Pastel Rocks

Some more pastels produced while taking the online course on by art professor and teacher Gregory Kerr, using different methods of creating the paintings. This one of my son - about 25 years ago - and our dog Gucci who has featured elsewhere on this blog... he wasn't actually present at the rock pool, or even born at the time, but due to the wonders of photography and drawing he makes an appearance. This one was built onto a charcoal base.

And this was onto a base of a tonal ink painting, which is how I got such dark areas - difficult otherwise with the medium. This is my husband's grandmother's bridesmaid transported from Cape Town in 1910 to a Kidds Beach thicket of bush. How are those flowers!

So what do I like about pastels?

• They are quick, you can lay down colour in seconds, layer after layer.
• They are easy to change, almost endlessly depending on your paper. You can work and rework and add and remove over and over again.
• There are loads of colours available, but you can get lots of effects just with a basic set.
• They're easy to take out and put away.
• You can get lovely veils of colour, as well as expressive marks.

What don't I like?

• They are dusty, chalky, stick to your fingers and clothes and work surfaces. Which actually you don't even notice when you're deep in the process, but do have to clean up eventually - the whole room!
• There seems to be a lot of waste - so much pigment just falls down the paper, and some colours get used up fast. I've been collecting it in an envelope, perhaps to use as a base for another one - waste not, want not, or just Scrooge?
• The results I've had so far are - pastelly, I want to get some bright brights, dark darks - which is possible as I've seen in others' work but not in mine so far.
• I tried quick sketching with them (below) and they were - ungainly, clutzy, although once I stopped trying so hard to control them (got really annoyed!) and let them do their thing, I was happier with the results - in the last drawing. 
• They seem very fragile - you can fix them very lightly with hairspray or fixative, but a heavy coat changes the surface alarmingly. Storing and framing must be a challenge!

I've always wanted to paint this chair with the about-to-bloom cymbidium, and the light behind them - more of this subject to come I hope, if I can stick with it!  (This was a London USkTalks project to use different colour papers, and different to your usual palette)

Pastel Shades

 I've had soft pastels hanging around for years in my studio, but never really used them. I've been exploring them and learning to like them more (they are dusty, and a bit unruly!) with the guidance of Greg Kerr's online course. This was based on photographs I took of the Boomslang treetop pathway at Kirstenbosch gardens in Cape Town  - ended up in wild fantasy colours... perhaps I should have stopped at some earlier stage!

 And an 'urban' sketch - a storyboard of a typical day under lockdown, which was a virtual challenge by James Richards. In fact it's a typical day most days, except I'd be going to actual Tai Chi, and there'd be more visits to and from family, and the odd coffee or sketching with friends.

Portraits in Red Wine

Merlot to be exact - and it wasn't a waste, in case you're worried, just a few dregs left in a bottle after an excellent dinner. There's a food, wine and design fair coming up in November and a call went out for artists to submit portraits done in red wine (as artists do after dinner) for a possible commission. On Saturday, happily for me, my daughter decided to have a birthday braai in our garden with a few friends. The perfect chance to try this with some willing - if not too cooperative in sitting still and keeping quiet - models (spot two who didn't keep their mouths still for 30 seconds!)
It's a compelling medium - more fluid, less controllable than watercolour and pools fairly randomly to make darker tones. Some of the paper was old and had lost its sizing so soaked up the wine leaving blotchy textures, with lots of drips, drizzles and runs... lots of fun, especially when sipping your medium by mistake (or not) made everything a lot looser and carefree!

Objets Trouvès 3 W.I.P.

Back in class in May with our 12 colour exercises (see previous post) for inspiration, and having chosen another subject - which had to include both geometric and organic forms, with photographs of it to work from - we were let loose with acrylic paint on three of four big canvases (600x600mm).

We did have some restrictions on each format - on one we were to draw our geometric forms with aids such as rulers with an acrylic line of changing hues, and then washes or glazes of pure hues, pulling back with a cloth to reveal shapes and textures (pic 2).
On another we made shapes and textures by any means other than brushstrokes - printing with textured surfaces, rolling on colour with cloth or plastic, splashing, spraying or slapping (pic 1) and transferring some of this wet mélange onto the third canvas, where colour, shape and texture was further achieved through stencils and transfers (pic 3) This last one changed completely from the way it appears here, but I forgot to take more photos until much later in the process.

So this was mostly a lot of liberating fun and playtime, especially for someone like me who tends to get pernickety about rendering things (that comes later!) I had chosen a very simple image - the bird bath in our garden with some brickwork and foliage behind and reflected in it - and was getting worried that I would be spending the rest of the year painting my bird bath.... I still am but with so many surprises and interventions in store, it's hardly recognisable - but I'll get to that eventually.

