Raw exploration

From the previous explorations, I understood that I wanted to work in a more panoramic format. Just testing it with cartridge paper and ArtGraf Tailor shapes. I like the golden and black version.

Now just need to cut some paper!

Exploration - some resolve quicker than others

This one didn't start so great. I have explored this view before, and it's challenging. The scale of the steep mountain close to me, the landscape stretching into the background. I'm happy with where I am with this one, but this is still an early step in a long exploration! I'm enjoying adding gestural marks with Neocolor or other tools. I was never a purist in watercolour, but I am going way beyond what I would have done a year ago. As I'm writing this, I'm actually thinking that gouache would great for this.

Here are my notes on what I did for this second stage Lots of Neocolor to accentuate what I like. Dulled down the background. Brightened up the foreground with strong Neocolor squiggles. And added a little sheep on the side of the mountain. Just for scale!

Kept the colours very simple, and enjoyed my greys in Neocolor.

Exploration - steps

We're at the exploration stage now in Find Your Joy. Again, basically, explore whatever you want, whatever that means to you.

I'm still very much thinking about the landscape of the Beara peninsula. Mostly rocks and mountains folded on themselves. Some vegetation at ground level. Very few trees. I'm playing with mixed media and lots of mark making. I really don't know where this will lead. I think the result is a little dull, but I do like the effect of Neocolor 2 and soft pastels. I do love scribbling, a way to express the energy that's sometimes trapped inside of me.

Here is the final piece and a few notes of what I did at each step of the way. I wonder if I could add some watercolour on top now?

Colour pencil, Neocolor and soft pastel - got a small box of Unison pastels (to die for). Fixed with Degas fixative (casein fixative, non-toxic and easy to apply).

Here are the previous stages

Added lots of resist pencil (white). Too much. Then added Lilac watercolour to reduce the impact of the resist and added marks of Lilac towards the bottom to draw the eye.

Lifted that purple. It didn't lift fully. Need to check if it's the W&N Magenta or the Indanthrone blue that's the pigment not lifting. Still very dirty.

Added a wash of purple over the mountains and lifted. Too dark and yucky. Made  stones appear in the bottom

Original. Liked it, but the yellow of the moutain was too much

Other explorations - never out of ideas

Another exploration of the Beara landscape. A bit more out there. What do I like in this version? The lifted circles, the dashes of Royal blue, the red squiggles, the wash that neutralised and unified the colours. The strong dark blue and red rainbow possibly belongs in another painting? Or maybe would work if the mountains were in a longer panorama 

The light wash gave me the idea of adding some Sennelier Royal Blue in a few spots. Then back with some Neocolor. It's not a painting, just an exploration. I do think it glows, though.

Some of the tools I used

Here are the earlier steps. 

A light wash to unify mountains and sky. It was a light blue that was in my palette. 

Lifted the crazy sky and mountains, but kept a bit on the left. Some water dropped and I lifted it in circles.

First wash

Drimnagh Castle

We had our Christmas party at Drimnagh Castle. The most amazing place in Dublin that you've probably never heard of! A real castle with a moat around it, a large open fire, old stone stairs to hidden rooms, beautiful gardens, and even a minstrels gallery. We've sketched there a good few times. Didn't get the chance to sketch much on this occasion. Despite the beautiful light we were lucky to enjoy in the afternoon. Still, fun was had by all. There was even some carol singing! 

Vivify party

A few weeks ago, Vivify had an online free sketch party where a number of artists were giving demos and we got to play along! Loved it. Loved the platform. So easy to use and interactive!

The two artists who were demoing while I sketched were Thierry @atary81 and Ohn Mar Win @ohn_mar_win . Both were great instructors, giving great tips and talking us through their process. And we even got feedback afterwards, which was great.

Cutting up my diary painting!

Having reached the end of Find Your Joy, I am now letting go of my diary painting. I do not love it. It's not supposed to be loved. But it is a record of how much layering I was able to do primarily in watercolours, with some light Japanese paper collage and lots of scribbles,

It's nothing much to look at. But when I started to cut out postcard-sized pieces out of it, I found composition and colours and marks that I loved. Can I create paintings inspired by these? Not today. But there's an exciting journey ahead!

