#Caturday

Sparta Puss on a blanket.

Sparta Puss has been posing quite a bit lately, and I’ve been taking photographs and playing around with them in Adobe Photoshop. Here she is lying on a nice woven blanket and I’ve put the photo through the Water Paper filter.

Her little white socks.

Scraping It On.

A horizontal rectangular canvas painted overall in orange with some areas of white highlights. The surface of the paint is very textured.
Just a palette knife so far.

I’ve started applying the paint to one of my new paintings. On top of the orange ground, I’ve scraped on a few areas of Titanium White, with a palette knife, which will be the highlights. It’s going to be another nocturne.

Laying A Ground.

A photograph of two stretched canvasses covered with Cadmium Orange paint.
Scraping an orange ground onto the canvasses.

I did a bit more to the canvasses I’ve been recycling. I have a couple of ideas for paintings so I used Liquitex Heavy Body opaque Cadmium Orange to lay down a background colour. I don’t like working on top of white, I find it intimidating. I’ve used the orange a few times now and it gives a lovely warmth to the finished painting.

Recycling Canvas

The photograph shows two used canvases that have been recycled with a layer of white gesso, a tube of acrylic paint in orange and a spatula ready to apply the paint.
Scraping The Surface.

I recycled a couple of canvasses I didn’t like a while back, ready for some new painting projects. I scraped a load of acrylic gesso over the surfaces, deliberately leaving them textured. Then I daubed one of them with some leftover pinks and purples from another painting I’m working on – waste not want not. This is the one I’ll continue with.

Cat Among The Tulips: 7.

A detail of a painting, Portrait of Sparta Puss, showing a chocolate tin and some toiletry bottles. The objects are mostly in pinks and purples.
Painting the chocolate tin.

I carried on with my portrait of Sparta Puss today, but concentrated on the still-life bits – the chocolate tin and toiletries. I think all the components are now in place, I just have to refine them with several layers of thin washes and I need to knock back most of the light bits.

I’m painting with Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics onto a 40 x 40 cms stretched canvas using brushes by Daler-Rowney, Winsor & Newton and Isabey.

An Unusual Pose.

A quick sketch of a potter kneeling on the ground as she checks underneath a kiln that is doing a raku firing. She kneels in front of the kiln, with a leafy hedge behind the kiln.
The Potter Checks The Kiln.

I went to a raku firing yesterday and as well as decorating and glazing some small pieces I also had a scribble. The potter spent some time on the ground, looking under the kiln. I don’t know why she was doing it, but it was a great pose to draw.

Different faces of the little houses, showing the range of oxides used.

Raku Alchemy.

A photograph of two tiny houses and a little bird made from clay and fired in the Japanese Raku style, showing the characteristic crackle glaze and metallic hues typical of raku pottery.
Figures from a Raku firing.

I spent a great afternoon decorating some little ceramic figures for a raku firing today. Local ceramicist Esther Ley opened her garden and studio and provided some tiny bisque-fired houses and small birds to be decorated with oxides and glazes. Once we’d finished decorating, the little clay objects were fired in a spectacular outdoor kiln, then plunged into a mini-dustbin full of sawdust and newspaper before being washed off to reveal the subtle crackling and metallic hues typical of raku pottery.

All the tiny houses after firing.

More Dancers At The Theatre

A continuous line drawing of a dancer, drawn into my sketchbook. She has her arm across the top of her head and is facing to the left. She wears a dark crop top and light wide-legged trousers.

A few more sketches from the other evening of performances at Taliesin Arts Centre. It’s good to have access to bodies in motion, I usually draw people in cafes or audiences or work with life models. I worked very quickly with a continuous line, mostly.

The Dancer In The Theatre

A quick sketch of a dancer on stage in the Taliesin theatre, drawn with ballpoint pen into an A5 size sketchbook. The dancer has her arms outstretched and wears a flower garland in her hair.
One Of The Young Dancers.

Husb and I went to the theatre the other night for a private event which included performances by young people in the County Youth Dance Company. It was a rare opportunity to do some speed drawing with people moving constantly and pushing their bodies into poses I don’t normally see.

Ballpoint pen into a sketchbook.

Sketchbook Scribbling

A head and shoulders sketch of a middle-aged male musician singing at a theatre performance. This drawing "en plein air" has been done with a ballpoint pen into an A5 sketchbook.
The Musician In The Theatre

I was at the theatre the other evening, the Taliesin Arts Centre, in the front row, and scribbled some of the performers on stage as I had a great view. This musician had a lived-in and very expressive face. So I scribbled him.