Cornwall, May 2011

The Crowns at Botallack, charcoal sketch, A3, Vivien

It's a while since I posted anything here - sorry.

This is a recent one, done on a very windy day, hair blowing in my eyes and fighting to keep the sketchpad still.   It's a mix of willow charcoal, compressed charcoal and charcoal pencil.

The sea was swirling around the rocks below,  gulls wheeled past, that cliff goes a long way upwards above the old engine houses that blend into the cliff.  The thought of miners walking down there in the teeth of a gale, the waves nearly reaching them, then going down dark narrow tunnels under the sea, lit only by the light of their candle, was in my mind as I worked.  A hard life, with a very short lifespan.   Charcoal seemed the right medium to express the place and its ambience.

You can see further sketches of the area here

Koi painting in oil.

I finally completed one koi painting in oil.

Although I'm happy that I stuck to it and completed at least one painting of the koi, I definitely plan to go to the koi farm in summer, where I can seat myself for a day and really get to work on some series. Studying the koi here in January/February, felt a bit like eating strawberries in the midst of winter.

..koi, oil on linen, 61x37cm

In step 1, using terpentine, I put down thin washes of burnt sienna for the fish shapes and a thin wash of paynes gray and french ultramarine for the background/water.

....step 1...

In step 2 I added some colour to the fish, cadmium red and yellow to the fish in the foreground and prussian blue to the back fish, to form the shadows. I started using liquin as a medium to have the oi dry quicker, but still have an oil shine.

...step 2...

In step 3 I darkened the water with a mixture of paynes gray and french ultramarine and softened the shadow marks I made on the yellow fish. this was my first mistake, because I made mud. I left it to dry completely, so I could rework it...the oil was still thin enough to redo without removing the paint.

...step 3...

the last stages was all about adding colour and depth to the fish bodies and depth to the water , while using the same colours I've used in the previous steps, with the addition of ochre, raw umber and white.

...koi completed...

When doing the studies for this koi project, I worked mostly from photographs, using about 20 different photos, building my own scenes. I really found it difficult to render the koi in an interesting way. I feel I can do better, which is why I will patiently wait for the koi season to open and I can go and study them in real life.

I also felt that they ask for something a little more abstract or expressive than mere realistic rendering. In the following studies I tried to present them on the page in a little more interesting way. I found it quite exciting and I think I can even push the envelope even further in the expressive domain, which makes me more excited about the series of koi than I was when I started out.

In the meantime, I have a lobster and crab and mussels and oysters and several other shellfish in my freezer, waiting to be sketched and painted and studied. Maybe a new series of sea creatures? So hang around if you're interested in seeing what will surface - it will be a surprise for me too.

...koi study in charcoal on paper, 22x15cm...

...koi study in graphite on paper, 22x15cm...

...koi study in oil pastel on paper, 22x15cm...

..à bientôt...

Ronelle

Africantapestry

Mission Trails, California

detail from larger work

Katherine and I are taking part in an exhibtion in California in November with friends - details later.

At the end of this post is a slide show of the work I've done - there are 5 paintings, with close up details following.

The work is based around Mission Trails Park in California. I needed to work around how I was going to tackle painting an area that is so different from the usual land and seascapes I paint here, in a very different climate. Needless to say it ended up involving water :>) Unusually for me, I was working on painting a place I don't know personally - a friend had provided photos and I used Google streetview, which was really useful for getting a feel for the area and did lots of research. Still, it was difficult. I usually work plein air and learn the feeling of a place as I sketch.

I started with the coloured pencil drawing of a still pool, reflecting the trees behind, the dry landscape very different from England - but the rocks and trees and reflections all interested me. I was trying to get to grips with the landscape there, the aridity, the rockiness, the mood.

As I thought about it, I realised that I wanted to abstract the images a little, play with texture, time, and shape and colour, experiment and include collage. All the works except for that first one are mixed media, using whatever was going to make the kind of mark I wanted. The joy of collage is the ability to move elements around to work out the composition before finally sticking down.

This is the final version that the above detail is taken from


It went through several incarnations on its way and further work with scissors as it became rather overcrowded and needed room to breathe :>) I would have liked to have given it even more room but had to work to a specific size - 11x14 inches so that it would fit the frames at its destination.

Each tree is a separate piece of paper, with watercolour, monoprinting and drawing to create the bark. The background is also collaged and then painted and drawn into.

Each was pure experiment with only a loose idea of the final result, responding to the marks, moving the trees and background pieces around until I felt they could be fixed.

There is watercolour in there, coloured pencils, ink, acrylic, gouache, biro (ballpen) and charcoal pencil - maybe other things that I've now forgotten!

The dark background helped with the fragmentation of the image, the changes in time/viewpoint and linked to the black of the charcoal and biro. It isn't of a specific place but plays with a mix of elements from many sources and imagination.

The colours play with warm and cool neutrals against the blue of the sky and reflections - the touches of warm apricot tones glowing against the blue (I hope!).

The 'some, a little and a lot' guideline applies - with most of the painting in neutrals, the blue and purple becomes more important.


If I'd had Sarah's instructions on varnishing watercolours in time I would have tried it out on this one - I think it would work best without glass.

you can see earlier versions here

Towards Dusk

This one again plays with the idea of time and fragmenting the image. Daylight moves into dusk.

What do you think?