paintings prints and stuff

This is the bit where Gesa's pages end and she overlaps slightly onto my page - just a fragment of the image - I've treated it like the paper game of consequences and continued the marks into my work - but to see the whole pages you'll have to wait until Stephanie gets the book and then I can show you :>) And now I have to go and sort out some room to fit my new plan chest into - I got it from Freecycle and of course it is HUGE! but it will be so useful for storing paper and large drawings. I just have to make space for it and work out what I may have to part with to make that space. It's coming on Wednesday :>) - though I am dreading getting it upstairs!!!

Fields of Gold. oil in moleskine sketchbook. Vivien Blackburn My little moleskine before setting off for the moleskine exchange - it's the little concertina one, which I found really tiny to work in. Stephanie has now received it and so I can post the picture here. I've been working in Gesa's book which arrived on Wednesday - her challenge was great fun to work to but I can't show it until it's finished and arrives at Stephanie's - she's threatened dire consequences if I don't get it forwarded SOON! The challenge for my book is local landscapes - panoramic, close up - even macro details - whatever. I'm really looking forward to it arriving home eventually, full of interesting work by Stephanie http://arokerartist.blogspot.com/ , Gesa http://gesah.blogspot.com/ , Lorraine http://hopefulart.blogspot.com/ , David http://daviddrawsandpaints.blogspot.com/ . Lindsay http://straightlinesout.blogspot.com/ . Casey http://thecolorist.blogspot.com/ , and

I'm taking part in 2 sketchbook exchanges and it's fun ! 1 Moleskine exchange: Gesa http://gesah.blogspot.com/ Gesa sends her book to me - and it arrived this morning. :>) She's used a really interesting mix of media and integrated them beautifully - something that looks easier to do than it is - relating to the theme for her book ' Lines, Lineages, Linings' with a lovely quote from Nicholas de Stael ' a series of discontinous lines that try to define a space by exploring the emptiness of the sheet on which they appear to be hanging but that can, at any moment, take them in' H Maldiney on Nicholas de Stael 1953 - a great quote , related to beautifully by this piece. There is another as well but that photo didn't come as well. My local landscape - city/country/close up/panoramic/detail/whatever seems very ordinary in comparison. There are 8 of us in the group. Here's the cover of mine, which flies this afternoon. http://moleskineexchange.blog

Today I received an invitation from Jaime Rodriguez, a Professor Ecology and also a very good painter, to join Paintmap - a really cool site where you add a google map link to show where your paintings were done. http://vivien.paintmap.com/ - this is a link to the images I've uploaded at the moment. It's great the way it shows where precisely they were painted - though sadly google map flattens all the hills and cliffs but you get an idea of the countryside and coast where I've worked. .... and of course for further images of seascapes there is alway The Book! link on top right of my blog. .

May in England, yellow fields and cow parsley. Sketch. 18x26cm approx Watercolour/mixed media. Vivien Blackburn A watercolour and mixed media sketch of the rapeseed just before it loses it's bright yellow flowers, with the cow parsley billowing in the verges, done from near where the pastel sketch was done. Watercolour, a little work with coloured pencils, white gouache and tippex went into this -and lots of fun splattering paint :>) The flowers are turning to seed pods now and so the fields of bright yellow are beginning to take on a greenish tinge in places - the drama of the bright yellow will very quickly be over for the time being. One of my students tells me that farmers get 2 crops per year from the rapeseed and so there will be a second show of this bright yellow in the autumn. This was done on Arches hot pressed paper - which is great for coloured pencils as it's smooth, but not as nice for the watercolours. The paint doesn't seem to spread in quite the same wa

A sketch of the Leicestershire landscape, fields of rapeseed glowing with their bright yellow flowers against the hazy blue distant hedgerows and woods in the evening light and clouds of cow parsley in the fields edge. Pastel sketch in my new hand made concertina sketchbook. Vivien Blackburn I managed this sketch of the local landscape between classes yesterday. It was early evening and the distant woods and hedges had that mauvey blue tinge and the fields of yellow rapeseed glowed. The roadsides are a mass of flowers - particularly the cow parsley. I've been meaning to get out and sketch before the yellow flowers are over. In this part of the county it's grown a lot and some areas become almost totally a glowing yellow - some love it, some hate it and a lot suffer hayfever because of it! (I'm on my Telfast antihistamines, sniff) I made myself a sketchbook from Lindsay's brilliant instructions - look here: http://straightlinesout.blogspot.com/2008/04/modified-concertina

Sunset, Ebb Tide, watercolour, Vivien Blackburn Sunset, looking across the beach as the tide ebbs and the pools of water reflect the sky. I haven't used watercolour for a while and fancied playing with the way that the colours merge and flow and glazes of transparent colour create colours it's impossible to name - just like the sky in real life. There's a lot of aureolin yellow in there - a lovely transparent yellow when used thinly. There is also a very little watercolour pencil and a little pencil added at the end. I do like watercolours - I should remember to use them more often and get a bit more practice in! you can see some other work on Cornwall here http://vivienb.blogspot.com/search/label/Cornwall .

A lovely weekend at my daughters and I managed to take some close ups of flowers in the garden - the huge tulips had gone over and were losing their petals but looked absolutely luminous in the sun. I tried to catch the fragile dandelion clocks - not terribly successfully :>) the light and shadows on the eucalyptus tree was lovely with the blue grey leaves and warm reddish branches Dont' forget to check on the challenge links - there are new additions to see at the top of the list :>) http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2008/04/sketching-paintbrushes-and-my-day-links.html

Just a quick reminder to check back on http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2008/04/sketching-paintbrushes-and-my-day-links.html for updated entries by people in the paintbrush and my day challenges Do check it out as there are some great sketches in the links. And it isn't too late to join in :>) .