paintings prints and stuff

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 .............

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.

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.

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.

Still life, stage 2, moleskine folio sketchbook - playing with patterns and composition I've worked a bit more on this one but there is still more to be resolved.   It's done in a mix of the Lyra pencils that I won and the Polychromos that I had.  There is a lot of layering of different colours to get subtle transitions happening. details: and potential crops for the finished piece: I like the squarer format of the second crop.  What do you think? Now time for decisions, what to change, what to lose entirely, what to darken, where to draw back into it with my Jakar eraser to regain light lines,  whether to erase the area outside the crop lines and leave an edge showing if I decided to put it in a mat  .......  push, pull, edit and change :>) Photographing it in dull natural light has made the colours much truer and shows the rosiness of the coppry/rosy leaves and vase better than in the stage one photos .

Work in progress This one is a development in a series I was working on - the original arrangement was very traditional, set up by a friend.   The colours appealed to me but not the arrangement, so I decided to play with the shapes and invent some patterns. The colours are terribly difficult to show as the coppery rose colours don't come out well - the vase and some of the leaf patterns are a really coppery rose colour and not as brown as they appear here.  There is also a lot more variation in the blues as they slide from greeny to puplish.  The coppery/rosy colours play beautifully against the turquoises and blues but it isn't picked up well by the camera :>( I moved objects around, played with pattern - leaf patterns on vases or material blurring into real leaves, the difference between reality and pattern blurred. It's one I can work on in quiet moments in the evening, when the TV isn't exactly absorbing.  It's in an A4 moleskine, which means I can...

The Crowns, Botallack, inktense and mixed media I wasn't happy with this and have worked on it a little more.   You can see the previous stage here .   I wanted to keep the sky as it sets the mood and adds scale and distance  - but for me the composition wasn't really working as it was.   One change was to darken the sky - it needed to be darker to balance the tone of the lower part of the painting.   I gave the horizon a slightly lost edge against the clouds on the right to get away from that hard horizon line.  I also wanted that sense of light coming through a gap in the clouds to light up the cliff tops and sea, with passing shadows so it was important to see the clouds.   I do love that sort of light. I lost the hard forward edges of the buildings where the ink lines were too heavy - watercolour mixed with white gouache helped me to lose them and allow edges to be softer and closer tonally to the sea in places. Then I warmed ...

My well used, watercolour box - the hinge is broken on one side and the lid is held on by gaffer tape and it needs a bit of a clean up! When I did the post on my oil painting plein air kit, I said I'd do a follow up on what I take if I'm going to work plein air with watercolour and mixed media.   You really don't need to buy special kits and they will never be quite 'right' for what you want to take. Here it is  .............. The Paintbox : I hesitate to show this grubby specimen!   but this is the true state of it so I'll be honest!    :>)   I bought this at an art materials fair years and years ago. I don 't use a small travel size watercolour box because I like a wider variety of colours to choose from  - and quite honestly the size/weight difference isn't huge - the weight comes from the bottle of water not the paints.  It's a White Nights set of full pans in a box that held 24, see above.   The central s...

Sunset across the bay, coloured pencil, Vivien Blackburn This was my contribution to the postcard exchange this month.   It's a view across the bay from the house we stayed at. Skies there are always lovely with the sun rising over to the right behind the land, glowing - and setting over behind the headland to the left of the crescent shaped bay. The weather frequently comes in from across the Atlantic and as the moist air hits the land, the clouds form over Cape Cornwall - that headland attached to the mainland.   Off to the left are the Brisons, huge jagged rocks that feature in some of the other paintings I've done in the area. This one was all about that sky.

seagull weighing up whether or not I had any food to offer, a quick sketch with a Rotring Art Pen and coloured pencils in a moleskine sketchbook Just the sound of gulls instantly takes me back to my childhood in Cornwall.   They seem the essence of freedom, gliding on the the wind, light shining through feathers.

Another in the series that looks at the changing colours and light across the bay at different times. This one is very early in the morning looking north west ish.   At that time the sun is slightly to the right and the cliffs are silhouetted, colours pearly pale, clouds burning off in the risen sun and the promise of another lovely day.

Colours of Cornwall. Afternoon light Sennen Cove.  Coloured pencil in moleskine sketch book Just back from a week in Cornwall - with family, but some painting :>) This is one of a series of colour studies of the bay at different times of day, recording the changing colours.  This was the afternoon light - sunny, bringing out the intense turquoise/viridian/prussian blue in the water.  More to follow ..........

Small cardoon flower 1 , coloured pencil and biro in moleskine sketchbook, Vivien Blackburn One of my students (thank you Gill :>) ) kindly brought these cardoons in for me to draw. There is something really interesting about thistles/cardoons/artichokes to draw - the contrasting textures and fascinating shapes. The sketch above is biro with coloured pencil and the one below simply coloured pencil. Mostly the pencils are Polychromos and Lyra. I really like the way that cp's work on the paper in a moleskine. It's very limited paper in the materials I can use on it - ink, which I only use occasionally or pencil/coloured pencil. I wish it was possible to buy the paper in larger sheets though. Does anyone know if the new Folio moleskine is the same paper? that strange sort of waxy finish? If it is I'd like one, if it isn't then I wouldn't bother as I've got nice A3 cartridge paper sketchbooks already. Small cardoon flower 2, coloured pencil in moleskine s...

Sennen Cove, Dawn. Coloured pencil sketch in 'large' moleskine. Vivien Blackburn Dawn, the sea is calm with a gentle swell rolling in, no surf this morning and the tide is high. A pale amber glow of sunrise silhouetting the cliffs. Colours are soft and muted, no drama. The cove at dawn sketched in polychromos coloured pencils (plus a few odds of others) in the 'large' moleskine sketchbook - they do a really nice larger one now but I'm not sure if the paper is the same. Does anyone know? I really like the surface with cp's. More to follow :>) Other paintings of Sennen Cove can be seen here: Morning, rain clearing Morning Bay Rocks and Waves View of the bay Misty Morning, Sennen Cove tiny canvasses - you can also see them on Etsy graphite sketch of waves and harbour wall Sennen on a windy day (oil painting) or searching on Cornwall shows work on other beaches and Lanyons Quoit

Feather in Coloured Pencil. Vivien Blackburn approx 5 ins square A friend gave me some beautiful feathers and I couldn't resist drawing one. This is in coloured pencil, a mix of Lyra and Polychromos. If you like it enough :>) I've just added it to my Etsy shop http://www.vivienb.etsy.com/ - as I enjoy drawing feathers I thought I'd do a series for the shop. A good idea do you think?

Mawgan Porth, Sunny, Wild Day. Watercolour, watercolour pencils and coloured pencils. approx 9 ins square. Vivien Blackburn I decided to have a play with paint and pencils this morning before I have to get ready for the next hospital visit. This is done in watercolour with touches of watercolour pencil and glazes of polychromos coloured pencil to enhance colours, like the pink glow of the wet sand. I really like to use coloured pencil, just a little, over watercolour like this. This is a favourite place for me - the beach that was only a couple of miles from where I lived as a child. It was done from a combination of sketches done plein air and photos I'd taken last year. The day I wanted to capture was sunny and the sea was wild, the horizon a heaving mass of swells and line after line of huge breakers pounding in and crashing against the cliffs in clouds of spray. The clouds were fine., white and hazy. Mawgan Porth , Dusk. Watercolour pencils. 6x7 ins approx. Vivien Blackburn At ...