paintings prints and stuff

Vivien Blackburn's work in the Urban/Rural show We've just hung a group show at the The Eye Project, Urban/Rural show.  If you want to come and see it it's on for a month - well worth seeing, 11 lovely artists and some fabulous work. Those large canvasses are 40 inches square. There are rural landscapes, flowerscapes, intriguing textile work including a large knitted building, abstracts .... something for everyone. It's in the gallery below the cafe in the Adult Education Centre at the top of Wellington street, Leicester, opposite Fenwicks.  Meet the Arttists day is Saturday 1st April 10-2.  Come and have a chat with us?

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...

Sketch in acrylic ink, tinted graphite and a touch of coloured pencil I currently have all my classes looking at trees at the moment - considering the individuality of them, looking at various artists past and contemporary.  Contemporary includes some friends and also artists I don't know but admire , these include Bridget Hunter. Glen Heath, David Parfitt, David Prentice, David Tress, Kurt Jackson, Shirley Trevena, Cheryl Culver and lots more. I don't have time to add links, sorry,  but google them if you are interested?  Past includes Mondrian, Klimt, Van Gogh, Monet etc etc etc  I really like Mondrian's trees and Klimt too. There was a page in a sketchbook where I had experimented with tinted graphite, doing a moody image of rain approaching across the bay.  It was just a tester and was quite boring.  I decided to work over it, keeping it as background and working in grey and white acrylic ink (plus a little more tinted graphite and a touch of co...

Swithland Woods, Inktense, a bit of pen and now some gouache and a touch of pastel. in S&B A4 sketchbook As I said, I wasn't happy with the background foliage ( here ) - so today I used it as an example of editing/adjusting for my class.   I won't finish the foreground off, it's still just a sketch but I was able to regain the highlights with gouache and intensify some darks, simplifying both but keeping the complexity of the foliage. detail better?

 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 ...

 Detail of the drawing It's a long time since I did any drawing with ink and twigs.  They make such a lovely range of marks with different tones and textures, I should do it more often. The drawing below was done mainly with twigs from the garden (image at end of post)  but also a bamboo pen , a shaped wooden stirrer from a cafe, a Tombo pen , a Sharpie and a very little black coloured penci l.  The Sharpie was a little too hard edged and doesn't gel enough with the fluid inks I feel but it was a fun experiment.   Using J Herbin Gris Nuage ink, I couldn't get the darks quite dark enough, which is why I tried the Sharpie.   There is also a little Daler Rowny FW white acrylic ink in there. It was done in the Derwent Panoramic book, 16.54 x 7.08 inches, 110lb paper.   I tried using watercolour in this book without success, the paper was too thin and buckled.  It worked well with the ink though. Edge of the Wood, ink sket...

Dusk, winter, Grey ink and XL tinted charcoal in the S&B Zeta sketchbook An experiment across 2 pages of the new Zeta sketchbook with Grey ink and bamboo pen and Derwent's new XL tinted charcoal blocks.  Their new willow charcoal sticks are very nice too, really velvety unlike some that can be irritatingly scratchy. The charcoal is luscious and so are the tinted graphite blocks - well worth trying if you like to work larger and more freely. The Zeta sketchbook has very very smooth paper for those who use pen a lot and don't like texture.  It's also extremely heavy weight and can take a lot of pushing around, lifting out, washes etc The S&B sketchbooks are now available in the UK via Amazon and soon through Jackson's for anyone interested, I know a few people asked me for information. It's fun trying out new products :>) Now the weather is improving at long last I may manage to get out a little more to sketch. For those near the Cotswol...

Winter fields. watercolour and mixed media in A4 Stillman and Birn Beta hardback sketchbook details: The snow has gone and I wanted to catch that cool winter light, with the faintest hint of the sap rising and the colour starting to appear in the twigs at the tips of the branches.  Soon they will develop that luminious, almost apricot glow they get in early spring. Done with watercolour, tinted charcoal and a little pastel pencil - Winsor and Newton paints and Derwent pencils.   Derwent have some lovely chunky tinted charcoal blocks out, that I haven't been able to talk about before their launch.   I used them here and in in some of the branches in the last sketches of the hedges, alongside the tinted charcoal pencils.  They are absolutely gorgeous!   More work in them will follow : >) I am absolutely loving the S&B hardback Beta sketchbook.   The paper is incredibly robust and takes any medium I've thrown at it ...

Late afternoon light on snowy fields, a flock of birds suddenly took to the sky, watercolour and mixed media in Stillman and Birn Beta Hardback sketchbook Another in the series trying to capture the fleeting dramatic light on fresh snow and to get to grips with the sheer amount of liquid my new brush holds! This one is difficult to photograph as the photos tend to lose the subtle colours on the hillside and darken the sky just a fraction too much. This involved Derwent tinted charcoal pencils used with watercolour and a tiny touch of oil pastel in a Stillman and Birn Beta sketchbook with its lovely heavy paper. I'm not sure what the birds were - starlings or pigeons? And a watercolour version of the hedge:   Again it is done with watercolour plus tinted  charcoal pencils.

Demonstrating Artbars at the NEC (techniques: washes, scratching through, drawing through wet paper, splattering and scratching flecks in a wet wash using the spritzer) I had a fascinating time at the NEC, demonstrating Artbars for Derwent.  The idea was that I would sit at a table using them in small images, showing the different techniques that could be used with them - subtle washes, wet in wet, lifting colour from the crayons. layering and scratching through, splattering etc etc  etc.   They have a really rich and varied range of mark making potential. I combined them at times with a little Inktense pencil or scrapes of inktense to create flecks of colour that would stay in place while I washed more colour of Artbar over them. Scarily, at the last minute Derwent were offered a 30 minute slot each day in a 'theatre' where I did a demo to an audience, complete with cameras, big screens and a microphone.    Scary !!!  Luckily the cameram...

