Sketching with Suhita

This online session was on the 11th of October, but you know I'm always behind in posting, so I'm not very seasonal. Most people are thinking about Christmas already. Anyways, This was great fun. The photo I worked from was basically this orgy of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes and colours. I worked on an orange ink background (I had only partially covered my page). I drew and coloured with pencils and Neocolor, then added black ink with a Kakimori nib. It was all very enjoyable. And I don't care that I have very little structure. That's how I see the world.

A sketchbook at the RDS

Was delighted to have one of my sketchbooks on display at the RDS Library, in the context of the Architects conference on the theme of Cities, which took place in early October. About a dozen sketchers from Dublin Sketchers were there. It was lovely.

My left hand

This is what I do when I'm at the hairdresser's This time, no self-portrait. After struggling with sketching hands the previous day, I felt the need to look at my own hands. Not easy. I need to find some shortcuts that will enable me to sketch convincing hands without spending hours at it! Probably just need to draw a square or rectangle so I keep the hand confined to its proportions rather than growing in random directions!

FYJ Week 4 - Day 3

The more I look at this exercise from our Inspiration week, the more I'm learning. So I went back to another of Uma Kelkar's beautiful cloud paintings. This time I didn't just think "I want to paint clouds like hers". I dug a little deeper and took note of things that I notice in a particular painting, i.e. hard edges, very light value, some white gaps, beautifully balanced grey mixes, and painting wet on dry. So I applied some of these items to a landscape from the West of Ireland - where our clouds are very different. I like how it worked out. Very different from the clouds I painted two days ago. By the way, the last few landscapes have all been inspired by our recent trip to the Dingle Peninsula, in particular Clogher Head, which is, literally, my favourite place on earth. It's all sky, ocean and bare rocks. 

At the RDS. Also FYJ Week 4 - Day 2

In the urban sketching side of my world, I would like to introduce more textures in my sketches. For this one, I was inspired by Suhita Shirodkar. I love the energy of her sketches, the colours, the squiggles. And also I noticed I loved how she sometimes uses one colour to connect all the elements together. Here is what I have done with this sketch in my exploration of these elements I am stealing from other artists! Thank you to my fellow Dublin sketchers who never mind how I disfigure them!

FYJ Week 4 - Day 1

All the art I have chosen for inspiration is representational. With a strong focus on watercolours and clouds. Yet, at least half of the art on our walls at home is abstract!! It's ok to like many different things. Or maybe what we have on our walls is a reflection of what we both like, versus what I alone like. I wonder?

Anyways, it will be no surprise to most of you that the first artist I have chosen to steal from is Uma Kelkar. She is a contemporary watercolour artist, and I love everything she paints, in particular her big skies. 

I found that it wasn't so easy to achieve the effects that look effortless in her paintings. I am not surprised. I will just have to keep at it!

This is from the same photos I used last week, just decided to paint in portrait format so I could give the sky more space. All very dramatic. I think there is some Moonglow, Lavender and also some Phthalo blue in there. I might add a layer to get rid of those light splodges in the cloud band?

Here is how the first layer looked.

 

FYJ Week 3 - A fresh start

A new diary painting. I will need a bit of time to find my way through it.

Kittiwake

It's always so exciting when we have a new sketching location. Pat discovered this wonderful light-boat, the Kittiwake, in an area of Dublin Port where an exhibition was held by the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. This area is not normally open to the public - you can't even take photos without having security descending on you! So, it was all the more special to be there on the first Sunday in October, when they had a talk and free food (onion soup, cheese, croissants, all sorts of tasty things!). I just grabbed the last croissant, as I had spent most of my time there just sketching the boat. Isn't she a beauty!

 

FYJ Week 3 - Diary painting

Learning to let go

When masking fluid lifts the whole paper (Bockingford, too soft for masking fluid, why did I not test it?), and all that's left of my diary painting after 3 weeks is some cut-off remnants. We'll start again, and it will be different.

 

After lifting the masking fluid. It lifted a whole layer of paper.

Before lifting the masking fluid

FYJ Week 3 - Day 5

This one wasn't so much about an emotion, but about the feeling of being in that place which is very dear to my heart. Watercolour on cold press paper, half sheet. Clearly didn't think about composition. A crop would definitely help here. When I have time, I will try a different version, with softer edges too where the rain kisses the land. Still, when I look at it, it brings me right back, better than the photo I used to inspire me.

Street View World Tour

My four sketches from the Street View World Tour get together. I struggled a bit. Maybe I need to go back to drawing larger. Postcard size is really not me.  Loved the little Ukrainian flag in the first one, a scene from Ireland (and not County Clare or Tipperary, which sport the same colours - this was County Roscommon). And another Irish connection with the last one, a shop in New York importing Irish goods. I liked the green horsey in the window - my view was different from others, as I had moved around on Google Street view and the shop window was completely different. Also interesting to see the different styles of street lamps in 3 of the 4.

Little digger

We were supposed to be sketching the old Grafton Cinema, long gone, now the White Company (a very nice shop). But a digger came along, and you know me and diggers! Simply couldn't resist! Added the colour at home.

This is how it was, drawn on location, from direct observation, always. Why would anyone want to sketch from a photo when this is so much fun?

FYJ Week 3 - Day 3 or 4

Another day, another feeling, this time representational. Watercolour, quarter sheet, Lamp Black and Grey of Grey, on cold press paper. From our recent trip to the Dingle Peninsula. Looking back towards Mount Brandon, always hidden in the clouds.