Intention - the reality isn't quite what I had in mind

So, this gets, what can I say, more ridiculous. Intention week, Week 11 of a 12-week course that's been feeling dull since week 7, was supposed to be this amazing, challenging, life-changing thing. Well, it was basically "do whatever you want, as long as it's fun". I think the problem is two-fold. One, this course was really not for me. I have been pursuing my own path in art for about 5 years. Yes, some of the elements of this course probably have accelerated the process, but not in a mind-blowing way. And Two, the teacher is already thinking about her next course. She more or less said it at one of her Q&As - she said the idea of a new course came to her about 5 weeks ago, and she is planning to launch this new 6-month-long course in early January! Needless to say I won't be joining them.

All of these negative thoughts, somehow, don't stop me from watching the videos, taking notes, doing assignments, and learning along the way. My intention for this one was to combine the landscape of Beara with wild mark-making. I think the Beara peninsula idea got lost along the way. Yes, I did hold the intention lightly, and it went in another direcation. I'm actually seeing a dragon's head here!!! So, too much mark making. Need to tone it down. Plus the colours are too warm for what I was going for. Was it fun? Hell Yeah!

Find your ????

Well, I am shocked, I have to say. I gave feedback about Louise Fletcher's recent Find Your Joy course. And I found the response totally unprofessional. Basically, it was don't bother giving feedback, because she doesn't listen to feedback. And also, it's not her, it's me!! Wow! I think my primary school teachers had more respect for their students! And also, I think that's the first time I've been told I'm blunt!

Here is what I wrote:

Hello,

I have done a lot of work during Find Your Joy, and I have discovered elements of my art practice that I want to explore further. However, I want to give you some feedback about how I felt, during the last few weeks in particular. From week 7, I got quite frustrated with the course. I felt that the course wasn't building up week on week. To quote your analogy about learning how to drive, it felt like one week I was learning how to use the clutch, the next the accelerator, then the indicator. I didn't feel like like I was putting all the skills together. When I raised this in a comment, the answer was that everything would come together in Week 12, where you basically told us to do whatever we wanted!! From week 7, I felt quite disconnected. Interestingly, that's around the time that you started thinking about Momentum. Maybe I sensed your own disconnect from FYJ?

I am experienced, I paint in watercolour and mostly representationally, and I feel this was not the right course for me. 

It may be the right course for thousands of others, but also, I do better in small groups rather than feeling like I am just a number among a thousand others. I did try to engage in the Facebook group, but made no meaningful connections. Again, probably more about who I am. Some weeks, there was lovely conversations, others felt empty.

Yet, there is something, a spark I see in the abstract and representational pieces I painted that I want to explore further. But I will be exploring this on my own.

A few suggestions:

• Two separate courses, for beginners and for more experienced artists. Or start a section for beginners earlier, then merge with more experienced artists.
• Someone to teach a module on watercolours, someone who loves watercolour for what it does best.
• Smaller groups
• Move more of the demos towards the start of the week. Often they clarified things a lot, and you could have saved yourself lots of questions.
• Build week on week, guiding us to incorporate what we have learned into each new module

Thank you for taking the time to read my email.

Kind regards

Here is the reply I received: 

Gosh, I am far from disconnected from FYJ. It's the most important thing I do.

If I can be equally blunt, I think that disconnect was in you, not me. Week 7 is when we started to get into specific principles and often that causes a seize-up for some people. it would be inteerstting to investigate why that happened for you.

I thank you for your suggestions, but I have found I can only ever do things my way - any attempts to change for other people just lead to disaster. (Same as in painting!)

There's no need at all to explain your decision - it's important that Momentum is only for people who really feel excited about it.

I would recommend diving back into the course from week 7 and getting over this block that came up. It's such valuable content!

Louise x

Pencils4Tea

Yes, I am sacrificing a yoga class for these portrait drawing sessions. In theory I could do both. Pencils4tea is at 6, and yoga at 7. But moving from one task to another without a break doesn't work for me. Too stressful. I keep meaning to do yoga with a recording on the Friday evening instead, but I generally just take to the bed and relax instead. On the plus side, I have become pretty consistent in doing about 10 minutes of yoga about 5 days a week first thing in the morning. It's taken me a long time to actually do this - The Bend app works for me. I can pick standard routines or put my own together. All I have to do after letting the cat out (literally) is roll my mat out, click and start. Minimum friction is essential to establish habits..

So, back to the session with Pencils4Tea. I've done these a few times now and really enjoy them. Great portrait and hand drawing practice! A nice bunch of people. All very relaxed.