Objets Trouvès 2

I was thinking that I should focus this blog on urban sketching and not be such a scattered Jill-of-all-arts - but then I have these big gaps where it looks like nothing's happening, when it is. And I need to record it because I will forget!

 I've been busy with another of Greg Kerr's year long painting courses, this year called Objets Trouvès. Four weeks spread over the year, with plenty of homework in between (just remembered that I did in fact do a post about some of the preparation before we started back in January). To track back to what seems like an age ago in the progression of the course... we had to do a bit more slog - find an insect... I 'found' (thanks to my photographer nephew who had been given it by Pretoria university for a shoot) a nice big dung beetle, long deceased and easier on aging eyes than the little goggas that drop belly up on my windowsills... photograph it, construct it out of wire and photograph that - ready for the first session. Amazing how you can begin to feel fondness for such a creature when you study it so intently!

In class and already well acquainted with our bugs, we used our material to produce four big (40x55cm) charcoal drawings, each with an aim in mind - a history (or palimpsest - lovely word); architecture, tone and texture; spatiality and surface detail and; monumentality, complexity, personality. To put it in a nutshell - it took long hours of concentration, teacher inspiration and application!

Then... I'm rushing along here to catch up... back at home and keeping the creative force surging, we had to pick two or more of these drawings, photocopy or print (hold the toner) them onto watercolour paper to produce 12 formats on which we did different colour exercises in various mediums - watercolour, gouache, wax resist and encaustic, acrylic alla prima and glazes - to explore terms such as hue, value, tint, tone, chroma, complementary and adjacent hues...etc etc.

I have to admit that I got annoyed at myself around this point because... I know this stuff, I've been doing it forever (and forever seems to be running out). WHY don't I do this by myself in my own time, without the impetus and discipline of a class and an encouraging teacher...why don't I grow up and be a 'real' artist?
Well, now heading towards the fourth and final session, I think I've figured it out - there are big gaps in my art education, and they are being filled by this most excellent tuition - I'll keep you posted, will try not to take so long about it next time!

Some playtime

I have a little treasure, a present from a special blogfriend, that I've been waiting and waiting to play with after my work was done. Rhonda, of Watercolors and Words, when I wistfully wished I could try out some Yupo in her comments, kindly and generously went to the trouble of packing and sending me a piece so that I could decide whether I liked it enough to order a batch online! All the way from Kentucky! Isn't that amazing?
I said she had a heart of gold, and she replied, with her obvious bubbly nature, maybe that's why its been giving her a spot of bother lately - Rhonda I hope with all my heart that you return to the best of health quickly, you so deserve to, and Thank You!!!
I had trouble finding rubbing alcohol to clean it with (which I finally got yesterday, from a suspicious looking pharmacist - did he think I wanted to swig it?), but before that I just had to doodle on a small strip, fingerprints and all. I like the weird things that happen with the colours granulating and sitting on top of the surface, and the more intense colours that result from non-absorption - and the way you can lift it off easily if you want to, and move it around endlessly... I'm thinking up what to do on the big piece that's left - so fun.

I'm planning on going Sketching today, for the 23rd Worldwide Sketchcrawl, though for one reason and another I'm, so far, stuck in the house (but with my yupo :-) - I've registered with the site, but for some cookies/security/computer-innards reason I can't log in, but still, if I can I'll be getting out there.

A Whale of a Kale

Well, the Virtual Sketch Date that I signed up for lurched at me when I didn't have time to pay it due attention. Sherrie's beautiful photograph deserved much more dedication and concentration, but I really wanted to try, so....

I have been cleaning out my studio, and while doing that, came across a little trial bit of paper where I'd used white gouache as a resist, with watercolour over it. Thought Ah! that would be perfect for a rushed virtual sketch date where little veins and frills and highlights are required. So I painted quick flicks of palely-tinted gouache around, let them dry momentarily, then set to with the watercolours, and - eeh - disaster!.. the gouache melded into the translucent greens and mauves, and they went milky and cloudy, and I almost gave up the whole thing. But then - c'est la vie, caution to the wind, sploshed and washed and made cauliflowers (what better place to let watercolour cabbages and cauliflowers happen than on a kale painting?) and the opaque gouache and the transparent viridian and purple divided into very interesting granulations and unexpected specklings and bleedings and it was quite fascinating. Lots of things were left out - the sprig of pink flowers and the amazing background colours and shapes and the starry grassy stuff in the foreground, but I'm happy that it turned out so much better than it looked like it was going to.

