paintings prints and stuff

 Cardoon, detail, coloured pencil What are the crucial , vital, key elements in drawing and painting?  There isn't a hard division between painting and drawing - they blur into each other - for instance, charcoal is extremely painterly and paintings need drawing elements (with paint). For me the key elements are: observation and underlying drawing skills even in very free or very sketchy work, it's what makes it hang together believably -  it doesn't need to result in a photorealist image, just one where proportions and perspective and form are shown.  The observation in a Degas sketch is amazing, with life and vitality,  but not photo like.  The sketches of David Hockney or Van Gogh are made up of pattern and marks - but the landscape reads, uphill down dale and the woods and hedgerows flow. . good use of tone , showing the full range observable - this may be limited as in a subtle Gwen John interior - but more often has a wide range of con...

Phew it's all finished - well apart from putting things away.   This was the exhibition with a little group of friends - we meet up once a month to discuss work in progress, critique, sometimes arrange to visit exhibitions or sketch plein air and a couple of times a year put on these shows.   You'll probably recognise the work here. 3 intense days, lots of visitors, lots of nice things said, lots of interesting conversations. My browser - the portrait behind is the work of one of the friends. so ...... here are a few images from the show.

Birch trees in the snow in the early morning mist 16x20ins oil on canvas Nearly finished but I'll probably keep tweaking it for a bit! The earlier stages are here and here and other trees are here . ...   and one that just didn't work - using coloured pencils on a mid brownish pastel paper.   Not a mix to repeat, for me anyway. The colours are too dulled by the paper, the pencils simply didn't have the intensity to cover it. I've got a small piece of Fisher 400 to experiment with - a friend, Nicole Caulfield, uses it for all her portraits and loves it.   I think I have to give it a go with watercolour and coloured pencils together.  

 Detail 1   detail 2 progress so far .... Still a little way to go but here is a quick update.  I'm waiting for the paint to dry before working on it further. You can see a bit of pentimenti* - the copper shape shining through in the trees at the back - some will remain but the unnatural shapes, like the circle and almost triangle,  will be lost/adjusted in subsequent layers and glazes. *Isn't that a nice word for an altered underpainting showing through?

oil on canvas 16x20inches I've struggled to find painting time recently - but this is the start of a new canvas, one of a series along with this one in the previous post here, this one , and others if you search under the tag ' trees '  . It is done over a still life painting that I didn't like with a lot of blues in it and some copper - the paint is very thinly scumbled in places, allowing the colours to come through and become part of this work.   Sometimes I really like working over an old canvas because of the things that happen, the colours that come through - sometimes shining through thin layers of paint and sometimes fragments, flickering through overlaid colour. I had the previous sketch propped up - but as always, the painting took on a life of its own.  Both are purely from memories of snow and trees and shining water and quick sketches done plein air.  Using the colour of the underlyng painting changed the feel entirely and the water somehow ...

Early Winter Woods, oil on deep sided canvas, approx 24 ins wide, old painting Do you always stick to a standard size for work to enable easy framing?  or do you allow the subject to dictate the format? For me there is no question.   The subject dictates the format.     I tend to find the standard sizes are frequently not right for me.  I enjoy working on long thin formats, vertical or horizontal, square, just off square - all sorts. OK it involves custom framing if they are on paper, or making my own canvasses up if on canvas.  Use the same framer regularly and the they will usually do you a competitive price - mine does, so the extra cost is minimal. I don't frame canvasses, I use deep sided gallery wrap, paint the sides neatly and that's that.   Winter trees, oil on deep canvas,  I no longer have it but it was 30/36 inches tall My husband made up the stretchers for these long thin canvasses for me - B...

First Snow, mixed media on card This was my postcard done for the postcard exchange this month. It started life as a demo to students of oil paint used with a palette (painting) knife on card.  (My tutors at uni were insistent that painting knives had cranked handles and palette knives, for mixing paint, not painting with, were straight but habit makes us all just say 'palette knife' I think, even if not strictly correct?) It languished unfinished until I found it and decided to finish it in coloured pencil - it's about 6/6.5 inches wide as far as I remember - it was posted a while back. Oil paint, used on paper or card, takes oil based coloured pencil brilliantly.  (Polychromos, Lyra pencils) It was done from memories of the first snow fall, which came very early last year.

First Snow - detail I've had a play with inktense blocks on A3 watercolour paper, working loosely from a previous sketch in coloured pencil in a sketchbook. First Snow, A3, inktense detail detail I really enjoyed drawing with them then swishing water over, leaving some of the lines to show through washes, then work on in glazes of colour, some dry marks left dry, some splattering, drawing on wet paper as well as dry.   So many potential marks :>) I had some of the holders but ended up working too fast to use them - so have multicoloured hands :>) A friend tells me she uses them on material in quilts and fixes them with a Delta medium - I need to look this medium up :>)   her quilts are gorgeous and well worth looking up

Porthgwarra from the cliffs, Tide in, Watched by a Seal , oil paint, about 11 inches square, not quite finished , Vivien Blackburn A hazy, windy day, forecast rain stayed away, the tide in so no beach to be seen but a seal swimming out in the surf  kept popping up to look at us. I sat in a sheltered spot amongst the wildflowers on the cliff  - just the sounds of the sea and the occasional gull - heaven.  Even himself was quietly musing, no talking. It needs just a little work doing before I'll call it finished.  I often do just a little more when I get plein air works home - I'm looking at them as a painting then without distraction. details:  the sea seething on the rocks 3 corndered leeks, sea thrift and many other flowers around me I made it to Porthgwarra without incident this time - last time I ended up having to reverse for about half a mile because I met a HUGE oncoming tanker touching both hedges and totally filling the road, followed by a mas...

