Waves and squiggles

I think I just needed a distraction here.  

FYJ - Day 4

I have to admit I was struggling when I tried (yes I noticed my use of the dreaded word "tried") a representational version. But I wanted to have another go.

So, then, instead of playing music, I painted while on a Zoom call with my good friend, Shelley, who did FYJ last year and inspired me to try it this year. We've been painting together on Zoom once a week every week since 2021 I think. She is my muse. When I paint with her, and we both chat and discuss art and pigments and family and all sorts of things, my head switches off, and I'm in my body and my heart. Complete state of flow. Half sheet watercolour.

And the diary painting is slowly evolving.

FYJ Day 2

My choice of song for the representational art part of the assignment was "I am, I said", by Neil Diamond. The lyrics "And I am, lost, and I can't, even say why" really speak to me. Needless to say I had the music on a loop the whole time. Can't paint a half sheet watercolour in 3 minutes! (Or maybe I can, there's an idea)

I struggled with this one. It's like a different person painted these two compared to the two abstracts I did the previous day. Feeling a lot of frustration, trying too hard and all those things. But I'm painting in half sheet watercolour, when I'm normally more comfortable with quarter sheet. So, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that. For the more colourful version, I added some Sennelier shellac ink in a golden yellow colour and Prussian blue too, and also Artgraf black and ochre taylor shape. Lots of interesting textures. Very much in the spirit of trying anything without worrying about outcome.

Also added some Artgraf to my Diary Painting (a painting we keep adding to for 12 weeks!)

FYJ Day 1

First week in Find Your Joy. All about letting go and not trying. Exercise with music. I don't normally paint with music. Song choice for this was Neil Diamond - Yes I will/Lady Magdalene medley from a live concert
For my first pass at this assignment, I decided to go abstract. Both done on half sheet watercolour paper. First one stopped at the end of the song, then played the song again to do a second pass once my first layer was dry. Second one done with song on a loop. Lost track of time. 

Here is the second one.

And the first one

And here is the 12-week assignment (on a full sheet of watercolour paper) - Day 1, using big hake brush and lots of water.

Grangegorman

Sketching around the Grangegorman campus on a Sunday afternoon. Not many people about. Started grey and even a bit of drizzle (see sketch of the church building), then it brightened up. By the time we got to the pub, it was glorious. Really enjoying painting in watercolour in this Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook. It's cartridge paper, but the watercolour loves it!

Squiggles

Did I paint this one wet on dry? Yes, I did, because I had drawn squiggles and few words over the page with watercolour pencil before I painted the clouds. Drawing the squiggles helped me put the clouds where I wanted them, I must try it again. It was fun.

Also, the last three pieces were painted while looking at a photo I had taken out my window a few weeks ago. You might see a similarity. Or you might not.

Another day, another cloud

This one didn't work out either, but I do like the effect from the water I sprayed on top. Now it looks like it's snowing. Maybe I could lift that yellow grey?

Trying to do the opposite

I was trying to do the opposite, i.e dark cloud over light sky. I also moved to half sheet. It got a bit too heavy. I do like the greys, though. 

Travel sketches

Sketches from my last trip to Belgium. It was early-mid September, I think. A mix of airport sketches and experiments looking out my hotel window. Some worked out better than others. The ones in rectangular sketchbook are tiny in reality, A6 I think, Stillman&Birn Epsilon. Lovely smooth paper for ink drawing. The square sketchbook is not much bigger. It's a Hahnemulhe (I can never spell that). 

Sketching at a café, and some more

I wasn't too inspired by our official sketching location, but a café with a yellow coffee-roasting machine and yellow seats, yes, that works for me!

My initial sketch was paint first, and in my enthusiasm, I ran out of space. So I did a second one, pen first and painted shadows in grey. Don't press the red button! Quite steam punk, isn't it? Cool Hand is the name of the café and they did a really nice matcha latte!

Then couldn't resist the street seller with the pink cowboy hats for the country and western concert. The seller said it was someone like Garth Brooks, but didn't know more. When I heard the name, it meant nothing to me anyway! It was a windy day for cowboy hats!

One more for the road

I did one more, but I feel the rectangular format doesn't work so well. Trying to pack too much in. 

Limited Tools?

Not even sure what the paper was. It might be Arches cold press? I only had one sheet, and it's smaller than Imperial format, but there was no label on the packaging. All I know is that it does not like masking tape!!

So this was one of the exercises for the Find Your Joy Taster week. It was supposed to be a limited tools exercise. Really it was more about limited marks. I did limit my colours, but I used lots of different tools. I really got absorbed into it. Always a good sign. And after that, I signed up for the full course. One week in now (writing this in mid-September) and I'm full of doubts, not joy. All part of the journey?

 

Street View World Tour

I used to be an organised person. Now, I feel my world is in chaos. Maybe too much time spent on social media, following two wars. Not good for the soul. So little moments of peace like Street View World Tour are precious. Even if I'm over a month late posting about it. I struggled with some of the scenes in this one. I was trying to draw well. I don't draw well. I just go on instinct. When I try to hard, my head takes over. Not good.  Still, I enjoyed this session. Used some of my Gansai Tambi Japanese paints. And PS: I recently discovered that Gansai Tambi contains animal glue. I have a vegetarian friend who uses them. Should I tell them?

Mixing it up

Trying something a bit different here.  Loving the mix of Indanthrone blue and Imidazolone brown. With some Sennelier Royal Blue. And Naples yellow. Used graphite and a hotel room card to define the trees in my field of view a little more.  My favourite bit is that accident where the light in the sky is supposed to be, and it's the bit that actually looks like a cloud. I could spend the rest of my days chasing that effect!

