Cars in monochrome

Lots of different directions going on in my head. That's always what happens when I'm in a learning phase, which is most of the time! As I'm searching for my voice, I look for inspiration from other artists, trying to absorb what they can teach me while not losing myself in someone else's style!

So right now, I'm working from Marion Rivolier's wonderful book, learning a lot about the different planes of a scene in front of me. I'm learning a lot from the methodical exercises Marion has designed. Ideally I should be doing these from life, but we're in Level 5 again, so I'm working from photos. In the new year, when I have a bit more energy, I'm planning to sketch from the car, within our 5km radius.

This street is very close to where we live, and I took the photo on one of my last walkies with Timber.

And yes, I still struggle with cars, so I'll keep on practising. Most streets in Dublin have underground electric cables, but a few still have overhead wires, and they are my favourites. Something I love in Japan too, the jumble of wires crisscrossing the streets. Oh I would love a sketching holiday in Japan!

Here is the full spread with the three sketches

For the first one, I did a quick pencil underdrawing so I could figure out where things were.

This one without an underdrawing, a little more wobbly

And the final one, with a touch of colour.

And here's the pencil sketch for the first one.

Box of happiness

 

I watched the Sketching Playlab block party replay last week, and here is my box of happiness for 2020.

Marsham Court work in progress

 Struggling with painting at the moment.

This is step one. Loved everything except the houses, which I felt were too prominent

So I tried to push them back. And now it's muddy!! I'm thinking of covering them with vegetation. It's what happens when I jump right in! You'd think I'd know better by now!!

Christmas trees

I'd better share these sketches now. When Christmas is gone, it's gone!! 

Depth in monochrome

Well, looking at these, maybe I need to go back to practising cars before I even think of people. Maybe cars from above is extra difficult? Now, that's a good excuse! So I'm still practising direct watercolour sketching from Marion Rivolier's book. A lot to learn. I enjoyed this exercise, separating background, middle ground and foreground using 3 different values, darkest at the front. I'm not going far these days, so it's the view from my window again (front of the house).

And is it my eyes, or is the blue car floating above the road? I need to study shadows better. Hard to do in Ireland in the winter, where I haven't seen shadows for months! (Only a slight exaggeration!)

Urban Sketchers Fundraiser

I am part of the most wonderful worldwide community - Urban Sketchers. Throughout the year, the community has kept me positive and engaged in what I love. Time to give back!

Dido's Lament

 Two different versions.

Not even the chair

I'm on a roll - Continuing on my Neil Diamond theme!

So this is another sketching while waiting. I love it when I'm early or the other person is late - 15 minutes is about the ideal amount of time to sketch something without having to rush too much! And by the way, I am definitely not a 5-hour-sketch kind of person. 

Now that I'm looking at this page, I feel it needs a horizontal line. I was hoping to have the time to sketch the door that was facing me, to the right of the sign on the wall, but I only had 15 minutes, not 30. Maybe I'll add that line?

Well, there we go, my routine is so exciting that I even sat in the same spot two days in a row!

Sketchbook Design

I'm planning for a pretty hectic start to 2021. Two online courses in parallel. It will do me good. It'll keep me busy at a time when we'll probably be back to lockdown, after the Christmas holidays - Brendan was briefly in town last Sunday and he told me it was hectic. Lots of people shopping and going into restaurants and cafés, drinking on the street, buskers, ...About 80 percent of people wearing masks on the street though, so maybe we'll be alright. 

Can't wait for that vaccine. But apparently I'm in the 7th category. And Brendan in the 12th. Out of 15!! So I need to prepare myself for probably another 6 months of life in limbo. OK, better not think about that!

So this one is for Liz Steel's new online course, Sketchbook Design, where we'll learn to make beautiful pages, with sketches and writing and different layouts. I've looked at the free intro lessons, and I think it will be fun. But there's one thing I won't compromise on - my handwriting! I've only just recently rediscovered it, i.e. writing in cursive, even if nobody else can read it. It's too personal a thing for me to change. I've always been known for my "bad" handwriting, and now I say I don't care, it's MY handwriting and I'm proud!!

Quick people sketch practise from photos

 

OK. Here, I was really only testing brush pens. I'm not really a brush pen person, but somehow feel I should be! If only I kept up practising.

People in paintings

I have practised cars a good bit lately, but now it's time to practise people in paintings. I tend to avoid people in my sketches or paintings. Partly because I am not that interested in depicting people in the urban landscape, but mostly because they tend to ruin my work!! But until I practise them enough, I will never improve. so here are two little vignettes I tried. One from Ron Stocke's book on watercolour (it's not rich in information like some other books, but it has some interesting concepts that really resonated with me, like the idea that people need to be connected to the landscape in which they are painted, so after reading the Kindle version, I ordered the paperback and I'm glad I did). And the other from a photo I had on my iPad. Interestingly, I have very few photos with people in my collection. I'm going to have to remedy that!

#ItsPossible

 

Stones

My mind was on other things. I didn't have much time. But I still showed up, if only for a short time. I should really have established a connection at the top left of the page too, to make a better composition, but I'm happy with how I have used hard and soft edges, something that doesn't come naturally to me. And also some very light values, another thing I struggle with. Wow, the more I think about it the more I feel I have so much to learn still! But hey, I didn't go to art college, and I learned mostly from books until 2 years ago - everybody's journey is different - my goal is simply to continually improve while always enjoying the process. I don't have big ambitions in terms of a career in the arts - I don't have it in me to take the knocks that go with that. I just want to paint and be happy!