FYJ Week 3 - Day 2

Another day another feeling. I used watercolour and ink for this one. And yes, it feels completely different if you rotate it. But this is the way I felt it expressed my feelings best when I woke up that morning.

FYJ Week 3 - Diary painting

Slowly building up on this "diary painting" for Find Your Joy. But I feel the need to layer a lot more, so I'm going to take big brushes and cover a lot more surface than I have done so far. I think I've been too timid so far. 

FYJ Week 3 - Day 1

Week 3 of Find Your Joy was all about expressing, and not trying to impress. Abstract black and white. I do not want to share my feelings here, so you can interpret this any way you want! (Watercolour on quarter sheet, hot press paper, using Lamp Black and Grey of Grey). There's a lot of sharing in the course Facebook group, but I don't want to share my feelings with over a thousand people I have never met. I find it hard enough to share how I feel with my friends and family! 

I painted big swooshes of watercolour. When it dried a little (but not completely - it's all about timing), I ran a plastic card (old credit card, hotel card) through the paint to lift it. Just one big gesture. For the lighter part above, I worked wet in wet, then I used a tissue to drag the paint down. For the bottom part, I worked with a lot of pigment and a fairly dry brush to create a dry brush effect. Watercolour is all about how wet or dry your brush is versus the paper. And lots of practise!

Next time I want to paint a wave, I need to remember this!

Griffith College on a cold wet afternoon

Sometimes we end up in a place that's really not suited for the weather. We were in Griffith College, and it got very wet and windy. Thankfully there were two marquees over picnic tables, maybe there for Freshers' Week? Not much to see from there, but Pat drew my attention to that little cottage behind the trees. So that's what I sketched. Lots of great conversation while we sketched. 

And then we retreated to Noshingtons on South Circular Road, where it was warm. Service was brisk, but the carrot cake was delicious. 

Top of O'Connell Street

Busy part of the city. The location that was picked for that day was the old Ambassador cinema. But I couldn't really see it. I could see people, traffic signs and lights, and busses! So I drew what I saw! And PS: that suitcase that looked abandoned disappeared eventually. Hopefully in the hands of its rightful owner.

FYJ Week 2 - Diary painting - lots more paint

Decided I needed to get rid of a lot of the whites, which I had so carefully kept last week. Maybe I will experiment with gouache next week?

 

FYJ Week 2 - Day 3

I'm a representational painter, by and large. But last week and this week, I felt the urge to try the assignments in abstract first, before tackling a representational version. Both weeks, I found the abstract versions really thrilling, exciting, satisfying. When I moved to a representational version of the assignments, I felt tight. Then I would do another one, and then another one, and it's only with that third version that I felt free again. I've wondered why that is. I never felt I was good at drawing. School, parents, etc. caused that feeling, for sure. Yet, I'm an urban sketcher, I draw directly in ink, people, places, musicians, dancers. No problem. But when I'm moving to a watercolour landscape, it feels more serious somehow and the inhibitions creep in. Part of it is my process in watercolour, where I need to paint a number of iterations of the same landscape before I catch the feeling of it, and I'm fine with that. But I can feel a resistance. Maybe it's the sudden move from my dreamy clouds to highly textured treescapes?

FYJ Week 2 - Day 2

Trying to apply the mark making to a landscape. I used much smaller paper (painted the two on a quarter sheet, roughly A4). I found the small size too limiting for the type of marks I wanted to make. Tomorrow, I'm planning to try again on larger paper.

 

FYJ Week 2 - Diary painting

Still adding to this bit by bit. I splashed a good bit of paint, but maybe I'm still too careful to leave lots of white?

 

Dingle Peninsula

A few days spent on the Dingle peninsula. We stayed in Ballyferriter, went to Coumeenoole beach, Clogher Head, Clogher Beach, Beal Bán, and a couple of pubs where Geantraí were playing. They are not famous. They used to play a lot together over 40 years ago. And now they might play together once a year for a few days, as they're living all around Ireland and Europe (and even one of them in America, but he wasn't here this time). We came across them by chance at Tig Bhric (Brendan just wanted to buy a few bottles of beer. We stayed for a good while, and then they invited us to see them play again at Kane's Bar on the Sunday evening, where they were joined by three American trad musicians. I ended up sketching everything everything, all the faces, the drinks (and maybe the music?).

Also a few landscape sketches. Now I wish I had done more. 

FYJ Week 2 - Day 1, second take

And here is the second pass, using only the tools and marks that I noted after the first part of the assignment. Same colours. Yet, these feel very different. Initially I only liked 3 of the 6, but now I like 5 of them. There's a nautical feel.  I do love the sea, but i'm not a nautical person.

FYJ Week 2 Day 1

Are you a representational artist, and yet, you feel you need to do the assignments in abstract first? How does it feel? Last week, I was puzzled as to why I was doing this. But for Week 2, it feels quite natural, as if abstract frees me up to try out all sorts of marks. 

First pass - all sorts of marks, using colours I have in my stash but rarely use, like Phthalo blue, Carmine, Mayan yellow, Quin gold. I'm using Neutral tint as my black. And the white of the paper as my white. I do love scribbling. I discovered I like Neocolor crayons for sketching, but not so much for painting. Same with ink. When I sketch (as in urban sketching), ink and watercolour is my favourite combination. But for painting, I'm more of a watercolour purist (well, almost).