On the Shortlist

I have just returned from a very busy and successful week in London.  I was exhibiting (and working) with Beside The Wave Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair. 

It was hard work but very enjoyable, a fantastic buzz to the whole event and I got to meet several people who had only been blogging names to me before. 

I sold a lot of work, both mine and the other artists that the gallery represents, got some commissions and was approached by another gallery about an exhibition. 

So I returned home on a bit of a high to find a message about the Artist of the Year Award which is being run by Artist and Illustrators magazine.  Now I am impossibly excited!  I have been shortlisted!

There is a voting page with all of the images, I am in the landscape section.  Looking through them I think the standard is high so I will be extremely proud to win but I am very proud to have been shortlisted. 

The image above is the painting, the River Helford  (of course) and here is where you can vote . 

Check out the others as well, they are all interesting paintings. 

I had actually forgotten that I had entered, I have to frame the painting now, in super quick time and get it delivered up to London, right by where I was staying a couple of days ago!  I am just relieved that I hadn't exhibited it of sold it!!

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...

September On The River

September on the Helford  River in Cornwall.  It is so much quieter, many of the holiday craft have gone home, there is a thoughtful quality to the air.  It is peaceful and perfect for a few small plein air watercolours.
These are tiny, the biggest being about 21 cm long, that is just a tadge over 8 inches and all about 8 cm high (3.5 inches).
Also shown here is the scrappy little sketch, done in Biro, which I used to "warm up".
I am planning to varnish the paintings, it is a new process which involves a UV isolation coat then picture varnish.  This gets rid of the need for glass in the framing which, in my opinion has three main advantages: 
Glass makes horrible reflections which I think detract from the painting. 
They are easier to post or transport and therefor sell. 
I can experiment with framing and adding things, these for example will be framed together with tiny found objects that I collected at the time.
I shall make a separate post about that. So be excited, be very excited... I am.

Now, I am off to catch a tiny ferry across this very river to walk the cliff, do some more painting and talk to a little gallery there... its a very tough life!

The Studio Boat #3 and Monet painting poplars on the Epte

The Studio Boat (1875) by Claude Monet

oil on canvas / private collection

Claude Monet made a number of paintings of his studio boat.  This is the second painting - with one more to come.  In 1875 Monet was painting on the River Seine near Argenteuil.

I used to spend ages trying to work out how Monet painted some of his paintings - until I went to see the Manet to Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery in 2007, got the audio guide and heard how his habit was to use a studio boat on the River Epte - which is how I got interested in paintings of his studio boat.  (Click the link to see the location of the River Epte near Monet's house at Giverny)

Below is a sketch I did (see Sketching at the National Gallery: "Manet to Picasso") plus an extract from what I noted at the time.

Copies of National Gallery paintings from Claud Monet's "Poplars on the Epte" series
oil on canvas
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I started with two of my favourite paintings from Monet's Poplars on the Epte series. This time I got the audio guide and learned that:

• there are 24 paintings in the series depicting the poplars at different times of the day and in different weath
• Monet painted them from a flat bottomed boat borrowed from his friend Caillebotte which had been specially adapted so that it could take canvases of different sizes. ( The painting from a boat habit reminded me of John Singer Sargent who used to sketch in Venice while sat in a gondola - I'm beginning to think about devising a boating expedition!)
• He had to buy the land that the poplars stood on to avoid them being cut down before he had completed the series!

The one on the left does not compare well to the original due to lack of the right colours in my tiny pencil case. The one on the right worked rather better - but I could have done with my big sketchbook!

Given the dates of the paintings I'm guessing Monet's habit of using a studio boat must have started much earlier when he first started living next to rivers.

For earlier posts about Monet and studio boats see:

• The Studio Boat #1 - Monet's bateau atelier
• The Studio Boat #2 - "Monet Painting on His Studio Boat" (painted by Manet)

For more about Monet see Claude Monet - Resources for Art Lovers

Hidden rivers

River - Austin Street East - in progress

pastel 10 x 13

I've started a small series of pieces to explore the hidden rivers of the city.