And PS: did you spot the Neil Diamond reference?

Colour variations

Here are the 10 colours I'm going to be playing with for the next couple of months. (Ignore the 2 at the bottom - I couldn't help exploring other options!!). No Carbazole Violet, no Moonglow, no Bloodstone Genuine. It's gonna be interesting. Very grown-up, I think! Although I have to admit I replaced Yellow Ochre by Monte Amiata Natural Sienna. Maybe it's the brand I had at home, but I just found Yellow Ochre too dull for me!! I might regret this choice, but hey, I have to go with what I love!

And beware! Not all PBr7s are the same! Natural Sienna, Burnt Umber and Van Dyck Brown, and yet, they are all the same pigment, PBr7. If you want to find out more, refer to Handprint's extensive review. As for me, life is to short, so I'll just have a quick read. Actually, interesting to see that Transparent Red Oxide, PR101, is also an iron oxide. That should make for harmonious mixing!!

Zoom Zoom Zoom

I'm pretty sure that's not what Marion Rivolier had in mind when she wrote the exercise about zooming in on the subject in 3 frames. I really need to push my darks more. Still, it's a nice page in my sketchbook and a nice memory of family connections. These vases belonged to my paternal grand-mother and grand-aunt. I just keep them on a shelf in my little art room, so they make are regular appearance in my still lives and indoor sketches.

Until I can go sketching in lively places again, this will have to do!

Timber and a persimmon

It's been a rough 10 days. Timber has been very ill. He's spent most days at the vets on a drip to keep him hydrated, and they've done lots of tests. Finally on Friday the result came and he has EPI - Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency. So, basically, he can't absorb any nutrients because he lacks the necessary enzymes. He's lost so much weight I don't even want to think about it. He ate well on Friday at the vets (2 breasts of chicken!), but he's hardly eating anything since we brought him home, just enough to keep going, but not enough to get better. And on top of that, we have to give him enzymes and antibiotics. All in a powder and dissolved and to be given via syringe feeding. Don't believe the videos on YouTube - it's not as easy as it looks. Timber squirms and clamps his mouth shut. All adding to the stress levels. This morning, he did eat a bit of tuna and rice, but he's turning his nose up at the chicken. This is the same dog that used to inhale his food two weeks ago! We managed to source some pancreas via a local butcher and they hope to have it delivered on Tuesday, so we hope that he will eat that and that will help him get his strength back.

Here is a sketch I did of him last Sunday.

 

Ceramics

Ceramics, pottery, porcelain, I think we interpreted this one loosely. Vases, pots and ornaments, more like! We don't have many such objects, but I do keep a small collection of vases that belonged to my paternal grandmother and grand-aunt, so I used those, and I merged the setup with what the others were showing on Zoom, so I'll call this one an augmented-reality view! I used my extended fountain pen, so the drawing is very loose and it encouraged me to paint loose too. And it's always fun to see what objects people keep in their house. I tried to pick elements from what I could see on each person's Zoom window. Some in the group had lovely setups, but had sent them as photographs, and I can't find it in me to draw from those. I paint from photographs all right, but for sketching, Zoom is my limit!

Once I was done, I tried a different approach, zooming in on my setup in 3 steps, but I was rushing and my brain wasn't sharp enough at that point. I'll see if I can salvage it tomorrow! 

Just pour me a drink

 

To get the title, you have to be a Neil Diamond fan. Don't hold it against me!

This, I like. 

The overall shape, the wet-in-wet, how light I kept the paint, the variation in my brushstrokes, the dashes of different colours, the white above the rocks, how each rock is not important, but the overall effect is.

So, now, how to carry this into the painting with everything else!! Here are my notes, so at least I'll remember what I did right. I'm thinking a vertical composition, to make it more about the rocks. We'll see!

Marsham Court - need to go back to the basics

I was happy with everything, EXCEPT THE ROCKS!!! I have a page-long list of what I did wrong there. I won't bore you with it. So, what next. Well, obviously, rock practise is next on the agenda. 

Version 1:

But then, I decided to go back to it, brush white gouache over those annoying rocks  and change the composition and values. I can live with this one.

Version 2 - please tell me you prefer this one over Version 1!

Marsham Court

Next project - closer to home, one of the places where I take Timber for his morning walk. The light was nice one morning and I took a few photos.

I'm also trying new pigment combinations, nothing fancy, but the mixes are very interesting - kind of grown-up colours! Maybe this is the new me? I'm also thinking of going for a less red hair colour next time? Mmm. But someone told me today they thought I was 40, not 50++, so maybe I'm not ready to be a grownup yet!

It's a simple subject, so I don't want to overthink it! Here's what I did in my sketchbook (which has a much more textured paper than my "good" paper, so I might have to rethink that - sometimes I get lovely effects on the sketchbook paper and I get disappointed when the "good" paper isn't as lively!)

Back to life drawing

I haven't attended life drawing in a little while. Feeling rusty, so easing myself in with 2bornot2bcollective's replays! Instead of my usual Artgraf tailor shapes, I used a variety of markers that have been languoring in my toolkit for a while. The model was Bolt. And I will start practising over the next few weeks before I join in again!

Three more for the road

Well, it's only one drawing, but three persimmons. I played with my watersoluble Neocolors  first, so I thought I'd include them on the page, and a few bits and pieces found on my desk. I worked in watercolour, Neocolor, fountain pen and gouache for highlights. It was fun. But I miss going out into the world.