Intention - at last - FYJ Week 11

Been waiting for this for weeks now. Week 11 of Find Your Joy. Intention. And you know what? Basically the instruction is to paint whatever we want!! Which I've been doing all along. No more courses for me for a long time. I'm so frustrated with it. I just feel like all I am is a number among the thousand other students. I can hear the ka-ching of the money machine.

So, here I am, doing my own thing! These are inspired by the landscape of the Beara Peninsula. Lots of big mountains and brambles.

Work in progress. Next, the thinking and editing stage.

This is an earlier version of the same painting

And another one in progress

Sunny day in Ringsend

Other days we get bright blue skies and sunshine. On this occasion, I chose to ignore the old cinema we were supposed to sketch, I sat in the sun and drew the view across the little street, with its layers of roofs and chimneys, modern houses and old buildings. And it was a day that I felt reminded of how wonderful our community is. I was feeling stressed and anxious that morning. Couldn't get parking anywhere near our location. The sun was low. I couldn't see well. But when I got to the location, one of our sketchers was there, fully focused on the old cinema in Ringsend, oblivious to the cold and vans blocking her view. It felt so energising to see her there. So I sat on the other side of the street, with the sun on my back and I drew the space between the modern container house and the church in the back. It felt good. And by the way, we have a housing problem in Ireland. Why can't we make more of these container houses?  

Cosy in KC Peaches

We don't get very cold winters in Ireland. But we do have damp, grey days. Also windy days when the temperature feels a lot lower than it is. That Sunday was one of those. I was well wrapped up. But I really didn't feel like sitting outdoors for two hours. So I went to KC Peaches on Dame Street. There's a great view towards Great South Georges Street. And also, plenty of opportunities for people sketching!

Doodles

Just doodles with pen and ink.

Gluing paper on top of watercolour paper

Unless you enjoy scrubbing paint off with a rough brush, getting white back in a watercolour isn't easy. So I'm exploring gluing paper on top and painting over it. 

I had some light Japanese paper. I tried to glue it with PVA and acrylics medium. It was very messy. Then I discovered Yamato Nori starch paste medium (it's acid-free) and rice paper (not sure it is acid-free) on Amazon. Both much easier to use and it seems to be easy enough to paint on top.

Not sure this is something I will use in the long term, but it's an interesting experiment. The Yamato Nori starch paste is great - it applies easily, comes in a bright green tube, it's not messy, and it sticks well. Will definitely buy another tube at some stage.

I need to look at it now and figure out what I need to do to highlight the bits I really like and tone down what's not so good.

Here is how it looked before applying a layer of watercolour and scribbles with Neocolor 2 crayons. This is the ugly duckling stage. 

A few interesting colours

If you read all my posts, you will know I posted this picture yesterday. But I wanted to give these pigments the full attention they deserve. And yes, I am fully aware that the Utrecht chain of stores in the US is now part of the Blicks art stores, but I bought that tube of Utrecht Quin Red in New York many years ago and it's still perfect!

FYJ Week 10 - Representational version

It's been a long year, and deciding to do a 12-week online course wasn't a good idea. I know that now. It's a fine course, just not for me, not at this time in my life and in my art journey. Also, it's really a course for beginners abstract painters in acrylics. Not me. I should also have realised that there would be over one thousand people doing this course. Not an environment in which I thrive. I do best in one-to-one interactions, in small groups. I struggle to get my voice heard in larger groups. The teacher and her coaches are on one track, and it seems that any time I asked a question about the structure of the course, or expressing my personal struggle with the structure, rather, I got a fairly standard answer. As an autistic person, that is not good for me, particularly as I definitely struggle with Rejection Sensitive Disphoria.

Well, anyways, there you are. Still discovering things about myself. It will take me a while to process all of this. So what I do in those situations, is I retreat into myself. But I'm also ok with sharing this on social media. It's much easier to do this on social media than in person. And also, I soldier on. Because that is what I do and also, there is still some benefit to the course. And also, fear of missing out. But I have left the Facebook group, and feel much better already!! 

This one was another mark-making assignment (yes, it seems there were many of those - not sure how it differs from the earlier one in the course!!). Done in watercolour, with some Neocolor 2 drawing and lots of dragging of cards through the rich paint! Yes there is plenty I would do differently in this painting, but I do love the pink lines at the top of the cliffs!

And I'm enjoying playing with groups of colours that I don't normally use much.

Pencils4Tea

Loving these Zoom sessions with Pencils4Tea