The value of values

I have been working outdoors recently doing the occasional workshops but also getting out to do my own studies. 

One of the things I really enjoy doing is loose 3 value studies to work on the design and balance of my painting. Limiting the values really forces you to concentrate on the larger shapes and not get too drawn into detail which is useful for quick studies, needed outdoors, and also forces me out of my too tight illustrative ways!

Too many values can also lessen the strength of the composition and confuse the eye. The following were done using a large mop brush and Payne's Grey watercolour paint, the landscapes were done outdoors and the bird and animal studies in the studio. 

I like to do this to build up the shape and design of a painting first and think about what edges I will use, if it works in black and white hopefully it will work in full colour!

Hitting the outdoors!

I've been making the most of my 'free from teaching August' by taking the chance to get outside and do some painting.
First stop was the lovely Lake District of course! I stayed with my friend in a camper van at Coniston Old Hall campsite where over the course of two days I spent the time painting at Tarn Hows and Church Beck in Coniston, very lovely views  and extremely relaxing!

The Langdales from Tarn Hows

This little guy wandered up to see what was going on!

 This past weekend I was again outdoors teaching a workshop at Bardsea, brollies at the ready once again, good job we are hardy souls in the North of England!

Wolf Head Drawing

I've almost finished teaching my art class commitments for this year so will be having the entire month of August free to work on my own projects. I've made a start on a new drawing, just trying a few new techniques, for me anyway! 

I'm lucky enough to be sponsored by Derwent pencils so am using one of my favourite Derwent pencils on this drawing which is the sketching pencil but I'm also using the Derwent Onyx Dark which gives me the required 'blackness' in certain areas. 

I'm enjoying working on this aside from the fact that I look like I have spent the day down a coal mine by the time I have finished!

I always find Graphite quite difficult to photograph because of the glare back but here is the drawing in it's present stage the best I can photograph it!

Hopefully off to spend this weekend painting in the Lakes, I have my brollie at the ready!

NEWA- National Exhibition of Wildlife Art

I have had all three of my submitted paintings accepted for NEWA, which is one of the largest Wildlife Art Exhibitions in the UK.
The Exhibition previewed on Thursday night and the dates of the show for those of you interested are:

NEWA

15th -31st July 2011

Gordale Garden Centre, Burton, Wirral

'The National Exhibition of Wildlife Art is an open annual exhibition based in the North of England.

NEWA was conceived in 1994 by a group of artists interested in depicting wildlife, with conservation as one of their underlying concerns. A donation from the exhibition is made each year to wildlife causes.
The aims of the exhibition are to promote and display outstanding examples of wildlife art from both professional and amateur artists.
The huge interest generated by the exhibition among wildlife artists proved that there was a pressing need for this kind of event.

The exhibition is staged at Gordale Garden Centre in a specially constructed gallery space which attracts a constant stream of visitors, over 15,000 to the 2009 show. The new website attracts an equal number of visitors and sells to buyers both in the UK and abroad.'

The paintings I submitted were the following:

Very pleased to say the 'Young Rabbit' affectionately known as 'Buggs' sold at the preview night, fingers crossed for the other two!

Colour Studies

I've had a busy month, unfortunately I don't really have any worthwhile artwork to show for all my extra hours but pretty certain I have learned an awful lot!

I have been reading a lot and digesting the views of others on the merits of wildlife art, especially those bloggers from the Society of Animal Artists and have come to my own conclusions from the points put forward. It's really made me look at my own work and see the areas where I want to change and a direction I want to follow, this has led me to study art history a lot more particularly those past artists I admire already but also to finding new ones. 

Amongst other things, I've also been exploring my own palette and playing around with some new colours, I'm therefore producing colour charts like those below, most colours are predictable to me but some are quite surprising and will feature in my work from now on. I've also been doing them with a palette knife which was fun but made me realise how clumsy I am with this particular device at the moment! 

I think sometimes you have to take a step back from what you are doing and ask yourself why you are producing what you are producing even if you have been painting professionally for a lot of years, the discussion by fellow bloggers the last few weeks about Wildlife Art has certainly done that for me!

New Painting - part 2!

Now I have come down from the high of visiting Paris and all it's wonderful paintings, I thought it about time to settle down and do some painting of my own!

I'm still working on the painting mentioned a couple of posts earlier but have moved it on a few stages. Here is the painting currently....

As I said in the last post, I wasn't sure how the burnt sienna background would pan out but I've got to admit I do like the warmth it has given me in the shadows, kind of works out for me although I will have to work to cover the cool highlights which will need quite a few layers.

I'm trying to keep the fluidity of my brushstrokes too, with varying degrees of success! Sometimes there is nothing for it other than to wipe out a few hours work if I start returning to my 'illustrative' ways, bit soul destroying sometimes but worth it in the end!

Below is a close up view of my 'looser' brushstrokes, only the first layer but I will make sure the later layers keep their fluidity.

Paris visit

I’ve just returned from a short visit with my mum, sister and her boyfriend to the most beautiful city of Paris!

 We stayed at a lovely hotel just off the Tuilerie gardens on the Rue de Rivoli, which if you know Paris is extremely close to both the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay.

 We were blessed with exceptional weather as you can see from the photographs however as I did spend most of my time in the art galleries it didn’t really affect me!

I have been to the Louvre before although then, much to my dismay, the Dutch wing was shut, this time however it was not so I did get to see two fantastic Vermeers, ‘The Lacemaker’ and ‘The Astronomer’. Another favourite for me was Holbeins Anne of Cleeves portrait, you see she looked lovely in Holbeins painting but clearly old Henry wasn't impressed with the real thing!

The highlight of my trip however was the Musee d’Orsay as it contained paintings from the movement I particularly like which is the Naturalists. No John Singer Sargents were there but a lovely portrait by his mentor Carolus Duran was on display.

The current exhibition at the Musee is the Manet Exhibition, which I enjoyed thoroughly and was particularly interested in seeing a painting of the above-mentioned Carolus Duran. The painting was framed but clearly was only the under-painting so it gave a little insight into his technique, which I found very informative.

I do confess to getting a little irritated by some peoples indifference to the paintings, maybe it was just me who was besides herself at the joy of standing in front of Whistlers mother! Ah well, the good thing about that was whilst most people were falling over themselves to see the Van Gogh’s and Degas (which were lovely) I could enjoy the experience of marvelling at the Bouguereaus in relative peace!

I loved ‘Cast Shadows‘ by Emile Friant and Léon Lhermitte’s ‘Paying the Harvesters’ but I think the highlight of the exhibition for me, just edging the Buguereaus, was ‘Haymaking’ by Jules Bastein-Lepage (above), just a wonderfully simple but naturalistic painting!

Paris was wonderful and I will certainly return!