portrait of Frank

Frank; oil on canvas, 26" x 26" (Tina)

A stunning oil painting by Tina of her partner, Frank. A painting with powerful depth of character and intensity of expression, the painting is achieved with incredible sensitivity in her choice of colour palette and brushstrokes. 

Tina says that it is not quite finished and asked me to post it under 'works in progress'. It's there too, but I thought it should also be highlighted in a post of its own.

drawing as printing (2)

Following on from a previous post, 'drawing as printing', I said I would return to the topic to describe the materials and process with pictures.
 
Materials:

-2 pieces of cartridge or drawing paper. I cut mine to approx 8" x 8".
-soft pastels or chalk in pale shades
-oil pastels
-drawing tools e.g. ball-point pen, hard pencil, chopstick, stick, the wrong end of a brush.. experiment with mark-making using different tools.

 1) using soft pastels, cover one of your pieces of paper entirely with colour. It doesn't matter which colours you choose.

2) choose some oil pastels and steadily rub them on top of the soft pastel surface until the whole surface is covered. A fairly generous hand is required. Irregular shapes will be most effective, the more random the better. Overlap the colours to soften transitions and mix colours on the paper. Here I've chosen 5 colours: dark blue, pale blue, lemon, ochre and a mid-green.

3) On a flat surface, take your coloured paper and place it face-down onto a clean piece of paper.

4) At this stage you can either take some time to experiment with different drawing tools or choose a subject/pattern and plunge right in. 

5) Taking a page from my sketchbook as inspiration, I choose to draw the shell on the right.

6) Working into the back of my coloured paper, I use a ball-point pen to do a simple outline drawing of the shell based on the sketchbook image. A firm line and simplified form works best. Here I've varied the weight of the line slightly to emphasise the basic shape.







7) Happy with the drawing, now I'm ready to see what's been happening underneath. I peel back the paper to reveal an oil pastel monoprint. You can see how the random colour placement magically gives form and interest to a fairly ordinary outline drawing.

 The negative image is also interesting....

...but if you don't want to keep it, then you can continue using the coloured 'plate' until exhausted.

Here's another monoprint taken from the same coloured plate, this time of dried honesty seedheads. The drawn lines as less distinct in places but the image still works.
 

The negative image is now breaking up, but could make a very interesting texture to work into as it is, or to cut up and use as collage, or to paint over... wherever your creativity takes you. Never throw anything away!

If you experiment with this technique we'd love to see your work. Post a pic on your own blog and leave a comment here with the link. We'll drop by and visit.

Jane's life drawing

This week, Jane has developed a life drawing into an impressive painting full of character, light and haunting shadows. She has used expansive and confident gestural marks, complimentary colour and a vibrant composition to perfectly capture facial expression and the relaxed pose. She has also achieved a remarkable likeness.

because reading matters...

the stories are in the stones..

If you haven't seen or heard of the story of the mysterious Edinburgh paper sculptures, then you're in for a treat. Placed mysteriously and anonymously in Edinburgh libraries over the course of a year, the ten sculptures were placed individually, accompanied by cryptic notes supporting books, stories, poetry and most particularly libraries.

the poetree

The sculptures are fragile, witty, beautiful and utterly exquisite. Guerilla art at its best.

once upon a time there was a book...

More about them at thisiscentralstation. They have been collected together into an exhibition and are now touring Scotland. Here's hoping the tour is extended to the rest of the UK in the new year.

A book called 'Gifted' has been published to accompany the exhibition, definitely on my santa wishlist.

And now the sculptor has struck again in celebration of scottish book week, five more magical sculptures scattered all over Scotland this time. Gallery here

because reading matters...

drawing as printing

Before I post some more catching-up with our sketching so far year, I've been asked about the drawing in the background of the blog.

It is a quick outline sketch by Tina (whilst chatting!) of some roses and chrysanthemums. The mark-making is soft and expressive and moves smoothly through different blues and greens. The result is beautifully fresh and spontaneous.

The drawing is worked by pressing a drawn line (with a pencil, chopstick, biro, stick...) firmly onto the wrong side of a paper preprepared on the other side with chalk pastel and oil crayon, then placed face-down on a clean piece of paper on which the image appears (it's simpler to do than it sounds), creating a kind of dry monoprint. The oil pastel lifts from the chalk/soft patel ground and transfers to the clean piece of paper. It's a very satisfying technique and always fun to do whether you're a beginner or more experienced, with the added dimension of surprise.. you are never quite sure how it's going to turn out. It also has the added bonus of producing both a positive and a negative image.

flowers, positive

flowers, negative

The drawings can stand alone as they are, can be used as a basis for further work in oils, or can be developed with other media; for example, with watercolour washes the oil pastel acts as a resist. 

If you're not confident about drawing as Tina did directly from a subject, then you can also use this technique with photographs or tracings to excellent effect.

Here's a different subject by Fiona this time, based on plein air sketchbook work of a ploughed field, drawn here using a biro through a soft pastel and oil pastel 'plate' as above.

landscape, positive

landscape, negative

I'll post a 'how to' with details of materials and photos of the process later this week.