Singing da Blues Now

Who would have thought that I would really love this work after such a half-hearted beginning? I am not going to do any more, even though I would like to work on the shadows and the caps of the tubes, because the paint is getting too thick. Enough! I think I might do more tubes of this ilk, as I really enjoy the challenge of painting a well-worn and dented metallic surface with all the smudges of paint picked up over time. I seem to like painting things standing on their heads and shoulders - lamb chops, tubes of oil paints - what's next?

"Old Holland - Caribbean Blue & Kings Blue Light"
Oil on Canvas - 8" x 8"

WIP - Blues Going Away

I am nearly finished with this work. I started this morning hoping to finish it but some tiny bits hadn't dried fully, so I couldn't put on the glazes I hoped to. What I am trying to achieve is the subtle 'golden' glow that hits the metallic tubes in some areas, and I just can't achieve this with brushwork; glazes are the order of the day. Now off to finish my Baroque Altar. This long weekend is just too short for me. I am too amibitious for my own good, with very little patience to prop me up.

WIP - Old Holland Tubes - Oil on Canvas - 8" x 8"

WIP - "The Blues"

Having a gap of 3 weeks away from the paints and brushes is not a good idea. I had no choice really. I was inundated with work and hugely tired and consequently got the 'blues' big time. I knew intellectually that a gap of this sort would throw my painting back a bit, but I wasn't aware of just how much of everything one can lose in such a short space of time. The trick is to always have some work in progress even if it is just an 'exercise' or a practice run. Some time ago, I took a photograph of these two tubes of Old Holland oil colour standing on their heads/caps, and loved it so much I promised myself that I would paint it one day. That day has come and I am not at all impressed with my first rough sketch. And "rough" it is. More tomorrow when I have calmed down and done some self-esteem exercises. If my second phase of this work 'works', I won't leave this one up on my blog. I just felt like tricking myself again by posting and feeling that 'something is happening'. The problem with this work is that I shall go to bed tonight thinking of ways to fix it. Surely I can only improve it?

WIP - Old Holland Tubes - Oil on Canvas - 8" x 8"

Rembrandt Homage I

After spending so much time on my finicky Cup and Lemon Painting which took lots of phases to complete, all I wanted to do was let rip with an expressive charcoal 'something'; quick and easy and fun. Why I ended up processing a realistic homage to a Rembrandt self-portrait doesn't seem to make sense at first, but I started this work, loose and free, attempting to capture the basic form and likeness and then it just became more and more closely aligned with the original in all its aspects. I was working from an A4 size photograph of the painting on to an A2 piece of cartrdige paper. I wanted 'big' so I could free myself up from the rigours of painting on small formats, but I hit a snag, and I learned a lot from this. I was aware from the start that this up-scaling of the original would be challenging but I didn't know how just how demanding an exercise it would be. I couldn't get it exact, and Rembrandt's nose is wrong, but practice and investigation of rendering accurate proportions and measurements will get me there eventually. What I found hugely interesting was just how dramatic and stark Rembrandt's values are in contrast to one another. His darks are really dark and it took hours of standing back and saying to myself "nope - it needs more cross-hatching there" and then standing back again and finding out that even more shading was necessary. I'm leaving it alone now as there is just too much charcoal on the paper to make any adjustments. Another nice part of this experiment was not having brushes and palettes to clean up. Lordy, I'm getting lazy. Now, off to vacuum the charcoal dust of the carpet.

"Rembrandt Portrait - Variation I"
Charcoal & White Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 16.5" x 23.5"

Guess Who? Work in Progress.

I've stopped posting works in progress, because I felt they made my blog look untidy, but I just felt like posting a detail of this charcoal drawing I was working on tonight. It is going fairly well, but after sitting back and looking at it for a few minutes I can see exactly what the mistakes are. So I am back to work on it tomorrow after the fixative dries. Charcoal is magic stuff when you get the hang of it. I had been doing some sketching in the past few weeks and they were all complete trash and that is where they ended up. I am just hoping I can 'hold steady' and keep this one from ending up in the bin. More tomorrow hopefully, and hopefully this one is clickable.

"Portrait in Progress" (Detail)
Charcoal on Cartridge Paper

Art Shop - Re-posted. (Clickable Pics).

In trying to make something of this painting I realised that for the first two months of this year, I have been painting 'against myself'. I haven't been 'in the flow' so to speak, and even though that is true from time to time for everyone alive trying to navigate this mundane plane, I really find that when it comes to painting, my expectations for success are probably too high. To be fair to myself, I am only painting on weekends at the moment, and I cannot get anywhere except in fits and starts.

