charcoal portrait

Today I was so inspired by this beautiful charcoal portrait by Alexei Harlamoff that I just needed to do a drawing.



Unfortunately the paper I chose to work on did not take the materials I wished to work with very well and the result I was after did not happen. The paper was fighting me every step of the way.
So I gave up the battle, took out my Derwent charcoal pencils and continued slowly.
I am happy with it at this stage. Will spray it with some fixative and work on it a more when I have the change.

Landscape 3

I did actually manage to get to the easel the other day, it was for about 1/2 hour only but it was great.
Luckily I has some paint still on my palette that I could use and quickly went to work while my "blokies" were sleeping.
It's not much and still in progress. It needs a fair deal more of work on the left and the forground.
One thing that bothers me most at the moment is that it does not have a clear focal point. I need to work on that.
But at least I was able to work a little.
On my desk I have a few books I desperately want to get to:
The new book by David A. Leffel. Called "Self-Portraits". So far I have only been able to look at the reproductions of the paintings and they are top class. The close-ups are brilliant and there is even a 2 page demonstration of how he works a portrait. A wonderful feast for the eyes. Now I want to read the text and for that I need time.
However the reproductions in this book alone are already worth getting it. Wonderful.
Another book is an old one "the Art of Fredrik McCubbin" which talks about the artist's journey showing a lot of McCubbins older work. I received catalogue that accompanies the exhibition that runs in Canberra now which mainly shows his later work which is a lot more impressionistic and on which he used far brighter colours. I like both his older and later work. But that's just me.
Two other little books are waiting my attention:
One by Edgar Payne called Compostition of Outdoor Painting. Which could be of great assistance to me in my guest for producing better landscape paintings.
And another by Philip de Laszlo, on how to paint the portrait. De Laszlo; one of favourite painters. I love his work. It is so nice to see how he works. The text and photo's from this book is available for download which I did a few years back, but there is nothing better than to actually hold the book in your hands and feel the energy from it. Tony Pro, a marvellous painter recomments the text for anyone wanting to paint portraits and he actually helped me finding this little old book on E-bay. Thanks again Tony.

And this is the little landscape I managed to work on: Yep still so much to learn

Why I did not get to the easel

We have a new addition to the family which has taken a lot of my time away from the easel and mainly everything else.
He flew in from Perth 2 weeks ago and was pretty unwell the first week, doing great now and growing. We call him Rivett.





Dream is finally paying some attention to him, her motto "if I ignore it it isn't here", but he is here and he does go to her for plays.
Luckily for Dream, while she is still recovering from her knee operation, Rivett has another little friend to play with. Little in years, for he is only 51/2 months old. He is called Shyam, or Sam for short. He has grown so fast and so big, you could almost hear him grow. He is the softest, most gentle pup I have ever come across, our Sam. He is just a beautiful darling.


Sam at 4.5 months


Sam at 5.5 months


But he is also 18kilos heavy and Rivett was only 3.5kilos upon arrival and not too strong so it was necessary to keep them apart for most of the time and only together under strict supervision. That caused some hard work.
However, Rivett is so much stronger now and really eager to play with Sam. So I let them. Today they finally played to the point that Sam actually walked away from the little one to have a rest under my desk in my studio. He is still here now.

This what I had the other day and it shows some proportions at the same time. How gorgious is that:



In the meantime my studio looks like a bom has gone of in it. I have books and magazines piled up on my desk, waiting to be read, I have a palette with old paint laying on my work table with paint tubes scattered around it.
I have puppy toys overy where on the floor.
But loving every minute of it.

P.S. Two-Tone: now you have the picture you were asking for... Sort of.

Not amused

This act of mine did not amuse my husband. Not at all.
Good thing is the Queensland sun does make it grow back pretty fast.
It felt good though
Hahaha.

Another landscape in progress

It has been some time since I posted. So much has happened, life seems to fly past.
I have not been able to work in my studio as often as I would have liked. However the reasons stopping me were mainly good and pleasant.
So no complaining. Also time away form the easel isn't too bad, it did give me time to evaluate and think/feel about where I want to go with my work. What do I wish my work to look like? What do I wish to portray, tell, show?
Have I really managed to create my own handwriting?
I know the direction I wish to go and that is very helpfull already. It will most likely take some experiementing before I can make it look half decent but I am eager to give it a try and very exited to see what will come out of it.
This little painting of the cliffs I started some time ago and managed to return to yesterday. This will be as far as I am going to take it for the moment as I am just too eager to get some other work started.
Next week we will have a little 8 week old Border Collie Puppy racing through the house which will be the end of my painting again for some time.
So I want to get as much done as possible now.

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.