Postcards 2010

I’ve been away on holiday, hence the quiet in here lately. I took lots of photos while away, and only did a few postcards this year, sorry if you didn’t get one, but after walking all over Snowdon all I wanted was a G&T ;)

Welsh Postcards

Am finally back from my travels in the Welsh mountains. Weather as you might expect, so had plenty of reading and drawing time. I did a couple of figurative designs for lino cuts or paintings (haven’t decided which yet…possibly both…) will post those soon, but for now, here are the postcards from this adventure, simple pen and wash this time, just trying to capture things as quickly as possible 4-5 minutes each and then onwards :)

Welsh Postcards 2

Welsh Postcards 3

Land of the Sheep...

A proud and noble sheep...:)

If you zoom in you should be able to see that I've softened some of the lines by painting into them once the masking fluid has been removed. On some of the stones at the base of the picture I've done this in such a way that they still have a white highlight on the top. This has given them an interesting 3D feel...something to explore further at some point :)

Llyn Llydaw - The Miners' Track - Snowdonia

Allotmenting yesterday, but pulled my finger out and painted today...(after painting the raised bed I built yesterday...but that wasn't my best work, so I won't bother blogging it :)) ... This is Llyn Llydaw, one of the lakes on the Miners track on the way up Snowdon. Initially I'd drawn the mountains in the background, but I decided to extend them up a bit and do away with the sky altogether...I think this maybe the first time I've painted a landscape without a sky...anyway I liked the way the light hit the hills and wanted a darker background...so up went the mountains :)...I've actually painted them in a slightly different way...laying on lots of colour and then lifting off the markings on the cliff. I'm quite pleased with the way thats worked out, the slight blur gives a sense of depth and adds a nice contrast to the sharp lines of the masking fluid...all in all, not too bad :)

A quick update on the oil experiment...oil is still wet...I may have to rethink this ;)

Two Farmhouses in Wales

I've been somewhat distracted with summer holidays, allotment building and general sloth like behaviour over the last couple of months...time to get on with things! I've got my oil experiments and the acrylic pictures to continue with but I need my main focus to be these swirling watercolours...I want to have 20 good ones to take to galleries next year and that means I need to crack on...17 weeks until the end of the year, so I need to aim for a couple of paintings a week, which is perfectly doable...if I focus ;)

Anyway I think I'm going to add this one to the good pile as I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out. I used some new tubes of watercolour for this one. I'm increasingly finding I prefer tubes to pans as I can get more pigment on quicker, hence the colours on this are a bit more intense and there is a bit more time to play with the paint while its wet on the paper.

So one done this week...need to do better next week :)

Just for a change...Ink...

I've been meaning to try one of these swirling landscapes in ink rather than watercolour...So today I did :) I'd taken a few photos on the path down from Snowdon to Rhyd Ddu (Where there is a fantastic tea rooms that does wonderful Dutch coffee...) and this was composed from several of those. I've wanted to try ink as i thought i might be able to get an engraving/print(ish) effect...and to some extent, there is an element of that...though this is still very much a painting...One day, I must get myself a printing press...and somewhere to put it... :)

Holiday painting 2 - Gesail Gyfarch

Here's the second painting, a view from the hill above the farmhouse where we were staying. I'm particularly pleased with this one, there's a nice rhythm to it I think...

I'm getting more confident painting these and that's allowing me to paint them more freely, which is exactly what the style demands...all in all, a reasonably productive holiday :)

Postcards from the edge...Part 3

...Like buses, you wait for ages and then these posts come along in threes...jump back a couple of posts and all should become clear :)

Postcards from the edge...Part 2

previous post continued...:)

...However, having created these little pictures I wasn't wildly keen on I started thinking about what might work on such a small scale. Inspired by the weather I started doing these bolder pictures of views through the rain covered windows. For these I used normal brushes and masking fluid, as with the larger paintings, but they were still very quick to do...lots of splashing water around and making a mess everywhere...I know Sue will be very pleased to hear that ;) The first ones were actual views through the window, but I ended up just sloshing the paint on to do the later ones, I enjoyed the effect I was getting, so I just kept going :)

Postcards from the edge...Part 1

Well, it's been a long time since the last post as I've been away on my holidays...lovely weather...;) Anyway, while I was away I had a play with some watercolour postcards. Quick sketches done with a little brush that you fill with water, so all very easy to pop in your pocket and capture something quickly (thanks to Lorna for the idea :)).

