paintings prints and stuff

snow ...... I've neglected my blog - I'll try to post slightly more often.  The warmer weather is here - so of course I get interested in snow.  It started because of a trip to the Cotswolds to see a Kurt Jackson exhibition in April - there was incredibly late snow on the hilltops looking wonderful.  That led to one painting and made me revisit sketches I did of a very early snowfall one November and work further from those.  November Low Sun, EarlySnowfall approx 15 inches square, pastel This is from the sketches done when we had and unusual very early snowfall in November, when there were still hints of autumn colour.   As I looked at the field a flock of birds took off,  The light in the sky was glorious and the patterns of the ploughed field - everything just added up to one of those perfect moments.   Dusk, November, Early Snowfall tiny one, approximately 5 inches square, coloured pencil The birds have flown and th...

St Ives.  An illustrational one as a workout for a commission. I need to do a large one of this beach for my daughter - a very overdue Christmas present! Keeping track of those buildings and trying to distort it a little to make it wrap around was not the simplest!  The big version won't be identical as it will evolve a life of its own though it will be similar - but she wants the family on the beach 'recognisable and flattering of all of them', while showing all the buildings etc .....!!!  No pressure then. This is small, in the S&B Delta sketchbook, A5.  On this latest trip to Cornwall I used watercolours, pencil, coloured pencils, oil paint, ink, conte, gouache and more on various pages.   It works with them all :>)

 Swithland Woods, detail.  Inktense, coloured pencil and a little ink  I sketched for a short while in Swithland Woods yesterday.   I'd taken my Inktense pencils - and lovely as they are I really really felt the need for oil paints to cope with dappled light and the ability to put back light over dark.  I'll have to get back there with my oils. Swithland Woods, S&B Beta A4 sketchbook, unfinished The sketch is unfinished because the background leaves got overworked and fussy as I tried to get the deep shade and brightly lit flashes of sunlit leaves - and the light changed dramatically, making the trees that had interesting light on them a few minutes before, simply silhouettes.  It would have spread further over onto the right hand page.   Woods are rather like seascapes though, where you have to work fast .  Oil paint would have let me do it in the time and with simple direct marks.  Pencil is so much slower even ...

 Playing on the iphone, very fast coloured pencil sketch A quick sketch of my youngest grandson, constantly moving, playing with an iphone.  He disappeared to the play area of the cafe before I drew his arms.  Done with 2 brown coloured pencils  in a small Derwent journal.  (2 because he insisted on having the first one to do some drawing himself, so I had to find another). Drawing active children is so difficult! they just moved constantly.   The 2 below of my slightly older grandchildren were very messy!  I attempted to catch the huge brown eyes of elder grandson and the mop of fair hair my grandaughter was trying to see through to draw and the soft curls of the 2 boys. Below the oldest ones who were so wriggly and active that the drawings aren't successful - more practice needed obviously .... constantly looking up to talk to me, brushing her hair off her face, leaning forward to draw with hair entirely covering her face etc etc...

Ragged feather in mixed media A ragged feather in a mix of watercolour, coloured pencil, Derwent tinted graphite pencils and biro. I can't show the work I've been busy with yet.   And paperwork and marking has been taking up a lot of time too.   So many plans and ideas and so little time and energy!

  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...

Study for a larger work, coloured pencil in A4 moleskine, honesty It's cold, very very windy and raining cats and dogs.   I'm lucky that we aren't affected by the terrible floods affecting large areas of the county but I still don't want to go out in it!  So I'm continuing to look at still life, a subject that I rarely do as a finished painting, preferring to do occasional studies of things that interest me and concentrating mainly on landscape. The items on the shelf over the tv, lit by a table lamp caught my eye - a vase of honesty, wheat stalks and a large cardoon head, a carved wooden cat, some carved abstract birds on a tree, the lamp and a bright pottery cat.  So .... how to make a different arrangement of them? playing with colour and pattern, not simply doing them ' as is ', which didn't interest me. Switching the lamp on gave wonderful colour contrasts, the shadows having a positive lavender colour and the highlights a warm amber.  Lig...

Pirate map Really busy with lots of projects and painting.   This is a one ticked off the long list - a pirate map for my grandson.

Alnmouth beach, a rainy morning, mixed media in S&B Delta A4 sketchbook Passing showers meant that I worked sitting in the car, from a car park with great views of the sweep of the beach and the gorgeous clouds. Again mixed media, with a lot of watercolour involved.  Because it was autumn, we were travelling to the north and weather was likely to be changeable, I made a decision on this trip to leave my oils at home,  They just aren't practical if it's necessary to work in the car.  I had some non-slip matting that meant my water pot, balanced on the dashboard,  didn't land on me - useful stuff though I don't know what it's called. I absolutely loved Northumberland, beaches, castles, hills .... so much drama.

A sketch done looking across at the Farne Islands from the far end of the beach at Bamburgh, mixed media Another from the Norhumbria sketchbook.   A blue windy day.

Rocks at Bamburgh, watercolour and mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook The geology on the coast of Northumbria is fascinating with parallel ridges of rocks that look almost as though they were constructed by man and sheets of flatter rock and sand between. This one is a study of the rocks to the north near Bamburgh.  It's basically watercolour but with bits of tinted charcoal and coloured pencil in there too. Again I was enjoying catching the very different colours and mood of the north east. More to follow .............