A collage of paintings of Cornwall, mostly done plein air Katherine over at Making a Mark has done 2 good posts on having your own voice , your own ideas behind your sketches and paintings, not being over derivative; although it's impossible of course not to be influenced by others, the important thing is to develop your own way forward. I did a previous post on 'style' here saying some very similar things so needless to say - I agree with her. This montage is a variety of sketches, drawings and paintings I've done in Cornwall and I think they reveal what interests me - the light - the way it catches the water or wet sand, casts shadows in some areas leaving others brightly lit, the particular colours of the sea and sky - a sense of movement, of passing weather, wind, rain or sun, the way the waves roll in - the season - warm/cold/early/late - a sense of place and what it feels like to me. I've attempted in these to catch the way that the waves rolled in at dif...

Last Light, oil on deep canvas. 12 ins square. Vivien Blackburn Not a great photo as it's shining - but one of the recent series of 12 inch canvasses. I'm deep in Christmassy stuff and hopefully will catch up with the blog this week.

Mawgan Porth, across the bay, progress maybe finished This one may be finished now. The others are on their way as well so there will be more to show soon. It's based on a sketch done plein air - but I've used a lot of memories of being there and other sketches from the same place, to change things, move them around, adjust colour slightly and adapt it to a square format. I'm also busy with designing the fliers and poster for the exhibition. I've already done the press releases. I'm going to do a post soon on organising an exhibition with a group - delegating tasks, publicity, venue etc

work in progress, Mawgan Porth, 12 inches square, deep sided canvas This is one of the canvasses I'm juggling at the moment for the group show of small works (at the beginning of December). I'm working from sketches I did plein air in various media and trying to keep the immediacy of them. They aren't exact copies of the plein air work - they are altered a little and memory feeds into them. As I'm working in the studio (errrm much to himself's annoyance .... the kitchen for the best light) I can work wet over dry as well as wet in wet, scumbling scratching through etc Any thoughts?

close ups of the image from yesterday The paper was a pale grey, the whites are oil paint put on with a flat brush in single strokes between the branches, leaving bits of the grey flickering through the entire image. They would make interesting large canvasses if only I could keep them that simple .... ..... large brushes .... lots of paint ...... and time ....

January Snow. Vivien Blackburn A painting that started out as a monoprint demo and ended as a mixed media piece. About 10/11 inches tall. The monoprint was done using oil paint on acetate, printed onto paper wet with turps. I then worked into it with a colour shaper and a brush, using more oil paint and then a graphite stick to draw through the wet paint. The graphite stick worked beautifully on the turpsy surface, gliding across it and making intense oily marks.

Norfolk, changing seasons, some past plein air oil paintings, Vivien Blackburn I'm up to my eyes in work at the moment and so paintings are going slowly. I have to wrestle with a printer in a minute - it insists there is a paper jam - and there isn't . I want to print Sam's book. As I'm not managing to get out to sketch I thought I'd write today about the downside to console myself. Like ................... - the winter trip to sketch when the wind howled straight off the sea, usually we could shelter in the dunes and somewhere we'd be able to get out of the wind. Not that day. The top right hand sketch was done in a tiny 6inch square sketch book in oils. It was the only thing I could hold still enough - a larger book just kept flipping in the wind and my hand with it, every time I got the paintbrush near. It's about the only thing I managed that day for a long day out, 200 mile round trip and hypothermia. - a bitterly cold day with uninteresting ...

detail Dawn, the 40 inch canvas is finished but is proving a nightmare to photograph. Natural light was terrible, bleaching out the subtle yellows and ambers in the clouds. The best results were under the flourescent light in the kitchen but even then, the balance isn't quite right :>( details There is more colour in the foreground rocks - which shows ok in the detail but is lost in the photo of the whole painting - and the same with the loss of subtlety in the clouds which have a variety of yellows and amber, which is lost when photographing the whole. This is the best impression of it I can get I'm afraid.

Dawn, oil on canvas 40 inches square, work in progress This is where the painting is now. The sky is a little paler and less yellow/orange. Nearly there. I'll just about make it in time! I have to deliver it on Friday morning. The edges of the cloud above the cliff need tidying up when it dries enough and other areas need looking at - like the dark/light on the horizon. The canvas is a deep gallery wrap one and I'll paint the edges in a greyed blue to tone with the painting. any c&c?

detail detail Dawn, work in progress stage 2 This is where the painting is at the moment - the warm lamplight is greying the blue a bit but as I've got a busy day and evening tomorrow I thought I'd settle for the light and post this update. I concentrated mainly on the clouds with just a little work elsewhere - bringing the horizon down a little and adding touches of the warm glow on the rocks that show above the water. c&c?

Dawn, 40 inch sq canvas, work in progress, Vivien Blackburn This is roughed in over an old painting that I didn't like. There is more dark sky above the clouds that I couldn't fit into the photo - my arms weren't long enough to hold the camera far enough away to fit it all in. It's all wet so I didn't intend to get covered in paint trying to bring it downstairs - been there, done that, on Friday. This is the missing top bit It's a balancing act between getting the darkness and not making it too dark for anyone to live with. It's 40 inches square so that's potentially a big dark looming mass It's got a way to go yet - but , I'm insane - I've committed to put it in an exhibition later this month so I have to push on with it. Feedback welcome :>)