New Year Resolutions

Sketch more, draw more, paint more, work harder, look longer.
A new year always brings plans and projects.  I am, like Laura, not making any big promises to myself, I want to keep things fluid and to be able to jump ship, or catch the slow boat to China when necessary.  But, I have decided to give myself one small project.  As I pass this pontoon nearly every day while walking my faithful art hound Coco and as I am somewhat fond of seasonal records I have decided to use it as a constant spot to paint from during the coming year.

Here is the tiniest video to show you the panorama of this place. 
What I enjoy about a body of work from one spot is the changes written by the seasons, the weather and the times of the day.  I am also looking forward to learning more about the mediums that I work in, there is always such room for improvement.
Today, being the first day painting for a little while I warmed up with some scribbles,

and then got down to a bit more thoughtful painting.

A watercolour as it began to get light, with the big sky reflecting in the incoming tide and a little oil of some misty and still fishing boats.

I sail on this river, swim in its waters and walk its creeks and inlets. This is a place that I love and I hope that will come through in the paintings, it is also somewhere that I feel very privileged to be able to know so well and to enjoy in all its guises.  So with that, my small plan for 2011, I hope you all have a very successful and creative year ahead.

Of course I shall be painting other things as well...

Painting With a Story in Mind

This is the collection of paintings that have now headed off ready for the Summer 2010 exhibition at Beside The Wave.  With this set of paintings I have tried to let them tell a story.  It is not complicated, it is the walk down to the sea.  It is a walk that I do often, through every season and every kind of weather but here it is early summer.  To me, a walk to the sea, through rich deep green lanes and paths, past billows of wild flowers and beneath towering beech trees, is an essence of Cornwall and hopefully it will say similar things to other people, wanting to buy a little bit of that to hang up at home.
Putting the collection together as I have done here is a very useful excercise.  It lets me see what my painting habits are, what colours I rely on, what strengths and weaknesses are in my painting style, where I need to concentrate more, where I need to loosen up.  It also lets me enjoy my own work, after all this might be the last time I see these paintings, I am always sad to see them go but also very happy that they have sold.  There is nothing quite like the buzz of selling your work, (someone else likes it enough to want to live with it!)  I suppose it is a bit like children, you bring them up as well as you can, hoping that they will be lovely rounded people who want to leave home and who are nice enough to find someone else to share their lives with and be happy... but you still miss them, and you miss their littleness.  So it is with a painting, that excitement when you start, the descisions that you make that make it work, that make it stand on its own as a thing, an entity, a little window into a slightly more magical world.  Gosh!  What responsibility!
Anyway, if you dont do it already, try it, put a little collection together and see what it tells you about yourself as an artist.  It is interesting!

Watermarks around Mont-Saint-Michel

Last week I had two posts about Mont-Saint-Michel which can be found just off the coast of Normandy:

• Le Mont St Michel
• From sketchbook to studio

Sketch and drawing studies of Mont-Saint-Michel
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Plus I've posted my photos of the coastline around Mont-Saint-Michel on Flickr (see a slideshow).

I know I preferred Mont-Saint-Michel at a distance but I'm also in love with the watermarks in the estuary which could be seen from the place itself - as you'll be able to tell from the slideshow on Flickr.

photos of Normandy coastline around Mont-Saint-Michel
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

However I haven't yet worked out how to have a go at them - all suggestions are most welcome.

You can also expect to see my interpretations of them popping up on "Watermarks" at some point in the future.

Working Afloat

On board I have a little sketchbook. Well to tell the truth I have a lot more than that, I have a whole array of drawing and painting ephemera, ready for longer trips, overnighters and "round Lands-End", that sort of thing.
For the first few trips in the "studio boat" we have sailed out into Falmouth Bay, up the Helford River and also out to sea... for five nautical miles!!

Anyway... to start my "Cornwall from the sea" project I have been scribbling away in my little on board sketchbook. "The Captain" gets a bit annoyed when I am too busy to ready about or sling the anchor in or all of the other nautical things that need to be reefed or hoisted or hauled but I make valiant efforts to ignore him and get some drawing done.

I can tell you it is a difficult job, the boat heaves and pitches, the scenery is all so beautiful that I want to draw EVERYTHING!

So I scribble away with a lovely pencil that is water soluble and smudges and washes blue with the water brush/pen.



I take photos too but most of all I try to get into my head how the land meets the sea. The lush wooded sides of the river, the little nibbled beaches and tall granite cliffs over which tumbles the land. Then it is home to the studio on dry land where I attempt to convert all of that into a finished piece. It is boiling hot here, cloudless blue skies, the dry land studio is hot too and I think that might be influencing the pictures... lots of blue skies and deep, cool, green sea. I am going back out on the boat, going to strip off and dive in!

Anyway here is one finished painting. I am putting them onto "paintmap" too so that you can see exactly where in the sea I was bobbing.

