Finished Painting & NEW WORK

Finished Work

Painting in Progress.... continued:

I laid several more glazes over the background to soften the overall effect and pull the Jug and Fruit into the foreground.

The Jug was treated to another glaze of reflected colour from the Grapes, Pear and background fabric.  It is now ready for framing.

NEW WORK

"Manchu Picchu Boy"

Transparent Watercolour on Arches 300lb paper

15 x 16.5ins [38 x 41.4cms]

This is one of two works just completed for exhibition at the Watercolour Society of Ireland's forthcoming 158th Annual Exhibition in Dublin.

Another new OIL PAINTING

This is another still life, using Vasari oils on 12x16" canvas board.  My medium of preference is M. Graham's Walnut Alkyd Oil and, of course, a selection of bristle and synthetic brushes.

Much of the painting was laid down thinly, wet into wet.  Subsequent layers and finishing details were glazed in once everything had dried.

OK, now that I have eaten all the fruit, this is the last of this series for the time being [except of course perhaps for the juicy pineapple I bought yesterday..... would be really good in watercolour!].

I will shortly start on some wildlife and landscape/seascape paintings next!

New OIL PAINTINGS

Just wanted to share a couple of recent paintings with you.......  here's the first one

Here's that [by now infamous!] white jug again.  This time I set up the still life on a brass tray in full sunshine next to a West facing window, mid afternoon.
I used W&N Artists' quality Acrylics, a 12 x 16" canvas board and a mixture of bristle and sable/synthetic brushes.

The paint was applied using Golden Glazing Medium which made the paint nice and "buttery" without being too runny.
Acrylics do tend to dry fast, especially when using thin glazes, so I had to work quite quickly.  This actually turned out to be a good thing as I didn't have too much time to 'fuss' over detail but, rather, had to just react to what I actually saw in front of me.  I think this resulted in a much 'fresher' looking work.

This painting, before being reworked, was entered [and was voted tops I'm honoured to say!] into one of Richard Robinson's on line workshops. 

Richard's website is actually a fantastic gathering of artists from all over the world and of all abilities - CHECK IT OUT!
http://thecompleteartist.ning.com

I did actually promise to post a pic of the reworked painting on there.. so must get round to do that today!

New WATERCOLOUR in progress

Hello - OK here we are at the beginning of a new watercolour.  The pictures posted show the work at the second glazing stage, plus a close up detail of the grapes.

You will notice that this is more or less the same set up as our last lesson, using one of my favourite props - the white ceramic jug.  I particularly like this jug because of it's shiny surface which picks up all the surrounding reflections, colours and shadows.

The main difference is the lighting and my choice of background - this time I have used a lighter coloured silk scarf.  The tone of the finished painting should therefore be much brighter.

I am using thin glazes of transparent W&N artists' quality watercolour, waiting until each layer is completely dry before applying the next colour.  My palette is the same as the previous lesson used.

I will continue to post pictures of each stage so that you can watch how the painting progresses.

WATCH THIS SPACE.................

STILL LIFE in WATERCOLOUR

 Still life reference photograph [above]

"White Jug, Pear and Grapes"

[transparent watercolour 15x11"]

This is the first of two still lifes I recently set up in the studio.  Saunders Waterford Extra White 300lbs is my paper of choice - it withstands considerable punishment and suits my working methods very well.  I personally use primarily Winsor & Newton Artist's Quality paints as well as a select few Daniel Smith Fine Watercolours.

I have used wet on dry, wet on wet and under/over-painting techniques and a combination of warm and cool colours for this painting.

To begin, I loosely sketched in all the key elements, thoroughly wet the paper and then laid in the first washes of Winsor Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson over everything except the grapes and let this dry.

Working on dry paper, I under-painted the grapes with strong tones of Ultramarine Blue, Winsor Yellow, Quin.Gold, Alizarin Crimson as well as an  orange and sap green mixed from these same colours, 'charging' in each colour as I saw them on each grape [it helps if you squint]. For the very lightest lights on a few of the grapes I preserved the white of the paper [you can use masking fluid if you prefer] and, on other grapes, the lightest light was a watered down yellow/orange.

While the grapes were drying, I wet the area of the back cloth and, as soon as the shine left the surface, flooded in strong tones of all the same colours, covering the whole area.  When the paper was still slightly damp, I placed some darker shadows and other details into the background so that these marks would dry without hard edges.  I also lifted out paint by 'scrubbing' the areas where the fabric was lighter [NB: make sure your brush is just damp otherwise excess water will disturb the surface of the still damp paper and cause those dreaded 'cauliflowers'].

Strong tones of Permanent Rose and Quin.Red were then over-painted on all the grapes.  Once this layer was totally dry, I 'scrubbed' out small areas of highlights on each grape with a small hog hair brush [sometimes called a 'Fitch'].  Because I had alternated the under-painted colours, the highlights were now pale tones of orange, yellow, red or near-white.  The important thing was that the grapes were all different.

I then worked on the pear, building up texture and tone using a total of eight glazes  until I was happy that it 'sat' into the composition convincingly.

The final details and remaining shadows were then painted in.  I normally let a painting sit for a few days and will then look at it again with 'fresh eyes' to see if anything needs a bit more work.  Another trick is to look at a reflection of your painting over your shoulder using a small mirror - this will instantly show up any problems.

- -- o0o -- -

The second Still Life, "White Jug and Orange", is currently on the easel so watch out for my next post.

Back to the Drawing Board

A lot has been happening since then - health wise, 2011 was not a good year and I didn't manage to get much of anything done.

Amongst other things, I had planned to start up watercolour classes, get this blog off the ground, film and post painting techniques videos... ah, best laid plans and all that.  We never know what is around the corner - for me it was in and out of hospital.  Thankfully, operation over and now I'm back!

I did have a few things to celebrate however.  Firstly, I was elected into the Watercolour Society of Ireland [WCSI] and hung two paintings at the annual exhbition down in Dublin, Ireland.  The second [and also quite exciting development] was that I am featured in the new book "The Best of Worldwide Watermedia Artists Vol II" by Kennedy Publishing, due out any day now!

The weather has been pretty awful [although we have luckily missed most of the ice and snow so far] and, as a result, my Fibromyalgia [FMS] and Osteoarthritis [OA] has flared up - if I am lucky, I'll maybe get a couple of hours painting every few days or so.

So here goes... watch this space..........

Peony Rose & Crystal

I set this still life up inside with strong sunlight streaming through a North facing window. The idea was to capture the light reflections of both the flower stem and the crystal bowl. Shadows are notoriously transient so, as well as making a couple of tonal sketches, I took several digital images for reference.

When working still life or other more detailed scenes in watercolour, I prefer Saunders Waterford, extra white heavy paper [640gsm], fine grain [Not] which is wonderful for very wet in wet techniques and takes quite a lot of 'punishment' without damaging the paper [especially if you are working full imperial size].