Evening Light, Winsor and Newton Gouache and Derwent Artbars in the A4 Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. Further experimenting with gouache, Derwent Artbars and Stillman and Birn sketchbooks. This was a demo to students about the benefits of working on a dark background when painting moody scenes.   I scribbled various deep colours with the Artbars and then washed them into a streaky deep background.   Then with gouache I worked over it - thin glazes and thicker paint - then worked back in with the Artbars in places.  Leaving parts of that dark background as tree trunk, far trees, some of the field, scratching through to the darkness below for fine lines and marks.  The pale flowers in the foreground were done with white gouache, flicked from a bristle brush to keep the marks random and free.  The combination of media worked well with lots of  variation in marks possible.

Edge of Charnwood, Derwent Inktense and Artbars in the Stillman and Birn Gamma Sketchbook I do lots of quick demos of different mark making options with various media materials in my classes.   Some end up as finished pieces but others have elements I like though aren't complete in themselves.   This collage is made up from torn fragments with just a very little extra work - a few lines in copper oil pastel and artbar. The rocks were once a stormy evening sky in a quick Artbar demo. The Artbars and Inktense are lovely to use with their ability to create graphic marks as well as washes of colour and the S&B paper is thick enough to hold up to the collaged elements well.

Autumn Woods: Derwent Inktense pencils and Studio pencils in a Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook I'd heard about S&B sketchbooks from American friends but they haven't been available in this country - and shipping costs made them out of the question.   They will soon be available here and I've got some to try out.  :>)   This is one of the Beta Series.   Heavy natural white paper with a rough surface. Curled up in the armchair, (it has been very cold here :>(   following a week of summer temperatures and sunshine) I decided to see how they behaved with my Derwent Intense pencils, with Studio pencils used over the intial washes and marks.   The answer was ...  so far, love this book!  The paper was delicious to work on, heavy and with a nice texture that didn't dominate the image but held marks. I was using a waterbrush from Derwent so the washes weren't very wet but there was a fair amount of water slosh...

A series of tiny (2 inches and less) studies for possible large canvasses.  Derwent Coloursoft on Fisher 400 paper, underpainting in watercolours.   Vivien Blackburn  Tiny Abstracts with Derwent Coloursoft pencils  and watercolour on Fisher 400 paper: I had some tiny left over scraps of the Fisher 400 and decided to experiment with water colour washes, overlaid with Derwent Coloursoft pencils (which work beautifully over this paper, so intense and rich). As I'm not getting out to work plein air at the moment, due to the cold not being great for arthritis, I thought I might work on some canvasses where I'm simply using luscious colours to create space, mood and lovely interactions of colour. The Coloursoft on the Fisher paper allow me to throw in those unexpected intense bits of colour, over deeper washes beneath, like those touches of vivid red that float over the underlying colours.   Mixing media like this allows me to do this - to let the...

  Winter  I'm still working my way through the lovely items that Derwent sent me to try out : > ) and have been adding things to the review I did of their lightweight, hardback sketchbook at the end of last year, as I've continued to doodle and see what things can do.    This first one is a view of the winter fields - the tin of tinted charcoal pencils was ideal for this and gave a lovely limited colour range of warm and cool that play against each other perfectly.   I can see me using these frequently for wintry days.  They are fast to work with which is a bonus in our current weather when plein air.  They would combine interestingly with other media.   Something I've yet to try out.  (edit:  I have now mixed them with inktense here   and will add more links as I try them with other media) Then I tried out their Academy Tame and Wild Set - also limited colours - whilst waiting for a family member visiting the GP....

Twilight Woods.  Digital image A complex mix of various of the samples done with the Derwent pencils and ink sketches.  This doesn't exist anywhere but in the computer - I do like tangled undergrowth like this and did a whole series of work on the theme in my final year of my degree - something I'd like to work on again a little.   On big canvasses.   And maybe focussing in on details as below: I'm making no New Year resolutions other than to go with the flow :>)

Pollarded willows, charcoal and pastel in limed ash frame or black frame, framed it's about 3ft Selecting frames is difficult.   The frame can make or break a picture - but it also has to fit in with a buyers house. I notice this makes for a huge difference in opinions on framing between the US, UK and the continent when discussing framing with friends.  American friends always seem to go for dark dark wood, continental friends like more ornate frames, in England we tend to go for pale, minimalist framing - it so much depends on the surroundings in which they are to be hung as well as the image itself. Originally I had framed the piece above in limed ash with an antique white (pale cream) mat/mount but wasn't at all happy with it.   I hadn't thought enough about it.   The drawing has a lot of darks with compressed charcoal as well as deep colour, is 'heavy' and the frame didn't stand up to it, seeming too pale and insubstantial.   The pale limed a...

The little acer in my garden, glowing in the sun this morning, with Virginia creeping turning crimson in the background. I need to get the paints out :>)

Autumn, watercolour and mixed media, 8.5 x 5 ins approx Looking from the field's edge, across the stubble left after the wheat was harvested,  towards the far trees.     This one is a study in a limited range of colours - warms vs cools.   I really like the bleached colours of the dried grasses and stubble at this time of year.   Autumn isn't actually quite this far advanced here but I wanted to use this limited colour range so moved the calendar on a bit :>) This was done in watercolour, with the addition of watercolour pencil drawn and scratched into wet washes and a little biro (ballpoint pen).

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.