At the dentist

I was at the dentist to get a crown done. As my dentist has all the fancy equipment, I knew I would have some time to sketch in the waiting room while my new crown was being 3-D printed. I truth, I have no idea if it's 3-D printed or chiseled out of some compound or other. I didn't ask. I was just glad that my jaw didn't lock, as my dentist was giving me breaks every 5 minutes so I could release the tension in the muscles.

So there you go, a sketch in the waiting room. Love the old fireplace and the bonsai (a gift from a patient, he told me).

Ugly self-portrait

This is what happens when you don't read the instructions. I was doing the FindYourJoy Taster exercise on using limited tools. I just picked two tools and had fun. But it turns out that the limited-tool exercise had a lot more tools than I thought.  And in case you're wondering, Jule is the name of the ink colour!

ArtNetDLR Coffee Dock

I'm not very good at chit-chat. So I sketch! This was at the monthly ArtNet DLR Coffee Dock at Walters in Dun Laoghaire. I'm getting to know people better, but I'm still not 100% comfortable sketching them, when they're just sitting across the table from me. I never have that inhibition when I'm sketching sketchers - they know how hard it is!

Trinity College Dublin

One of the last nice days of summer, early September in Dublin. Trinity College is always special. And I'm getting to like my Seawhite of Brighton cartridge paper sketchbook. It does things with watercolour that watercolour paper can't do. 

When you sketch an intimidating building often enough, like the Graduate Memorial Building here, it's not intimidating anymore, particularly when you skip a good bit of it, and when you give the big tree in front of it frontstage. I love it that there is a hint of autumn in the foliage, but it was still warm enough to sit outside without feeling cold.

The other sketch is from Botany Bay, my go-to place when I want to escape the hordes of tourists!

FYJ Taster - Paint ugly

FYJ (Find Your Joy - taster) Assignment 3, back to watercolour. Used a black that was in my "try-anything" palette. Also used some Raw Umber Violet (much redder than I expected). Lots of water. When I got frustrated with the water going everywhere, I dragged some of the yellow on a diagonal with kitchen roll paper (and no, you don't need the special blue kitchen paper that Louise uses!). Then dragged an old plastic card through the light part at the bottom of the page.  Inspired by the same scene as the mountain in gouache I did earlier. 

QUESTION: is it ugly or is it bad? what's the difference?

PS: there is a raw, elemental, feeling to this, that I have been chasing for weeks in my watercolour clouds! I guess this is proving Louise's point, when we don't try to make something pretty, something authentic comes out!

PPS: I also see a dragon!

FYJ - try different tools, colours and techniques

For a week or so in early September, I was been following the Find Your Joy Taster free course run by Louise Fletcher and her team. Initially, I was doubtful, but I have to say it's unlocked something, a freedom, a curiosity, a willingness to take risks and explore. Now this little piece I'm sharing here is probably not the best example, as I was trying a medium that I'm not very familiar with, gouache.

This exercise, trying different tools and techniques, was a good excuse to use tools I have bought a while back and haven't tried since swatching the colours. But I am feeling a lot of resistance to this exercise. Going from watercolours, where I know what I'm doing, to gouache and colour pencils, where I know very little. It's hard to go back to being a beginner. And something that Louise said clicked with me. It's normal not to be very good at something new. If I was learning the cello, I would not expect to play like Jacqueline DuPré within a week, would I? So why is our expectation different when we're painting?

So yes, there you go. Frustrated with my lack of technical knowledge, so the clouds are too solid. But being able to add a line of light colour over a dark colour is very exciting. And maybe those little dashes of light on top of a watercolour landscape would be nice?

Clouds with different colours

I still have so much to explore on the theme of clouds. I'm really loving working in a series. I will never run out of things to paint. It's like every painting generates ideas for more. And all those ideas go into my studio book, which I can get back to when I'm not so inspired!

For this exploration, I tried pigments that I have in my stash but that don't look that exciting on their own. This was a great excuse to try and mix them all and see what happens! The chosen pigments were Yellow Grey, Imidazolone Brown, Glacier Blue, Indanthrene Blue. Indanthrene Blue in particular has been languishing in a drawer for so long because it always dries duller than I expected. But mixed with Imidazolone Brown (yes, that's a mouthful!), it creates wonderful dark purples that really excite me! So there you go!

This one, I did on Winsor & Newton paper - love the softness here and the feeling of volume.

This one I did on Fabriano Unica paper. I need to flatten it as it buckles like mad. I think the Glacier Blue mix in the sky is too grainy on this paper. Maybe I'll wash it off and see what happens! That would be fun!

Find Your Joy?

This free taster of Find Your Joy promises to help me make the art I was always meant to create. But every time I try, I just splash paint around without being fully present. Is it flow? It certainly doesn't feel like mindfulness. But when I look at some of them individually, there is something that rings true. I will have to spend a bit more time thinking about what it is exactly.

I like

• that I looked out the window for inspiration, the trees, the shadows, even a car
• the mix of Hansa Yellow Medium with Neutral Tint
• splattering paint strongly
• using a blue Stabilo Woody and a Yellow Neocolor for lines
• some pigments pushing other pigments out of the way
• dry brush
• strong rhythmic marks with a black brushpen
• PV19 as my pink pigment, with Hansa Yellow Medium as my yellow
• using round brushes and square brushes too

Maybe I can use some of these elements in paintings that feel more like who I am?

But if I had to cut some elements out, or cover them with white gouache, I really don't know where I would start!

Here you can see them all together