Slashed & Trashed!

The picture below is probably the most beautiful on this blog - ever.

It represents a turning point. I am throwing out all the below-par paintings I've done over the past few years, keeping a few behind for the time being. I am changing track and I'm going to be painting and drawing larger works on themes and concepts closer to me. I haven't posted anything for ages and I haven't been scouring my favourite artists' blogs every day.  Recently, every small work I started was junk and I know now something internal was causing this block.  I had to stop and regroup and this happened without any conscious decision on my part - or at least, it seems that way.   I can no longer paint the way I used to which somehow means that from crawling to walking, I missed the running bit and I am now ready to enjoy a long-distance marathon. Surprisingly, without doing any work to take me to the next level, just thinking about art and creating paintings in my head and exploring subjects of interest, I managed to skip a step.  Small formats cannot contain or reveal what I want to convey and I will only work with them to so as not to waste unused boards and paper and maybe to put in a few practice runs and sketches for bigger works.  My head is back where it was when I finished my art degree.

The slashed work has absolutely no value at all and it will be a supreme pleasure to get rid of all this junk. I might even close this blog and start a new one with the new work. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

"Slashed and Trashed"

New York at Night - Speed Experiment II

I haven't been painting lately - long, very uninteresting story behind that. However, today I decided to get out of the fog and just start up with something 'small'. I have loved the photo that this work is based on for so long I decided to paint it this afternoon before the impetus died. I thought it would be a little too complicated as I haven't painted for so long but it wasn't.  I guess I had stared at it for so long that there were no strange corners.  (It's frightening how quickly one's skills level drops). I somehow breezed through it and, again, even though the paper was slightly too rough to accommodate all the fine brushwork I was aiming for, I am happy with it.

"New York City Blurred II"

Gouache on Watercolour Paper - 8.5" x 9" (Approx.)

Sunday Sketches

I've often wondered how those brilliant (mostly American) illustrators were able to convey form and expression on a face with just cross-hatching so I tried it here. It does obviously convey more detail than charcoal ever could with a similar technique, but lots more practice is needed. Again, the photographs just don't show these small works properly. Maybe I should get a digital camera that can take good black and white shots. The paper is a creamy white in both sketches, but I just couldn't adjust them to look like the originals.  Not a problem really.

Portrait Sketch Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 9.5" x 7.5" (Approx.) 

Portrait Sketch Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 7" x 7.5" (Approx.)

Charcoal Portrait - Melancholy Series

I haven't posted any work for ages and the reasons are too boring to write about but I have been mulling over and experimenting with the seductive medium of charcoal recently. Unfortunately the paper I am using is not fine enough to hold the fine cross-hatching but I am not running out to the art materials store like I usually do when something isn't quite right. The photography seems to have picked up some blotchy bits which are not apparent in the original even though I didn't use any flash photography.

"Portait - Melancholy Series"

Charcoal on Cartridge Paper - 16.5" x 13" (Approx.)

Conversion Shards 1. Sketch.

I'm not going to explain this except to say it's a preparatory sketch for a much larger work which I hope to work on soon. I could also add that it's unresolved in concept as I just couldn't finish it without that awful overworking. There was just plenty more detail that could have been included which I had to leave out because the format is too small. But again, I am appreciating more and more the need to do preparatory sketches for bigger works.

"Conversion Shards 1."

 Gouache on Watercolour Paper. 9" x 9" (Approx.)

Speed Gouache - Heat Wave I

A pretentious title I know, but we are living in a heatwave at present so I am just being opportunistic; as opportunistic as I was when I began to use up the blobs of gouache left on the palettes I have scattered around. I am pleased with this one. It made me happy and that is all I am asking for right now. I have some annual leave coming up soon and I hope to be doing lots more work. In the mood somehow.

"Heat Wave" 

Gouache on Watercolour Paper - 10" x 10" (Approx.)

Sketch for Window Abstract - Speed Experiment

Another quick(ish)sketch. This is taken from a photograph of a shop window and I intend to paint it in oils on a much larger format at some stage, but I just wanted to work my way through it to see if I really liked what was going on in the photograph. I did. However, again like the previous post, I am working on a format that is just too small and the effects I want will only work in oil. One good thing is happening though with all these ultra-quick sketches and experiments is that I am seeing more opportunities than I did previously.

"Store Window" 

Gouache on Watercolour Paper - 6" x 6"

Portrait Sketch - Speed Experiment

This is another quick 'sketch' done in about 30 minutes.  It's from a photograph, not life, and some of the proportions are way out but I'll give myself some leeway here as I was doing this so fast.  I was trying out some new brushes using a 'dry brush' technique in some places which works well for modelling the face.  Only doing this in gouache picks up the paint underneath so I wasn't always getting the effect I intended.  Acrylics for quick sketches like this might be my next purchase at the art materials store.

Quick Portrait Sketch

Gouache on Cartridge Paper

New York at Night - Speed Experiment

I haven't painted for ages and I'm not bothered about this for some weird reason but today I gave myself an small exercise which is helpful. The objective is to paint any photograph within 30 to 60 minutes as fast as possible and try to get it as close in essence to the photograph. Some of the effects of a blurred night shot in New York were captured but I made the mistake of painting on too small a format. If I had wanted to capture some of the minutiae of the scene I would have to double up in size.

"New York Blurred" 

Gouache on Watercolour Paper - 5" x 5.5" (Approx.)

Equise - Vatican Procession

Lately I have become obsessed with a magnificent photograph I have of a procession in the Vatican and I am determined to paint it in oils, but as it is so different from anything I have attempted before, I decided to do a small sketch in gouache. Sketching is all well and good and I learned masses here but for some reason I hadn't worked out that the sketch should be the same size, or as close in size, to the intended final work as possible. Also, I should be painting on much finer paper but I did capture some of the essence of the event and as this is a much more complicated and scenic work than I have tacked for a long time, I think it shows the beginnings of something worthwhile. I have a lot to learn about proportion and process and I knew this even when I had sketched this out in a separate pencil sketch a few weeks ago. What I do know is that this scene can only be painted in oils; incense smoke cannot, I repeat 'cannot', be rendered with gouache!  Please forgive the use of the word "equise" for sketch.  I am going to use this for my work in oils and use 'sketching' for pencil, graphite or charcoal works. Fancy.  Lots and lots to learn. As always.

"Gouache Sketch - Corpus Christi Procession"