly hectic. But I made time to make Husb his favourite cake for his birthday, coconut and sultana, plain but proper tasty. Tomorrow’s his birthday but he’s piled into the cake already.

Scrapings and Surrealists

scrapings

I’m very frugal. I was raised by the “waste not, want not” generation and I try to use up everything. I’ve been doing some painting practice through the lockdown and I’ve taken to scraping the paint off my palette and onto nice paper. It’s very good paint, Liquitex Easy Body acrylic, onto Bockingford paper. The early 20th century Surrealists  used to do random stuff to get inspiration. I don’t know if I’ll be inspired to take this one further, but at least it can be ripped up for collage.

 

 

Sharpening Tools

august

Just carrying on cutting blocks today for my pandemic printmaking project. I’m still in the early stages but I know what I need to do and that’s most of the battle, to be honest. I keep my tools super sharp as I’m carving the lino, using my Flexcut Slip Strop.

Twenty eight blocks

I’ve cut almost a third of the little blocks. The whole piece will be made up of text printed onto fabric.

Calligraphy set

I treated myself to this Chinese calligraphy set. I don’t like shopping unless it’s for tools and art materials – oh, and books. I don’t know how to use it but I’ve been getting advice from over on Facebook and Instagram. I don’t think I’ll be trying it out for a while as I need to crack on with my lino project and I’m also doing a weekly painting session to improve my skills. But this is something to look forward to.

I Hated Doing This One!

field 5

I finally finished the painting I started with Facebook’s Cheese and Wine Painting Club over a week ago. It’s a weekly session where people join in online to paint a fake. This is the first time I really found it a chore and to be honest I hated doing it, which is why it’s taken me so long. I kept putting it off. I decided after a few weeks in lockdown to improve my painting skills and so far this has been a good way of doing it. I shouldn’t moan, I suppose if it’s hard then I’m probably learning more than if I sail through it. All those sunflowers and lavender were so incredibly fiddly. Good discipline though.

 

Tonto The Dog And A Pochoir Design

Jack 2

I don’t often take on design work but I need to put together an adult education instruction pamphlet, cutting stencils and building up layers of acrylic paint for a finished “pochoir“. It’s a word that’s hardly ever used now, it’s a multi layered stencil print. It was very popular in the first half of the 20th century and Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Miro are some of the artists who used the technique.

Jack 1

I started with a simple sketch of a Jack Russell, then I worked out how many colours I am going to print, which will give me the amount of stencils I need to cut. Then I had a practice doing some bones for the background, in gouache. I haven’t used gouache for yonks – years and years – but I had some in a box. They’re a good make, Winsor & Newton, so they’re still in excellent condition. I’d forgotten how much fun gouache is to play with.

That’s the guts of the design worked out, I’ll refine it as I’m cutting the stencils and decide on the final composition when I’m ready to print.

I love Jack Russells. My favourite is Tonto, who appeared on UK television in adverts for John Smith’s bitter. He was a great little dog. Here he is on video.