OK, off for that swim...

Water Through Trees

I feel a theme developing here, water seen through the tracery of trees, different times of day, different weather and the inevitable march of the seasons.

The gallery has asked me to produce more of this subject, so of course I set to, stomped off down the creek to paint, rain or shine.

Sometimes the day smiles on me, sharp colours in beautiful sunlight. Sometimes the gods are sulking, or gently crying and misty grey rain sprinkles diamonds of light droplets on everything, I get wet but...

I love the result, the change in tempo and mood. Sometimes the wind whips across the water, cold and biting but throwing up variations in colour, breaking up surfaces.

So all to do now is varnish, take them to the gallery, adorn them with frames and hope that they sell... what an exquisite way to make a living!

Stones

Stones, 

Triptych 

Oil on gesso board

15cm x 15cm + 15cm x 36cm + 15cm x 15cm

or 6in x 6in + 6in x 14.2in + 6in x 6in

This was an interesting painting to make.  The initial sketches were made standing in very cold water drawing in quite a frenzied active manner, then a slower more contemplative watercolour and finally the oil painting which I worked in complete silence.

Which is strange for me. 


I usually have music playing but, perhaps this time, I didn't want to influence the mood of the painting.  It had a definite flow and pattern of its own and it was quite complicated to see.  I keep whizzing back on my chair trying to see the overall shapes and patterns.

This is where I work and that is the chair that whizzes.  The detail for this triptych is granite shot through with little dyke's of pegmatite or mica and for this picture I brought my subjects home.
The detail paintings I thought would be easy but in fact they seemed to require quite a lot of concentration and involve a lot of layering of colours. And splattering, and weaving, and laying on of paint soaked threads.

So it seems as if this series of triptychs are becoming very meditative indeed.

Low Tide. Kennack

Here is the finished triptych.  It has been a very good exercise, it really did focus the mind.  I am planning a few more and think they will make an interesting series.  

Meditations

While painting I find that a kind of meditation occurs, brought about by the level of concentration that painting requires.  So as I was musing on this I came up with a plan, to do a series of paintings which would be flanked or complimented by close up studies or meditations. It seems a very useful exercise, focusing the mind, thinking about shape and colour in a more abstract way, although these are not at all abstract.

This is the sketch which I will use for the middle painting in this planned tryptich.  The place is Kennack Sands see here

So I have my plan, my sketch and now I shall begin work on the central painting... all the while meditating on the passing of a great master who died today.  Andrew Wyeth.  I shall be deep in thought.  In my mind I will be walking the lonely shore, listening to the waves booming and remembering a very fine painter indeed.

The Ecology Park Pond Series - an introduction

Today I've got a formal introduction to my series relating to the Ecology Park Ponds near where I live

• On Making A Mark - you'll find an explanation about the layout of the ponds and some photos in The Ecology Park Ponds - an introduction
• on Travels with a Sketchbook I have a sketch which preceded a drawing which I hoped to post today (but the light is too bad for photography) - see An introduction to the Ecology Park Pond series
• On Flickr - The Ecology Park Ponds are a set of photos of the Pond taken from different angles and at different times of the day.

In summary:

• I've created a map of the ponds and named all the different ponds and bridges so I can better describe where I'm located and what the view is of

An annotated map of the Ecology Park Ponds
(click for a larger version)

• I'm going to keep a photo diary of the ponds - in part because I enjoy photography and in part because I find that looking at the ponds through a camera helps me a lot in sorting out what are good 'views' or 'crops' for my sketches and drawings. You can see the set relating to The Ecology Park Pond on Flickr
  
• I'll be developing a sketchbook for the series. I think I'm going to be getting a special sketchbook dedicated to the series. Sketches will be in pencil, coloured pencil and/or pen and ink.
  
• I'll be making a series of drawings of the ponds in different months and seasons. These will be worked up from both sketches and my reference photos. Initially in coloured pencil, I'm hoping to move onto pastel as the weather gets better and I can work for longer outside. I may also have a go with watercolour and who knows I may even try acrylic or oils!
  
• A monthly perspective: I aim to do one particular view each month during the course of the project. I started off thinking it would be one view - but I may change my mind about that

Extract from the the Map of the Canals and Rivers of the East End and Docklands

annotated to show where the Ecology Park is

In addition, I'm also thinking of adding in odd sketches and drawings of other water and waterways in the area - which you can see on the map below (from the Waterscape.com guide to rivers and canals in East London).

• the pond in Victoria Park
• the lake in Victoria Park
• Hertford Union Canal
• Regents Canal.

Links:

• Watermarks: Reflections on a Pond
• Travels with a Sketchbook: The Ecology Park Pond in December
• and 28th December 2008 (15:30) - Frozen Pond
• Making A Mark - Working in a series - drawing and painting ponds
• Making A Mark - The Ecology Park Ponds - an introduction
• Flickr - The Ecology Park Ponds.