I took the photograph of this local art shop at night just after the rain and liked it so much that I decided to turn it into a painting. Not wise. Capturing that strange yellow light on the pavement and the effects of the flourescent starbursts against the dark was very difficult. I've left it in this 'sketchy' style as I have decided not to take it any further. I have learned all I can from it. I also couldn't get the canvas as taut as I would have liked and I am fed up with canvas as a ground. I like panels, so I am not going to test canvas any more. I think I am also going to give up painting such large areas of darkness as this has proved to be almost impossible to photograph because of the glare.

"Art Shop"
Oil on Canvas - 14" x 16"

The Inspiration.

The Remains of the Day...

Last week, sitting at the office completely bored, I was aching to be at home with my paints and brushes. My drawing and sketching wasn't cutting the ice, so I had pushed that to one side. This morning, I woke up determined to just paint and paint anything that took my fancy. I chose basic still lifes of food; mushrooms, peppers, onions, lemons, mugs and a breadboard. These objects had been languishing in my fridge for over a week and were ready to be thrown out; I am such a bad eater! But at least these precious items didn't go to waste. Or so I tell myself.

I now have three unfinished 8" x 8" canvases drying waiting for the next assault, possibly tomorrow. I was hoping to have at least one finished today but I had decided earlier on in the week to really try and sit back and look critically at my work, no matter how humble the subject. This meant taking breaks and really stepping back and looking at the work at various stages and only going back to it once I had established at least five areas that needed correcting; and then disciplining myself to make those corrections. This works, but it takes a little longer. I took these photos at the end of the day just when the very rare appearance of a Winter sun was slipping down behind the clouds.

Pepper in Progress.

Now You Know Why I Need A Maid.

For Someone Who Likes Large Chops!

This might not be here that long.........!

I haven’t had the best two weeks back at work after my long break. I’m still here but the events of the past two weeks support my experience that artists are much nicer people to hang out with than business people. The difference between the two groups is quantum. Because I was feeling so angry with the business world, I was delighted to wake up this morning to very bright sunshine; perfect conditions for artists and photographers. My nocturnal sketching during the weeknights hadn’t taken off somehow because the light wasn’t good enough, not even for spontaneous charcoal work. However, the light, no matter how good this morning, just wasn’t all that was needed to take a very good photograph of a very crazy painting. I need a new camera; more pixels and the correct lens.

Maybe a painting of lamp chops standing on their ‘shoulders’ on a bread board is not crazy to some painters, but I had never painted anything like this before. My experience with close-ups, still lifes and even outdoor scenes is limited. If I dare say it, my 'strength' as a painter has always been with conceptual work, huge non-representational works. Now, it is my objective to ‘get good’ at these more 'classical' genres just for the experience. For this still life I worked from a photograph, obviously, and didn’t manipulate the lighting or composition to make the scene more interesting or enigmatic. Just a straight shot – the bare bones so to speak – and a straight painting was what I was looking for. However, it took a lot of ‘seeing’ to get the chops to remotely represent the real thing, and I think I should have made them smaller with more space around them.

Another obstacle I faced was painting in oil on an acrylic primer. Mistake. I noticed the lack of sympatico between the primer and the oil with the first few brushstrokes and I thought that after the first layer of oil was down, the primer would have no influence. Wrong. I don't understand the science of this but for the record I now understand that acrylic primer is for painting with acrylics and oil based gesso is for painting with oils.

I don't know why I am posting this work because I am totally uncrazy about it - but I was determined to discipline myself to finish it. I might delete this post after a while but I do like getting work up on this blog for some reason or another. I'm now off to finish a pesky outdoor scene with lots of challenging foliage. After lunch of course.

"Lamb Chops"

Oil on Board - 12" x 12"

Determined to Draw

I am determined to draw a little, or a lot, each night this week. So determined was I when I arrived home tonight that I took out most of my charcoal and chalks, erasers, knives, and drawing pads and put them on the table so I would not be able to ignore them. This is a trick I have to play on myself. Although it is untidy and impractical to have all that material lying around, it makes life easier not having to unpack the material each night from my trusty toolbox.

I've decided for my next submission to the current Following the Masters challenge, I am not going to do a painting, I am going to do a charcoal sketch of the artist whose work we are paying homage to - Robert Henri. I have found a good photograph on the internet, so I'll work from that. I just don't know his work at all, and nor do I know the work of the Ashcan School. This makes me realise just how Eurocentric my art knowledge is at present, and even our libraries don't seem to have any decent monographs on his work or of his followers. I love to work from a good reproduction, but this time they are not available, so I'm going to use this challenge to practice my drawing. Not inventive, but totally practical. Some more clarity.

Off we go...