paintings prints and stuff

I went out painting today with a friend, sitting at the top of a high hill on a hot sunny day, in the shade of a tree, with a cool breeze blowing :) The light wasn't wonderful - it was over the middle of the day so a flat light. It was very hazy so lots of lovely blue distance and a patchwork of fields and hedges. I usually work on paper plein air as it's easier to carry but decided to take a couple of very small canvasses this time, a six inch square and a 12 inch square. They are wet at the moment but I'll photograph them when they are dry and my camera batteries are charged up. I also need to get the little black flies off the larger one when it's dry :( why oh why do they have to commit sucide on my painting? I did this quick sketch when I got home. Madame was snoozing contentedly on the doorstep in the sunshine.

I normally only use coloured pencils on top of watercolour in sketches, to strengthen shapes and tones or work on textures. Inspired by the lovely work of Katherine on http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ and http://www.pastelsandpencils.com/fine_art.html I decided to sketch some flowers from photos (another thing I never normally do is work from photos) while my husband was glued to sport on TV :( and work entirely in coloured pencil. These were done with a very cheap set of 20 from Tesco for £1.53 :) I'm planning to do some large canvasses based on flowers and thought I'd do these as studies. I find it difficult to paint from photos as they contain too much information in some ways and not enough in others. I thought these would help me move on from the photographic image, a step towards the freer canvasses I want to create. I ended up with some little images I quite like in their own right and a new medium to exploit :) I The poppies are about 3.5 inches square...

Yesterday I went to a workshop on collagraphs using carborundum. Carborundum is used in lithography and is fine pumice dust. In collagraphs it's used to create wonderful darks, where the carborundum grips the ink and creates intense colour. This is one of my favourite methods of printmaking - I love the painterly qualities you can achieve with it. It won't make as many prints as an etching but enough for me. The printing plate (shown left with traces of ink left on them) is made with Daler Rowney mountcard. Simple lines cut in with a craft knife will print as thin line, for thicker lines 2 cuts are made and the top layer of the paper between them is peeled away. Areas of darkness are created by peeling away the top layer, light areas are created by painting with wood glue and the very darkest areas are created by painting with wood glue and covering with carborundum. When the glue is dry, the whole plate is sealed with shellac varnish (brushes cleaned in methylated spirit). Wh...

Yesterday I went on a coach trip with a group I belong to, to see the Van Gogh exhibition at Compton Verney, a stately home with a large art gallery and lovely grounds, then on to Warwick University to see some conceptual art. The Van Gogh exhibition contained some of his early works and it was so reassuring to see how not-really-very-good they were :) Later works and drawings were wonderful. I especially liked one large painting - the subject was simply a patch of grass with butterflies. At Warwick University we saw an exhibition of a huge piece by Tomoko Takahashi, filling a large gallery space. The handouts included copies of 2 reviews - one slating her work and the other praising. I'd gone determined to keep an open mind but, to be honest, thinking I may not like it - but it was really very interesting. She'd visited all departments of the vast university and spoken to staff and students and collected stuff that was being thrown away. This varied from huge items like scaffo...

I meet up with 9 friends once a month and we talk about painting, crit our work, have people come to talk about their work, go out sketching (in smaller groups) and occasionally put on an exhibition. Last weekend we put up an exhibition in a local village hall. This is part of my section. We all work very differently. I took mainly canvasses - so much easier to transport and hang than framed work behind glass :). These range from 3ft 6in high to about 4ft 6in

Some more paintings in the Harlequin series (small paintings this time) 12in square 10in square 8x13in 12 in square - all oil on canvas. These are in a show starting next week along with the original larger canvasses.

I had a great long weekend at the coast with 3 friends, sketching, visiting galleries and mooching around lovely local shops. The salt marsh at Thornham in pen, pencil and tippex (!) North Norfolk has long lonely beaches, strands of reflective pools left by the receding tide, ever changing colours, little villages inland, galleries and miles of walks through dunes, bird reserves and salt marshes. watercolour, pencil, pen, tippex graphite watercolour, gouache, pen, pencil, pastel pencil The sketch of the tree stumps and salt marsh in monochrome is in pen, pencil and tippex, I find a tippex pen really useful for drawing back in with white. The watercolours include pencil, pastel pencil and gouache . I pick up whatever I need to make the mark or get the colour I want :) These were all done in a very small sketchbook - much smaller than I'd normally work - 4x6ins so 8in across the double page spread. photo: Thornham photographs just don't show the colours that the eye can see :(