The Cheviot Hills, in Northumbria, Derwent tinted charcoal pencils with a little of their watercolour pencil.  S&B  Delta sketchbook Another one from the hills, higher up than the previous one, Late afternoon with the light about to go and passing drizzly showers.  But beautiful.   I love the high hills with the dramatic, steep slopes carved by glaciers, sheep and the occasional tough breed of cattle.  Fast streams, waterfalls, isolated farms, single track road .....  I love it! I scribble a little watercolour pencil to get the underlying clear green and the basis for the sky and then worked in Derwent tinted chyarcoal - it's perfect for the colour, mood and texture of this landscape.   I really like them. Again in the lovely S&B Delta sketchbook/ And there's more ....

Up in the hills of the Northumbria National Park, above Alwinton, Watercolour/mixed media in A4 S&B Delta sketchbook I absolutely loved it up in the hills of the National Park. As the single track road rose higher, the land grew wilder, bleaker and more dramatic.  The land folded, carved by glaciers and drystone walls zigzagged, showing the contours of the land. I painted a couple higher up as the sun was going down - I'll show those later. This one is a mix of watercolour, conte pencil,. coloured pencil, tinted charcoal pencil and a bit of white ink.   I wanted to get the different textures quickly and mixing media was the best way for me to achieve this. Below are a couple of photos from higher in the hills. I would definitely like to revisit this area.  The landscape and history are wonderful.

Bamburgh Castle, watercolour. pen and coloured pencil in S&B Delta sketchbook Bamburgh castle from the other side, this time well lit, not the dramatic silhouette of the previous write up.  Those sides are steep, it would be an incredibly difficult place for an attacking army to take.  It really is massive.  Do click on the link there and look at the aerial view, it's amazing. There were fascinating areas of rosy coloured stone amongst the greyer ones.  Not easy to keep track of all those windows and turrets and ins and outs :>)  It was sunny and beautiful but the wind was cold so this was done from the warmth of the car. Harry Potter was filmed here - this is Hogwarts. more to follow .....

Bamburgh Castle from the dunes.   Watercolour and mixed media in Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook Another sketch from the break in Northumbria.   The view of Bamburgh castle from the dunes is great - it is huge , looming silhouetted on its headland above the sweeping beach. The textures of the marram grass, thistles and other plants interested me equally.  Working fast was essential  as we only had limited time up there.  To get the textures, the luminosity of the sea and sky and the looming power of the castle, I ended up using watercolours, a little grey ink, a little gouache, conte pencil, white acrylic ink and some coloured pencil. The first (very quick) sketch was from lower down and further back in the dunes, done where I parked the car, and done using grey ink and charcoal.  I used twigs to draw with the ink - it gives a lovely range of marks that are freer and looser than pens.  And they are free : >) Bamburgh cas...

Tiny trainers in watercolour, coloured pencil, pencil and ballpoint pen in S&B Delta sketchbook Another sketch of my grandson's shoes. He's only 14 months so they are very little :>)    Done in my S&B Delta. A4 size.

  First shoes, coloured pencil and ballpoint pen in S&B Delta sketchbook A tiny size 3, my grandsons first trainers, sketched in coloured pencil and ballpoint pen.  I managed to catch time to sketch them while he had an afternoon sleep.

Spring at Hartshill Hayes, watercolour and mixed media in Stillman & Birn A4 Beta Hardback sketchbook The family went off walking through the bluebell woods. which are looking absolutely gorgeous at the moment,   I sat at the top of the steep hill sketching.   Spring - a month late - is finally here and we had a few beautiful days.  It was warm and a bank holiday, bringing out lots of walkers, picknickers and those just wanting to sit in the sunshine - I left them out as it's the landscape that interests me. I used watercolour, coloured pencil, conte pencil, Derwent sienna drawing pencil, white Daler Rowney acrylic ink, touch of gouache .......and the kitchen sink! I have a few bottles of the FW acrylic ink and really like it but hadn't bought the white.   I asked one of my students how opaq.ue it is - I think he has the full set - and he said very .  So I ordered one - and it is :>)/   Just what I needed.  Even white ...

Digital experiment with small abstracts. Vivien Blackburn I'm working out options for this series.   The original ones were manipulated in photoshop, playing with colour variations and rotating/flipping. I quite like the idea of doing a series of 9 framed liked this on either black or white. Which do you prefer for the background - black or white? I think the white background has a clean freshness but the black has an added glow.  

Watercolour and coloured pencil, approx 7.5 x 9.5 ins This one was done yesterday as a class demo.   Last week we'd looked at how various artists handled trees and undergrowth.   This week we looked at the sketchbooks of John Blockley, David Hockney, Kurt Jackson and David Prentice, also the line and wash work that Sue Lewington does. Then they wanted a demo of birches to see how I worked and discuss methods, order, techniques etc. It was done straight into watercolour, no preliminary drawing with pencil, with a mix of White Nights and W&N artists pans , on heavy watercolour paper, type unknown as it was donated by one of the class.  There are slight touches of watercolour pencils in there too. There has been a lot of this sort of light on my journey to and from work lately - brooding skies ahead but sunlight where I am, making the landscape glow.  This particular section is on a highish plateau - the countryside isn't actually this flat roun...