paintings prints and stuff

  Cat carving and cardoon by lamplight, coloured pencil in A3 moleskine Still looking at the items on the shelf above the tv but moving them around on paper, rearranging and looking at pattern and colour.  They aren't in the positions I've drawn them in at all and I've simply used the colour of the vase, though lightening it, not wanting the vase itself explained.  The same with the wheat and hearts patterns.  Warm light from the lamp and the cool lavender shades are observed so that the whole thing hangs together. Below are the earlier stages as it evolved.  I only have a rough idea of the final piece when doing this, unlike a traditional set up, where everything is where it will be in the image.   It evolves as I go.  Major elements like the cat carving, cardoon, blue of the vase and the honesty are decided immediately - they are the skeleton that everything hangs on.   Decisions about depth of tone, lost edges, patterns...

Cat in digital calligraphy, Sketch Pad app on ipad The ability to draw in text (see last post) in Sketch Pad is fun. These were done importing the previous digital sketches I'd done from life in another programme ( see earlier post s ) and working in a layer above them.   You can swith the layers on and off, exactly like photoshop, by clicking on the eye.   Once I'd got the basics down I deleted that layer and finished the image. details sketch from life using Pen and Ink app the digital calligraphy drawing is based on this onward ................

Tangled undergrowth, a sketch done with the Sketch Club app on an ipad This App was highly recommended to me and I'm so glad.  It has all sorts of features that I want - the ability to use layers, to import images done in other apps, layer options much like Photoshop, a good range of marks including some of Mr Doobs , (a free online app that you can use on a pc) and more.  It really is a very versatile one.  There are good options on resolution and file types.  It's extremely easy to use, very intuitive. The ability to work onto images done in other apps (or of course your photos) extends the creative possibilities enormously. Below is an experiment with drawing in lettering, not a great drawing but it demonstrates the fluidity with which the writing moves.  This has lots of potential in images and design.  I input the words happy birthday and then simply treated the text like line, to draw the flowers .  They repeat endlessly.  Cool?...

Quick sketch from life, the window sill and silhouetted resident tiger And yes the plant is tipped over thanks to madame there, my perspective wasn't out!   Done using the Pen and Ink app, then opening the image in the Spray Can app.   The trouble with this is that it sprays over your drawing, whereas using Photoshop on the computer allows you to work in a layer beneath.   I used a low opacity so that I could overlay colours - there is a very limited range. I haven't used the spray app much yet other than this. onwards ..................

Quick sketch from life using the Pen and Ink app on the ipad, drawn with my fingers The free Pen and Ink app really does have the scratchy feel of pen and ink.  It comes with very limited tools and options but you can pay to have more.   I'm planning to stick with the free pen option on this one. I couldn't work out how to open the image in another programme with layers to add colour (on the ipad) so I did it on the pc - see below: With added colour I simply worked on a layer below the pen drawing, using the colour at low opacity, with the layer option set to Multiply, so that glazes of colour built up with transparency.  I'm sure this is possible on the ipad when I can work out how to move the image into a suitable programme.   I know how to do the opacity/layers thing on the ipad in other apps - it's the moving an image into another app that I can't do. sketch of winter undergrowth using pen and ink app on the ipad, using a basic Colt ...

sketch in Derwent tinted charcoal Last week I went to the Lowry exhibition at the Djanogly gallery, Nottinghm University with my class.   It was fascinating.  I didn't know a lot about Lowry, though I liked his large cityscapes - we have a very good one in the gallery here. What I hadn't seen before were paintings like this one, a self portrait , done when his mother was dying - it's uncomfortable  - the grief, the lack of sleep, the battling on with stiff-upper-lip  - it's all there in bleak uncompromising detail. The text next to paintings and the catalogue ( I couldn't resist, I bought one, the colour repro and quality is excellent) were very good, setting the scene - the wars, the bombsites,  the area suffered devastating damage, explaining the open areas in a densely built industrial area of the city.   Apparently some remained right up to the 1970's.   The Depression, the death of the cotton industry, a huge employer, adding to the...

Friends came up with this caption for this one - what do you think?  Maybe you have to be a 'certain' age to remember chips wrapped in newspaper! Or Cod and chips they said .... not cat n' chips and this was an alternative Robyn suggested for yesterdays picture - snappier? what do you think?  any other ideas? and then there is this image that needs a caption  AND .......   Those of you who follow our group blog Watermarks may remember us starting up.   I had the initial idea but the other founder members were brilliant at getting it up and running. We initially kept it very small but with committments and other artistic subjects, it has slowed down a little.   We've decided to open up to a few more people who particularly enjoy painting water in all its incarnations - all those delicious reflections, waves, eddies ....... If you are interested in joining us leave a message on the blog or send an email to our address (on the Water...

Playing with ideas for a card competition - This is madame when she was young, playing in a waste paper basket.   I'm looking at the photo part of the competition as the artwork side is very very simplistic and graphic and not 'me'. The font needs playing with and making more interesting I know - that's just to get the idea down. Captions aren't easy!   any thoughts?

Another drawing of my daughters cat, sleeping this time with her beautiful bushy whiskers curling, fur glowing in the sunlight. Again in the A4 moleskine folio sketchbook, done with a mix of Lyra and Polychromos pencils.  This one is much closer up, so the fluffy, overlapping texture of the fur shows much more with lots of drawing back in with the Jakar eraser for the pale over dark sections and the whiskers. I deliberately gave the background a mauve/blue haze of colour to cool down all those warm glowing colours and offset them. detail of details drawn back in with the Jakar eraser You can see the layers of colour in this detail and the lines drawn back in with the Jakar eraser, clean back to the cream moleskine paper.