Each day I pass by small rivers and larger rivers, all on their way to the ocean and I, as well as most people, take them for granted.  They become swallowed up with the concrete and buildings and traffic that surround them.

Some are highly visible, some flow underground for most of their life, some are no more than trickles over pebbles and some are like wild rapids.

 River - Austin Street West

pastel 10 x 13

In the area where I work, its very modern and urban, yet there is a touch of wildness in the little river that flows through the land, under the road, and on its way to sea.  This is a small green space in a sea of concrete and glass.  Until I decided to look more closely at the river system in the city and track its path to the sea, I didn't really pay much attention to it.

So now, here is a glimpse into the streams and rivers that flow through the City of St. John's.  These are in soft pastel about 10 x 13" on Canson paper.

I am also tracking the my viewpoints of the river on Google Street View so you can see my vantage point most of the time.

View Larger Map

The Thames at Embankment

Charing Cross Bridge & Parliament from Cleopatra's Needle, on the Embankment

11.5" x 17", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Large Moleskine Sketchbook

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I have a fascination with trying to find the spot where Monet painted the Thames and the Houses of Parliament from the west (as opposed to from the opposite bank in the room he had at St Thomas Hospital).  This is too far west because ths sketch of Embankment Pier was done from the base of Cleopatra's Needle.

However it does provide an excellent place to sketch the Thames without having people peering over your shoulder!  You just need to avoid being on the lower terrace when the tide is coming in!

You can read more about this sketch and location on my sketchbook blog Embankment Pier and Thames at Charing Cross

Where Queen Matilda fell in

Old Ford Lock, River Lea, East London
7.5" x 7.5" coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The title of this post references that the story that in 1110, Queen Matilda, wife of King Henry I, fell while crossing the ford while on her way to to Barking Abbey - more or less at this spot.

I developed this drawing from a sketch which I did last year and it was part of my 'backwaters' contribution to the recent Alleyways and Waterways of London exhibition at the Barbican. I'm not quite sure why but this image seems a bit indistinct and the original is now behind glass which is not the best place for getting another scan!

I've drawn and redrawn this about four times so far and this is just the latest version. I think Constable may have got in on the act as I was reading about him while doing the drawing!

Anyway, having looked at it hanging in the exhibition - which I find always provides me with a fresh perspective on a piece - I'm sure there's a better drawing in there somewhere but I'm not quite sure what I need to change to bring it about.

This was the original sketch in my sketchbook blog post Old Ford Lock - and some ancient tales.

Old Ford Lock, River Lea, East London
8.5" x 11.5", pencil and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Alleyways and Waterways of London

The Magic Hour and October at the Sackler Crossing, Kew
coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Old Ford Lock, River Lea and Ecology Park Pond #1
(both of these are views of near where I live in East London )
coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I belong to the Drawing London Group and we currently have an exhibition at the Barbican in London. The theme is Alleys and Backwaters of London so being a member of Watermarks I decided to devote myself to the backwaters aspect for my four drawings which are included in the show - which show two lakes, a pond and river!

The exhibition opens on Tuesday 2nd February 2010 and continues until the 24th February at the Barbican Library at the Barbican Centre (2nd floor), Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS (latter is a link to Google Maps).

This exhibition aims to capture the atmosphere, excitement, lights, shadows, colours and tones of London and its people with works in various media – watercolour, oils, pastel, print, ink - that are all available for sale. There is also a display of the artists’ sketchbooks. The Drawing London group meets monthly in different neighbourhoods around the capital to work inside and out, in the streets and buildings of the city, through all seasons. This is the third Drawing London exhibition since the group’s inception in 2003.