I'd have to say I didn't really enjoy doing these first ones, I hadn't done any watercolours for a couple of months and the combination of brush and scale really didn't get things flowing. But they were a good way of getting things started, I did a couple of full size paintings (which i'll post soon) and they turned out ok.

...Blogger doesn't seem to want to let me post millions of pics at once, so I'll split this post up...:)

Acrylics...

I've been wanting to have a go at an oil landscape for a little while, the plan being to try and transfer a few of the watercolour ideas across to see what happens... however, it occurred to me that the drying time of the oils might limit the usefulness of this when layering the effects and potentially painting them out in the open...Acrylics were obviously the way to go, but I've not been a big fan of them in the past...but, for some strange reason I was feeling very restless today, so went out and bought some large (and expensive) acrylic brushes and attacked a canvas to see what would happen...

and this is obviously the result of that...:)

I've only just finished painting it, so need to look with fresh eyes in the morning...but I think I'm reasonably pleased with it, there are some interesting effects happening...perhaps I'm onto something...I hope so :) certainly painted this one with some passion...I'm knackered now...;)

Watercolours from Wales

Just back from my holidays at a farmhouse called Gesail Gyfarch, just above Porthmadog in North Wales, while the weather wasn’t perfect (for holidays or painting) I had a very enjoyable break and managed to fit in some painting time...and here are the results…

I’ve pushed the “white” marks on three of these further than I’ve done in previous paintings and I think the effect has worked well. I’ve tried to focus on painting what I feel about the place I’m in, rather than just directly painting what’s in front of me…Generally trying to inject the “passion” needed to distinguish my interpretations of landscapes from everyone else’s…I think I’m going in the right direction :) certainly something to explore further in future pictures…

Welcome to 2007

Well, we're just back from the festive break, managed to get a couple of watercolours done while we were away. Here's a few work in progress shots of one of them, just took these with my phone, so the qualities not that great. I'll try and get a couple of better shots of the finished paintings done over the weekend.

So, with my desire to get a bit more done this year, I thought I'd start 2007 with a nice challenging project...I'm going to enter the BP Portrait Award...There, now I've written that up here, I guess I'll just have to pull my finger out and actually get painting...This has always been one of my favourite exhibitions, the quality of the work is superb and very varied...IF I ever managed to get a picture in, it would be a great accomplishment... I have entered once before (with my painting of Neil and Chloe) , alas that picture didn't make it into the exhibition. The rejection (and expense) of not being selected for any exhibition is always disappointing, but, "no pain, no gain" as they say... And the quality of some of the other work that didn't make it was very high...So you can be rejected and still be in good company :)

Anyway, I've always wanted to get a painting into this exhibition... I thought I was running out of time. It only used to be open to artists under 40 yrs old... And time is ticking by... But luckily they appear to have changed the rules this year and opened it up to artists of all ages, so with luck I'll get a few more cracks at it.

Unfortunately the picture I was going to enter (The portrait of Jack from the last post) is too small for the competition, paintings must be at least 8" x 10". So I need to get something new painted before the March 4th deadline.

I've decided to paint another of Jack (He's a cheap, obedient model, with his fathers good looks...;). I've always fancied using the mosaic tiles in our bathroom as a backdrop. So the plan is to have Jack sat in the bath, looking every bit the sullen 11 year old, while a number of hands enter the frame offering him soap, flannels etc...which he's duly rejecting...Perhaps the title will be "Trying to teaching my son that soap is his friend..." or something like that...

I'm going to start making some sketches and taking a few photos over the next couple of days, so hopefully I'll get the first of the sketches up here over the weekend...I don't think he'd thank me for posting any reference photos, so you'll have to make do without those :)