 Details of the cat in the last post So how did I work? My little Jakar battery eraser was essential for drawing back through the colour for those whiskers, adding highlights to the eyes and creating light fur over shaded areas or darker stripes.  It's such a brilliant drawing tool.   Coloured pencil on moleskine paper erases really cleanly and I think is my favourite surface for using them alone, rather than in a mixed media piece.   I also like warm cream paper. I rarely erase as in correcting and didn't at all here - the first marks are faint, were in orange and were assimilated into the final result.    That gives plenty of time to move things a little before going in with more colour and more detail, knowing you are happy with where it's positioned. It's so important to understand the layers of the fur and the direction - the skeleton and muscles beneath the fur, causing those shapes and changes of fur direction.  The brow and ...

Coloured pencil in A4 moleskine sketchbook This one is a present for my daughter.   In memory of her much loved cat who sadly is no more. She was beautiful with eyes that appeared really blue against her fur, very unusual. It isn't quite finished - I don't know whether to include her collar or not - have I got enough information on how her fur falls round her neck to leave it out?  decisions decisions ........

Sketch to test out those Rembrandt pencils, done on A4 paper A fairly quick sketch done from a photograph of the resident tiger.   I wanted to test out those Rembrandt pencils in a scribbly sketch of fur. The fluidity of cats - the way their bodies change shape from sleek and long legged to a plump little cushion of fur is fascinating - not to mention the intent face, closed eye and foreward curling whiskers of a good scratch :>)

quick sketch of the house tiger before she moved - so not a cooperative model Working with a limited palette - I forgot to put a scribble of the brown down on the left - but done with just 5 colours.

The resident tiger, coloured pencil in A3 folio moleskine A drawing of the resident tiger, looking down at her, done when himself was hogging the tv because golf was on, . She refused to pose, saying she had better things to do, so I'm afraid it's done from a photograph. details to show the scribbling that makes the fur and the 'drawing' back in with an electric eraser for the light over dark sections: As usual there are some subtle tones that aren't being picked up, bleached out by the scanner. The viewpoint is looking down a little at her and she's sitting slewed with her head at an angle and her body slightly twisted - thinking of moving off. more sketches of cats here

It's a lovely early autumn day and she-who-is-incredibly-spoilt is loving the sunshine in the garden. And yes, the lawn does need cutting I'm afraid. I'm up to my eyes in paperwork and hope to paint later - so I have no plans to even consider it - and anyway the cats love it long ;>) I love this kind of light. I hope the weather continues like this as it's the kind that leads to spectacular autumn colours that stay for a while.

I went to an artists talk by illustrator Liz Minichiello on Thursday, which was interesting. After the talk about her work she gave out A2 sheets of paper with rectangles printed and asked us if we would do sketches of our day, with detail and tone, and email/post them to her. 12 rectangles, each about 4 x 2.5 ins. The brief was to do this from memory rather than observation. my day, mechanical pencil, Vivien Blackburn The friend I went with and I thought it would be fun to do so here is my day woken by lousy alarm jangling and cats telling me to hurry up one cat wants to pursue his hobby of ornithology NOW! the other says her throat has been cut and noone has fed her for a week - hmmmm - see her shape! Cup of tea in attempt to surface and deal with day Drive to work, nice, watch the sky and the light of the early morning on the fields. Teach Look at students work Paint Lousy rotten hateful ^**%** paperwork work on computer collapse into bed Does anyone else fancy doing this? Leave a ...

Casey, Charcoal sketch. Vivien Blackburn Other bloggers are starting to make New Year Resolutions, something I normally give a miss! this year I thought maybe I ought to, so that I have targets set. I'll be covering a colleague on maternity leave and my time needs to be a bit more organised so that I get time to paint and have work ready for upcoming shows. I'm definitely organisationally dyslexic so this is tough ! I'll continue to work in series The waterways series : looking at local rivers, streams. ponds and reservoirs - one for when the weather is a little kinder to my arthritis, though I do have sketches to work from now. The coast series - I have lots of sketches and research to work from Local landscape series - ongoing to do more work in the flowers series doing more research and more large canvasses sketches of new grandson Sam as he grows :>) sketches of the cats - simply because I like sketching them a new series of totally abstract paintings , incorp...

The Patchwork Cat written by William Mayne and illustrated by Nicola Bayley Nicola Bayley did the beautiful illustrations for the Mousehole Cat, talked about in an earlier post. I did a search to see what else she had illustrated and ordered this one, The Patchwork Cat. The illustrations are every bit as gorgeous. It tells the tale of Tabby, a 'patchwork' cat who loves her patchwork blanket. When it's thrown away because it's old and dirty she inadvertently lands in the rubbish cart (because she'd crawled in to the bin to sleep on her blanket) and has to try to find her way home - carrying the blanket. Just look how well NB has caught the fear in the face below - she's like Beatrix Potter in being able to show the feelings of an animal whilst still being true to life and not Disney-like. All, luckily, ends happily as , lost and very tired as she drags her blanket, she comes across the milkman who takes her and her patchwork blanket home. Look at that bl...

monotype: copyright Vivien Blackburn This is a monotype I did some time ago - made by doing a random roll up of the printing plate with the honey/burnt sienna coloured printing ink. I then made cut out stencils from newspaper and overprinted with the black ink. With monotypes there can only be one, it isn't possible to recreate the print again. For this type of printing you don't need a printing press, you can just place the paper over the printing plate and rub the back with a baren or your palm to pick up the ink from the plate. He looks a bit cross at being disturbed. I've been looking at cats in art from the earliest times and found some beautiful examples :) In ancient Egypt they were of course revered but in medieval times their fortunes changed and they were seen as associated with magic, witches, licentiousness and wrongdoing. Hundreds of thousans were exterminated - leading to a rise in the rodent population and probably aiding the rise and spread of the plague - t...