Drawing London 2010 Alleyways and Backwaters of London
2-24 February, Barbican Library

Anatomy of Winter

Or... "Why I love winter"
It is very simple really, winter is the time to see the bones of the landscape.  Shape and form simplify, the way the hill tucks into its self, how the woods run along the ridge, blurring edges.  Sometimes the gift is even greater, the world goes black and white! (almost!)  The usual colours are leached from the landscape leaving a very limited pallet and highlighting some very unexpected splashes of colour.

I find that I go for many walks in the wind and rain, usually, the snow and ice when I am lucky.  Just recently we were blessed with snow, a rare event down in Cornwall.  So I was out armed with camera and sketchbook, little bits of watercolour paper and small gessoed cards.  I have mini versions of almost everything I might need, including a tiny flask of hot coffee.  I have a terrible old coat that smells but is made of waxed cotton and is long enough to provide instant protection from a wet bottom on most occasions.  The good dog Coco comes along as well.

One of the best features of these winter art forays is the lack of people.  Not having to explain what I am doing, or having someone looking over my sketchbook while I try to draw is bliss!

What I tend to do is scribble a lot, in different mediums.  Small watercolours to use as they are or to turn into larger ones back in the studio.  Little oils, which look like rubbish but provide essential colour refrence and are worked into later.  Here is one such oil, sitting in the studio awaiting its "makeover"!  Look at it tho, I dont think those greens in the water would be there any other way.

I often make the same walk, I like to see a place in different weathers, times of day, seasons.  To really know trees and places, like talking to your subject while making their portrait.

Watercolour sketches provide something different again, it seems to me that they are like poems where oils are like stories,the poems are smaller in length, often more consice and more about a feeling or one thought?

And then it snows again, it is irristible so out I go again and paint some more.Making the most of this stripped down landscape, trying to learn my winter anatomy.
Back at home, in the warm, long evenings, good things on TV provide yet another oppertunity...snoozing models!

The River

I have just finished painting another few nocturnes. I realised as I was painting this one that it must be one of my favorite painting sites, tucked away from prying eyes with a commanding view. I paint here often and so I thought I would show a couple of other paintings of the River in other guises. By night as a winding ribbon of moonlight, with a troubled sky affording only glimpses of the wintry landscape. The old oaks are so thick going down to the water that even when they have lost most of their leaves they present a solid mass folding themselves down the gentle sloping fields towards the river.

In high summer under a blue sky she presents quite a different face, bright greens and yellows and air filled with bird song and insect noise.

Then in early spring, just waking up after a long winter, the tide far out leaving a few channels in the estuary mud and a soft purplish haze of budding leaves on the trees.

The other thing that I have been doing is making a "fan" page for my work on face-book. It is a test really to see how effective it is and although it is only two days old I have already got two commissions from it. I will report back on its effectiveness as a marketing tool later. So far I am pleased with it and it seems quite easy to use as far as putting images on goes. If it is worth doing I will let you know and in the meantime have a visit and become a fan, please!

It is on facebook and it is called Sarah Wimperis Paintings.

On the Danube...

... not painting, not even sketching, but at least travelling.

I spent a few days in Vienna for work, ended up walking through some fabulous neighbourhoods on the way to and from the conference venue, gave general sightseeing a bit of a miss - I really think, the Habsburg dynasty should NOT have held back quite as much as they did on their architecture - I am sure they could have built some FAR more impressive monumental buildings, boulevards and other assortments than they did, but I managed to do a little boat trip.

It wasn't the trip down the Danube to nearby Bratislava (a mere 90 mins downwards on the river), but a trip down the Danube Canal and up the Danube.

It was a sunny day, plenty of birds, plenty of cargo boats passing us by and a lot of Strauss music coming from the speakers of the boat's sound system.

Take a look for yourself:

A rocky weekend

I hate to follow hot on the heels of Vivien's post on rocks, but they were squarely in my world all weekend.

Flatrock is named for - well - its flat rocks. they stretch like building blocks out into the sea with a beach of sorts of huge slabs of glacier-smoothed rock. Early on Sunday morning I got up before sunrise to catch the light on the ocean and take some photos and do a little sketching.