New Art Materials - whee!

Our biggest art shop, Herbert Evans (website under construction), started it's annual sale yesterday. Along with every artist and crafter for miles around, I look forward to it with anticipation and spend days before working out what stocks I'm running out of, and how much I might have over to splash out on something new and interesting.

I decided to concentrate on watercolours this year, and avoid the aisles full of other delights. If you buy eight 5ml tubes of W&N w/c's you get a free tube of a '175th Anniversary' colour, Smalt, (weird name?!) also known as Dumont's Blue, so I joyfully added a couple of new colours to my basket:- Green Gold and Idanthrene Blue, to make up the numbers. They also had - o joy! - some Pentel Aquash waterbrushes - I have read sketchers all over the world chatting about their waterbrushes and swallowing my frustration at not finding any here, but at last I am a proud owner! And a last minute impulse buy - I popped in a six-pack of Faber-Castell Pitt pen brushes... I had read Laureline's write-up of brush pens and hoped these were one of the nice ones she reviewed...but they aren't. They are filled with drawing ink, and aren't water soluble, unless you very quickly wash over them right after applying - I'll reserve judgement till I've played some more, but so far my doodles above seem not far removed from the Koki pens my kids used when little.
But I LOVE the waterbrush - did this sketch of an avenue near our house with a Pilot fineliner and the Aquash - and I love the ease of use and control over water flow - will be putting it in my shoulder-bag for impromptu sketching, and I might get another one or two while they're in stock... and I love the new colours - Smalt, in fact, is a very old pigment - discovered in ancient times and produced by W&N from 1830's till 1890, when it became obsolete, now re-formulated for this limited edition. Its a bright, deep blue - a little more violet than French Ultramarine (though they reckon you can't mix it from available colours) with large particle structure, so it does gorgeous granulation things. They may continue with it if there's a demand, I hope there is!
In the bunfight at the till - has to be a drawback to a good sale - my tube of Hooker's Green got lost, (but not before it was rung up) so I'll just have to go back again for another look - oh dear ;o)

Pink cyclamens

I bought a new 'yikes' pink watercolour - W&N Opera Rose (which you can see in its pure form in the top leftish petal) - and the only thing I saw bright enough to paint with it were these cyclamens that I have in a pot by our front door. And even then I had to tone it down with Winsor Red and Rose Madder genuine, besides that small area of shockingness. This paper (Daler-Rowney's 'The Langton' NOT surface) annoyed me by sucking up all the intensity of the colours that I thought I'd put down, and not giving me the crisp hard edges that I so love about watercolour, especially for the diving winged petals of these flowers, that I wanted. So I will do them again on something else - I must remember to take note of materials that do or do not work for my preferred style - this w/c pad is almost finished and I have no recollection that it was so absorbent!

Life continued...

These were all done at the local recreation centre, where there is a model every week, but no tuition. I did a lot of trying out of techniques...above left, graphite with watercolour, right, conte with Caran D'Ache neocolor II Aquarelle crayons. You can see here models come in all shapes and sizes! Water-soluble pencil and conte crayon on the right...

More conte and Aquarelle crayons, and charcoal ...

I was getting braver to leave the charcoal/conte drawing and just use straight watercolour. I was hoping to get to a Georgia O'Keeffe style of clean, pure watercolour, but I couldn't let myself get that simple!
But I am quite pleased with the last one - that's the one that I may frame, though it's very pale.
That concludes my life drawing so far - hope it won't be too long before I do some more.

Hot hot hot

After my last rather grumpy and ugly entry, I thought I would find a sunnier image to post today. I haven't had time to paint or sketch so this is an old one, which lives with my sister Gillian in Texas - and it's appropriate - at last summer has returned to Joburg and it is hot, as it should be at this time of year. Although this painting has many faults which are glaringly obvious to me now, I feel I was at the time making headway with my watercolours - getting freer, cleaner (still some mud here) and fresher... and then I stopped... why? Now I'm back to square..if not 1, then 2 or 3. I've wandered off into other mediums and I think with each one I reach a certain stage, and then switch tack, so never actually become totally adept at any of them. I'm feeling the pull of watercolours again, and am wondering whether to commit to a year or two of just those... but then my expensive oil paints may dry out and I'll lose whatever familiarity I've built up with them. Can one juggle a few techniques at the same time (I have to use pen, ink and graphite for daily-ish sketching too), or should you stay true to one until you're quite on top of it? Any advice appreciated!