Cat Among The Tulips: 2.

Getting there.

I carried on with the painting of Sparta Puss, adding some more layers of translucent Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics. I played with the brushstrokes on the cat’s fur, using paint straight from the tube on a dry brush and making them choppy to look more furry.

I added Dioxazine Purple for the tin of chocolates and to pick out some of the shadows (left), a wash of Van Dyke Red on the cat and table (centre), and translucent Burnt Umber on the cat and tin, along with opaque Bright Aqua Green on the leaves and stems (right). It’s coming along ….

Cat Among The Tulips: 1.

Developing the underpainting.

I have had a nasty cold the past few days and I wanted to do something to occupy myself that was fun so I decided to paint Sparta Puss from a photo where she’s posing in front of some beautiful tulips. I started with the canvas I recently covered in an opaque Magenta ground (here).

I blocked in a rough outline with a translucent Hooker’s Green (left), then added highlights in opaque Titanium White (centre), and used a rag to apply a textured opaque Titanium White directly onto the still damp Hooker’s Green in the background and some texture into the cat’s coat. Plenty more to do though. I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint onto a stretched canvas.

#StandingStoneSunday: The Book Launch

The author Dewi Bowen by the artist Melvyn Williams.

“Hunting The Wild Megalith“, the book of the journey of the Boar Hunt (Y Twrch Trwyth) is being launched this coming Friday (March 31st) at Swansea’s prestigious GS Artists gallery. The book is based on the theory that the route of The Boar Hunt in the Mabinogion includes most of the major Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments across South Wales. Author Dewi Bowen has painstakingly mapped them and co-written this book (with Olwyn Pritchard) which is not just learned but also full of entertaining stories, humour and art. 

Swansea-based artist and filmmaker Melvyn Williams drew the portrait of Dewi above and also made several short films of Dewi’s explorations across South Wales, hunting the wild megaliths. Here’s one of the films, with Dewi, me and various Welsh horses.

Recycling Paintings I Don’t Want.

Slapping On The Gesso.

I opened up a tub of acrylic gesso, grabbed some palette knives and covered a couple of used canvases with a thick textured layer. The paintings were done a while back with Ed Sumner’s Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook during the pandemic lockdown. They were fun to do and I learned a lot but I can’t see any point in keeping them.

Picasso top and Kandinsky bottom.

I want to do a few atmospheric, heavily textured paintings soon, so this is a good start.

Prepping in Pink

A Big Pink Ground.

I’m starting a new painting so the first thing to do is to prepare it by getting rid of the intimidating white that’s on a fresh new canvas. During the Covid19 lockdown, which went on for nearly 2 years, I took up painting after a break of about 4 decades – I hadn’t painted since art college. I joined Ed Sumner‘s “Cheese and Wine Paint Club” on Facebook and followed along weekly as Ed taught lots of Lockdowners how to paint by “faking” famous paintings. It was fun, it was instructive and it created a lovely community of people united in art.

Ed taught us to start each painting with a coloured “ground”, often a bright orange, yellow or pink. He called this a “lustre” and although most of it will disappear under the final painting, it will add a richness and warmth.

I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint onto a stretched and primed canvas.

A Quick Sketch In A High Wind.

Drawing on a high hill.

Husb and I spent a few days with friends on the South East coast of England last week. It was cold and very windy but mostly sunny too, great walking weather and great walking country. We strolled over the South Downs with the Seven Sisters in the distance. Of course, I had to have a scribble, but it wasn’t easy in a high wind! So I kept it very quick, making a few marks with my Inktense blocks and using my reservoir brush to turn the dry medium into an ink wash.

But the best thing was spending time with old friends that we hadn’t seen in the real world since before Covid19 hit us all. It’s lovely to get out and see people again, that’s what really matters in life, friends and family.

Another one from my sketchbook

Here’s a quick scribble from my sketchbook, a continuous line drawing in ballpoint pen. The speaker was presenting at an event I went to recently and stayed quite still. These small, fast sketches underpin my arts practice, they look insignificant but each one I do hones my ability to assess proportion and perspective.

A Figure At Rest

Sitting quietly.

Just a quick scribble in my sketchbook of someone sitting quietly – and still – having a rest.

A Feisty Niece, a Furry Cat and a Film.

A great niece.

I’ve been working on this portrait of my feisty great-niece for ages. The original is a fab photo by Jeremy Wheeler of Agea Studio, and I struggled with the hand and arm, because they’re slightly blurred and I kept wanting to “correct” the image, but that just made it look weirder. Here are the stages of the painting, from the initial sketch. The underpainting went through some really strange transformations! I used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paints onto stretched canvas.

Here’s a short time-lapse film that Husb made of the painting, from scratch. I used a recycled canvas that I had been doing some hard-edge experiments on. At times, I worked with the photo and canvas upside down as I find it easier to get the details right that way. See if you can spot Sparta Puss – she likes to keep me company while I paint.

Feisty niece and furry cat.

Chubby Foxes.

Waiting for their tea.

Husb and I had a few days away, staying with friends on the South Coast – that’s East Sussex, not Barrybados LOL 😀 Their garden was visited several times a day by two of the chubbiest foxes I’ve ever seen. Big, fluffy and ginger, I thought they were odd-looking corgis when I saw them first. But no, they’re little chubsters living a privileged suburban life.

I put the detail below through an Adobe Photoshop filter.

Fox through a filter.