Portrait sketch in pastel and charcoal

Life has changed enormously since Mister died. My life has changed. My innner life has changed to an extend hardly explanable in words.
It takes some time to get past the rawness of the pain and it feels like a huge effort to do even the most minimal of tasks.
It will get easier I know but in the meantime I just have to take it easy and look after Dream, Peter and myself more then even before.

I did pick up some materials occasionally and did a few quick sketches.
This first one was started with just charcoal to which I later added with pastels pencils.
For this one I did use a photo reference, albeit a pretty lousy one.









The secone one I started when trying a sample of a Pan-Pastel I received a little while back.
It is done without any references and may not be anatomically correct, but I was more interested in this new pastel product then anything else. I did add some bits here and there with my Derwent pastel pencils but did not touch it much after that.



The result of this little sketch was an order for more Pan-Pastels, I did like it that much. The order was delivered today.
These little pans look just so beautiful. They feel so soft, are so lovely to work with. I feel inspired by them. Funny, but I really do.

So now I will get myself organised and do some experiments with them.


These experiments will also carry me into an area which may finally shed some light on the question that has been in my head since I watched "The Power of Art" by Simon Schama.
Especially the episodes on Rembrandt, Turner and Rothko made me very emotional Since then returning to just simply making beautiful pictures seemed impossible.
I started searching within myself to what it really is that I wish to show and say through these paintings.
I feel I am getting closer to be able to put it into words.
The works I am going to do over the next few weeks may help me becoming even more clear on it.
My dear Swedish friend and I have had many discussions about finding the voice of the soul. He was and is struggling really hard with this. Now after the "Power of Art" I really understand him for now I am feeling this as well. Not just knowing it with the head but feeling this question and struggle with my whole being.

It will be an interesting time, but one thing I am certain of: My Mister will be here to guide me and to urge me to listen even harder to my inner voice.

landscapes

During the months of February, March and April we did some trips with our new caravan. Yes, both dogs were with us all the time.
It was so much fun.
I thought I would have some time doing some sketching and painting and took a lot of materials with me.
However, apart from one little charcoal sketch one evening I did not get to do anything. Yes I managed to sneak in some time to do some reading but that was about it.
Back home I tried my hand on a little landscape:


We are planning to take a lot more trips with the caravan and offcourse there will be time at some stage where I will be able to do some painting.
I knew I had to look at all those materials I had been travelling with and knew Ineeded to minimize on them. Limiting the amount of paints I would take along seemed like a start.
But, the question was, which paints was I going to take?
I did some study into plein-air paintings and the tools the artists who made them used.
I kept coming back to Scott Christensen.
He started by using just a few colours: Red, Blue, Yellow and White and mixed all his other colours from those, including his black. For convenience sake he then had a paint company called Vasari paints make and tube those often used mixes for him.
I decided to try and mix the colours he used with just the red, blue and yellow and discussed the possibility of getting the closeness of those to the tubes from Vasari with a friend whom I knew had those Vasari colours.
Here is my chart:


I had some of the Vasari colours and really liked them so with my own feelings about them and Jim's comments I decided to get the pre-mixed range.

While waiting for them arrive I worked a little more into that sunset I painted a while back. Just a little, nothing muxh exciting.




The Vasari's arrived while I was still pretty ill so it took a little while to test them.
In fact the only thing I have done so far is put some patches of the colours on the chart near the mixes I had made that matched them closely.
I was pleased to see how really close I had managed to get to the Vasari's with my own mixes. Pretty good.
However I did this on the day I realised that Mister was ill and I have not done much in the way of paiting since.

This rose was the painting I had been working on that Saturday day, It had been on and off my easel for some time and it was time to let that one go.
Maybe one day I will touch it up but for now I will put it in a frame as it is. It reminds me of Mister as it is now.
It is very soft and subtle in real life but for reason it is a very difficult one to take photo's off.




One thing I noticed in most of my paintings is the lack of diversity, range in values which needs working on and practicing with.
This will be next step in my learning process.

My sweet "Mister"

About 2 weeks ago the medication I was given to fight of a very nast chest/lung infection (side effect of the flu) which bordered a pneumonia, started to take effect. The fever went down a little and I became a little clearer in the head.
Thats when I realised and in a way intuitively knew that my dear friend, my big love, Mister was not well at all.
I had seen him scratching his belly but had thought it was probably to do with his skin healing from the infection he got during our little trip to Coffs Harbour. He had been eaten by sand flies which had given him big nasty infected hotspots.
I had noticed a blood spot in the outer corner of his eye but had put that down to maybe a tress point, a burst blood vain. He seemed a lot less energetic but again I had linked that to the skin problems and the medication he had been given for it.

