Round and Round the Garden

I got so behind posting paintings done on the 30x30DirectWatercolor challenge, I'm just dumping a whole bunch here, otherwise I'll never catch up! 

One or two intersected with other online challenges - Virginia Hein's Usktalk about applying explosive colour before painting just enough of the image to make it recognisable (the chairs) and international sketch-a-chicken week (irresistible!) and Suhita Shirodkar's 'Start with What If...' (What if I looked through a glass of water)

These aren't all of them, just some on the home and garden theme, which is of course the most available subject while under lockdown - I didn't manage 30, but was happy to have kept up quite a steady pace. I felt like I was getting a grip on how to get started, and use more expressive, less fussy brushstrokes as I went along. (The first ones are at the bottom, more-or-less more recent ones towards the top.) July is International Watercolour Month, apparently, so I think I must carry on while I'm on a roll - trying to curb my natural tendency to switch to something different just as I feel I'm making progress!

Liebermann's Pottery

Joburg Sketchers is growing! On Saturday we had a great sketch-out at Liebermann's Pottery, which is on the grounds of the Old Gasworks which I've sketched before, from a distance.

What a rich treasure house of sketching material - the ugly/beautiful old brick and corrugated-iron buildings of the abandoned gasworks, with networks of chutes and pylons, and machinery whose purpose is now a mystery. We were strictly forbidden to enter the demolition site, as they called it - sincerely hope nobody is planning to demolish this amazing part of our history - as there were reportedly pools of acid and a 'trigger-happy security guard' on the premises...okayyy! And of course there were pots and ceramics galore with various oddities and knick-knacks interspersed. I spent most of the time on the top sketch of the back of the pottery. As I was about to leave I spotted Cathy Giordano still working away in the front, so I joined her for another quick sketch of statues and pots. Suddenly a furious looking raggedy head popped out from between the pots, on the end of a skinny bare red neck. My first thought was "hey, I know you, guy!", then remembered I'd seen him on the 2summers blog I mentioned in my last post.

Sketchbooks of the other participants of the sketching trip - one was missing
amongst the pots.

He and his little hen-friend obviously spend their days foraging among the pots and I think belong to the night watchman who lives there. Their diet must be a bit lacking in feather-producing nutrients, unless they express their affection for each other by plucking each other - a new spin on the word necking! Catching his quick outline made my day.

Cheerio, chooks

Well the Fair is finally over - a sigh of relief and a slight feeling of emptiness as the pressure of the last weeks is lifted. My Chicken series sold, and two of the Pavement women scenes, and one Jacaranda, with possibly two more after a night or two of sleeping on the thought, so I had a good day. Very little else was sold, sadly, as there was some excellent art on show, at I think reasonable prices. As I've said before, I think a church arts fair won't generally attract big art buyers - unless word gets around and next time (if there is one), they'll come flocking in. I think the familiarity of these scenes, plus their small size and relative prices, worked quite well at this particular show. My favourite bit about it all was

meeting and chatting to some of the other artists - somehow

or other I haven't had that opportunity at other exhibitions - I suppose because I've never 'baby-sat' my work before all through the showing. Some interesting information and contacts were swopped and I'm quite excited to be not quite as on my own in this part of the world as I have been for a long time - many of my past partners-in-art have left Johannesburg for greener pastures over the years - it's high time I found some new ones!

Four Chickens and Out

That's it for now, with chickens - I can see how I could go further with them - but I would want to have them around to do so. If I did carry on with this series, I would try and use more expressive, freer marks, perhaps moving towards the abstract, and compose them better on the canvas - I continue to fill up the space available right to the edges...sigh!So that's that mini-series - for the next exciting production... um, not sure - I think I will go on a recce over the next couple of days and gather ideas and material. While I was photographing Chickens IV, I dropped my little hp camera that has been my constant companion since I got it, so I'll have to sketch references instead of clicking them - eek - might be good for me I guess, but I'm so mad I broke my precioussss >:o( Please Father Christmas....

Chickens I, II and III

I've managed to paint one chicken-pic a day (haven't posted over the weekend - too busy painting), going back to fiddle here and there - this one I've fiddled too much and made the apricoty coloured chook a bit smooth and bland. I'm struggling with painting from photo references only...
These three look slightly cartoonish - also from not having live models to observe, I've rather exaggerated their colours and features I think. They look out of focus, but I did blend the edges to try and get a bit of movement and fluff going. I think they're getting better here - I enjoyed the dappled light and trying to get that effect on the white chickens and the dark tyre and ground. I referred to my copy of 'Painting What you Want to See' by Charles Reid. His advice to keep the local values true - 'the lighted side of a black object is aways darker than the shadowed side of a white object' - helped.
A comment on my last post from prairieknitter01 mentioned she liked the #1 step white (ghost!) hens on the red ground, and I must agree that I'm sorry to have lost the fluency of those first brushstrokes. I will finish the fourth lot of chickens, then choose something I can work from directly for my next mini-series.

A Series of Chickens

OK, here is one little plan... there is an Arts and Crafts fair coming up at the end of November at my church, for which I've been asked to put up some artwork. I thought I would try and do some 'painting-a-day' paintings (or as close to that as I can get), in small series of four or six to each theme. I doubt if anyone will come to a church A&C Fair and buy a great big painting, so these are little oils on 8"x10" stretched canvases - so they don't need to be framed - the trouble with watercolours.
Starting with Chickens- they bring back happy childhood memories of them scratching around under our big mulberry tree in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, as it was then - Zimbabwe of course now (you never saw such enormous, shiny black mulberries as grew from the richly manured soil of the chicken-coop)... dodging the foul(sorry)-tempered cock to discover the delight of an occasional egg... coming home from trips away to be greeted at the gate by two dogs, two cats and two chickens.... and the trauma (not-happy memory) suffered by my sister Vivienne when her best beloved Little White Hen was presented as dinner one night...It's strange going back to oils after such a long - for me - immersion in watercolours (which I have not abandoned, the oils are for practical reasons). I wasn't quite sure how to begin. I prepared the canvases with a red ground, then sketched in the light value chicken shapes, and then the dark shadows and values - rather backwards foremost I think.

I finished one - once I got going I couldn't stop - though when I see it on screen, I see all the faults I couldn't before, so it needs some more tweaking. I managed to lose most of the red ground, which I rather wanted to show a bit more. That must be one of the values of doing a series - hopefully they get better, or closer to your intentions, as you go along. I think if I can progress with these small themes, I might be psyching myself up for a bigger series later on, that will develop my self-discipline and purpose!