I wanted to get a sense of the layers of rocks and how they are formed. This will be a build up to a major drawing in detail of a section of these rock formations. I think that pencil will allow me to create the detail that I want in this piece and its availability for closer inspection is ever present.

On Sunday, I hiked the Manuels River trail downstream and found out that the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland was once a section of Africa - albeit 200 million years ago. This river trail is beautiful and the shallow pools are a magnet for young families and children to paddle in. Further down the trail the shallow river is littered with boulders as if a giant hand scattered them there - a paradise for geologists.

Expressionism versus impressionism

I'm always fascinated by these two terms and the use of it and it seems I always get it wrong even though I can give their definitions.

I have done a few paintings on which many people give many different opinions and the scale weighs in equally at expressionism andt impressionism. I think there is a grey area today, boundaries overlap with marriages between all the different styles of painting. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, or nothing at all? Does it perhaps make it bad art? Or doesn't bad art exist? Is all art good? Is good painting all about a solid knowledge of technique, or can a strong ambiance and emotion save a poorly executed painting?

...la Loire scintillante...
oil on canvas, 22x33cm

For quick explanation I used wikipedia to define:

Expressionism "...It sought to express the meaning of "being alive"^[2] and emotional experience rather than physical reality.^[2][3] It is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form.......generally the term refers to art that expresses intense emotion. It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there is a long line of art production in which heavy emphasis is placed on communication through emotion...."

Impressionism "....Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles...... Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they emphasized vivid overall effects rather than details. They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly blended, as was customary, in order to achieve the effect of intense colour vibration...."

Looking on different art sites, there are categories of styles: expressionism, abstract, impressionis,, contemporary, modern.... does it give more worth to a painting if it can clearly be classified as Impressionism, or Modern contemporary, or Classical... I have also been asked before..: what style of painting do you do?" to which I start blabbering, because I have no clue. I sometimes paint something SO distorted that it can be nothing else BUT maybe surrealism and other times I'm thinking Impressionism when in fact it is plain and simple realism. It sounds confusing just writing it all down here, reading it must be even worse and as all artists will know, doing it, is the challenge.

Not that it bothers me in any way not to have a particular style. I don't search for a certain style. I dont think anyone can, really. You are what you are. And your art reflects who you are. but I certainly feel flattered when a style is recognized in my work!
I recently saw paintings from someone who attended a Charles Reid workshop and his paintings speak of CR influence. This artist's paintings project his effort and hard work at trying to incorporate this free style of CR. I somewhat feel uncomfortable looking at this work. It makes me feel fatigued, as if he had worked very hard at getting this effortless look. I feel as if there is a wordless desire behind his work, asking for the real him to be released and I wish this artist would give in to that desire. I would love to see the work of the real him.

Any opinions?

Plein air

Coin Perdu
Corréze
France

Dear Watermarkers,

I am still in Corréze and wanted to say a quick hi to you all!

I miss you and think of you when I'm putting down a stroke on my canvas. The weather is beautiful and sunny, the rivers are flowing undisturbed and I am already golden skinned from all my plain air painting!

I'm sending you some images of how it looks here where I am and what I'm painting at our hide away Coin Perdu in Puy d'Arnac, Corréze. You can see some more images here.

...in search of corners to paint...

Some proof that I am indeed "working":

...by the brook...

...see, something on the canvas...

...even on a rainy day...

...even putting my life in danger...

... and attacked by Billy the kid...

...safer ground...

In two weeks I hope to show some finished plein air work, which I am thoroughly enjoying doing, even though I mess up most of the time.
Browsing through all your latest work, has me once again in admiration of your talents and stunned at what you've all done these last few weeks; needless to say the inspiration has me itching to clean up my palette immediately and get out there again.

Well, that's it for now. I wish you all well and keep the pastels and paints flying wild wherever you are!
See you in two weeks, Watermarks...!

All my best and bises!
Ronell