BUT

when I rolled him on his back to check his belly, his usually pink skin was red, blood red, and black as if he had blood right under the surface of his skin.
This did not look good at all.
The spot ran from mid chest to belly button. I was gravely worried and raced to the weekend clinic with him.
It only took the vet one look at him to tell me he had massive internal bleedings and they would have to run some test to find out why.
The blood test told us that is was not caused by poisoning and we knew he had not suffered a trauma nor had been in an accident. They decided to keep him to run more test and give him a blood transfusion if needed. He was severely anemic by that stage from the massive amount of blood loss.
The vet rang around 23.30: the bleeding had been caused by ruptered tumors!! Hemangiosarcoma, a very aggressive cancer that spreads through the blood system, forming an ever increasing net work, attacking everything. Plus it goes on pretty much undetectable.
They had found massive amounts of tumors almost everywhere in his body: his spleen, liver, heart and lungs, they were ruptering one after the other. Operating on him was out of the question. There was absolutely nothing they could do for him anymore.

So we brought him around 01.00 in the morning and looked after him as good as we possibly could.

He died a few days later, 3 months short of his 11th birthday.
The day before my own birthday.

I love him so much. I miss him so much.
The house is so quiet without him.
He was my biggest friend, my great, sweet love and my wisest teacher.

Going back to an earlier portrait sketch

When I felt my interest level towards the rose was dropping, I realised that it would be much better to go on to something rather different for a while.
Pushing on without the motivation needed would surely have damaged the work. So The rose is of to the side for the moment.
I decided to work on the portrait sketch I did as an speed exercise just prior to taking Clayton Beck's portrait workshop.
So far I have worked on the drawing issues and worked some colour into the skin and background.
Keeping my colour mixtures realy simple with just a handful of colours keeps the flesh looking fresh and the overall work much more unified. Also it is much easier to work with then with a full 24 colour palette.
I worked out prior to beginning what colour sense I wanted this painting to have and opted for a cool feel to this work. Now I just have to keep working it up until I am happy with the overall look.

This is the portrait after a little more work:

Another Portrait an Rose Update

I did not have a lot of time to paint this week but the little I did manage to do gave me great pleasure.
Having taken the decission to not let "Must Have perfect technique" block me from freely painting and enjoying the process I was able to do some good work and enjoyed it immensly.







Yes ofcourse technique is very important but it is not the end all or be all. There are other very important aspects to making good paintings.
I realise that I have been staring myself blind on the realition of good technique and that it did not help me at all. So back to square One and on with the job.

Update on Portrait exercise

The new year 2009 has started and I just know it is going to be a very good year.
Personally and Creatively this year is about to become the Best ever.
I have not been able to do a lot of painting but the time I had I spend reading and studying. Apart from looking after the very sore Mister dog. He ended up with gangrene but luckily I was in time to prevent him from loosing his leg or worse!!

When I did ge to the easel I had a good time and felt pretty good about it.
This is a quick update on the portrait in progress.
Just a few alterations and fixing some drawing issues plus a little change to the background.

Portrait work and Last entry for 2008

I hope every one had a wonderful Christmas and is getting ready to see out the 2008 year.

Eventhough tough these festive days are wonderful they do eat time getting everything ready and making the home look beautiful & inviting.
On top of that my big "Mister" dog had undergone knee surgery just before Christmas which caused problems that needed attention. Looking after him almost 24 hours a day to make sure he would not injure himself while recovering from the operation took up most of my time.

However there were also lots of moments of reflection which came to a peak the other day when I pressed for the answer as to what was blocking me from doing my work and serious painting. I did get the answer!!
I won't go into detail but suffice it to say it is pretty much related to a person I did a portrait workshop with just under two years ago.
I now also know how to deal with it and will be back to my normal self and painting like a mad(wo)man soon.

I did manage to get a little bit of painting done, "Little" meaning just a very short period, during which I worked a little on that portrait which now has become an exercise portrait, one that I now use to try out different things.
This is what that looks like now:

The shadow side is still pretty much in its raw state and there are some nasty drawing issues but I was happy to get some work done. I also noticed that the overall work is becoming soft edged again which means I am loosing some of my internal sharp edges again.
Isn't it marvellous to see how our work can show the internal state we are in?!

I also worked a little bit more on that rose with the close up view point. It now has a background in a much higher value but lower chroma which instantly made the rose look much better. It still needs a lot more tweaking before I will be happy with that one.

However 2009 is about to start and it is going to be a wonderful year in every which way possible.

So on that note I would like to wish all of you A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.