Friday 29 June 2012

Contour drawings


I have had fun lately doing some contour drawings and thought I would share some of them with you today -
the idea was to try and keep the pen on the paper as much as possible, as you will see it didn't always work, but I still had fun doing them.  I just used clear water over the ink to create the shading....










- our William -








and finally a rose
on which I added a blush of pink




Have a good Weekend everyone












Friday 22 June 2012

Work in Progress


I started a new painting this week, for me a large canvas 30" x 24" using Atelier Interactive Acrylics -
First I  decided  it would be a Landscape - having taken a lot of photos on our recent trip to Dartmoor, of course, it wasn't too difficult to decide that would be my inspiration.  Sketching out an idea of how I wanted it along with my photo references.....

-  making a mental note to make sure the actual painting didn't look like a face!!! -
(take a close look at this sketch and you'll see why I thought that)
***

Step 1 -  was to prepare said canvas with a coat of white gesso - When that was dry I gave it a coat of
    Burnt Sienna (slightly watered down) to take the starkness away from the white canvas staring at me!...



When that was dry

Step 2  - was to put in some Pthalo Blue for the sky and Titanium White for the clouds... 



Step 3 - Putting in the distant hills and start adding the foreground.   (The cloud shadows
   were a mix of  Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue)...




Step 4 - Adding the river, which was a repeat of the sky colours - plus adjusting various parts of the sky as I went along...




Step 5 -  This is where I started developing the banks on either side of the river...






















Step 6 - Where I am now, having added more to the foreground and placed some rocks in the river...




I will leave it alone for a few days, may be even longer, let it settle down and come back to it with a clearer idea of where I go from here.  Hope you have enjoyed seeing the Work in Progress so far.


I have linked to
 









Friday 8 June 2012

Watercolour Doodle

I don't like wasting paper, who does, so when I had a page of watercolour paper left over in my Daler-Rowney pad, I thought this was a chance to just doodle.  Instead of using pencil or pens I used watercolours.

This is how it ended up...




It did make for a good exercise in washes

as well as a fun doodle






Thursday 7 June 2012

Belated Hump Day

I discovered a new word/phrase/saying, call it what you will, yesterday. Several blogs had mentioned Hump Day, which me being slow to catch on have never heard of before.   In fact I won't tell you what I initially thought....

but thanks to the trusty Internet and Google Search my confusion was solved - I know I will be explaining this to those who have already heard about it, which is most of you, as you are obviously way way ahead of me.  But for those of you, like me, who wondered about this saying, the meaning turns out to be likened to a camel's back with the hump on the camel being mid week (Wednesday), hence the comments on blogs I saw yesterday...dah!    The phrase coming from:

"The middle of the working week, being Wednesday, and used in the context of climbing a hill to get through a difficult week.  Once you are over Wednesday you are down hill towards the weekend".





 So, Happy Belated Hump Day everyone!







Wednesday 6 June 2012

Dry Paint -v- Fresh Paint


Yes, I'm still on about my palette


 


but I thought as the subject is fresh in my mind, I would just say something about using the paints directly from the palette.  As you will see from the header and the above photo I always have a certain amount of dry paint waiting to be used.  Very useful it is too, sprayed with clear water to activate the colours, but it does tend to be much paler.


 Here's an example:


the left hand side is from the dry palette             -            on the right the paint is fresh from the tube
You can see the difference -
 so if I want a stronger painting with
fresher looking colours, I use my tube paints
squeezed out onto a clean surface




HAPPY PAINTING!




Friday 1 June 2012

Mixing grey


I was in the middle of a painting the other day, and needed a grey to add to it.  Looking at my palette I needed to clear a space to mix some......

see what I mean

so I decided I might as well Mix what was there already





mixed


The grey I needed was there all the time
 Just mix up what is already on your palette



-  the perfect grey -