Winter Tree

'Winter Tree'

22.5cm x 16.5cm

Watercolour on Paper

The weekend has been really cold here, but bright and sunny also with a great clear blue sky. I saw this tree in a park and snapped a quick photo so I could work on it when I got home. I think I'm still getting the last 'Virtual Sketch Date' out of my system, but I'm finding I really like drawing and painting these wintry trees. This was done in watercolour which I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable with, on Arches Aquarelle watercolour paper.

Virtual Sketch Date - November

I'm a bit early posting this but it's ready so here goes...

'Trunk and Branch' 1 and 2
16cm x 13cm
Pen and Ink on Paper
(plus coloured pencil on no.2)

I really enjoyed doing these, I haven't drawn trees for ages, or used pen and ink for that matter. Pretty much unplanned, with just a quick pencil guide then started with the pen and paper and went with it. For the second version I added some coloured pencil to a copy of the original, as I wasn't too sure how it would look. I'm quite happy with both versions, for a change.

'In The Trees'

23cm x 16cm

Watercolour on Paper

It's another great reference this time, with plenty to work from. This is another section of the photograph, done in watercolour.

Leeds Lion

'Leeds Lion'

15cm x 20cm

Graphite Pencil on Paper

This is actually my third attempt at this fine stone lion I saw while visiting Leeds (UK) a couple of months ago. If my memory serves me correctly (and it very often doesn't) he's one of three large lions sitting outside of the Town Hall, a pretty grand building in itself. He's quite a majestic beast I thought...

Trio

Leaf 1 - 2.5" x 3.5" Water soluble Pencil & Graphite Pencil on Paper
Leaf 2 - 2.5" x 3.5" Watercolour on Paper
Leaf 3 - 2.5" x 3.5" Coloured Pencil on Brown Paper

Just playing around with different media today, and size too. I've never worked on this small scale but I quite liked it.

(Thankfully the heating is back on, but there is now a big hole in my savings too.)

Happy Halloween

'When Marion met Norman'

29cm x 20cm

Graphite & Carbon Pencil on Paper

I love horror movies, and Halloween is the perfect time to watch a good shocker. This inspired me to do this drawing, taken from unconnected stills from the classic Hitchcock movie 'Psycho' (1960). This is still one of my favourite movies, and remains genuinely disturbing, especially the last few minutes when the audience can hear the mad thoughts of Norman Bates. I don't really think I've captured Janet Leigh at all but Anthony Perkins is just about recognisable. I used two stills from the film, which was conveniently made in black and white with plenty of good strong contrasts. I used carbon pencil for the background, applied with a brush as carbon dust then blended with a tissue, the figures are all in graphite pencil. This was well out of my comfort zone as I don't normally do people, let alone people who are supposed to be recognisable. But it was quite enjoyable to do and I'm really liking the moody effect you can achieve with carbon pencil

For those who might be interested (but why would you be?) - in the original Robert Bloch novel of 'Psycho', Marion was named Mary and Norman was a fat older man with glasses. A bit of useless information for Halloween...

C-C-Cold...

Feeling a bit chilly here and the North wind does blow... that's probably because my gas central heating boiler has decided to give up on me. I put off the inevitable call to the plumber for as long as I could but finally gave in this week as I was hearing some alarming noises emitting from the boiler but no hot water or heating. It turns out a couple of valves inside need replacing, which I guess isn't too bad, it could have been worse. As a result I haven't done much artwork this week but I do have a Halloween inspired picture I've done that I'll post on Friday...

Virtual Sketch Date - October

Time for another Virtual Sketch Date, and I have to say I've really enjoyed the ones I've done so far. Of course one of the best bits is seeing what other artists have done. Here's my first version (one just never seems enough...)

'3 Pears'

23cm x 15cmm

Graphite & Carbon Pencil on Paper

Every time I see the work of Marsha Robinett on 'The Extraordinary Pencil' I'm impressed so I wanted to try her style, particularly with the use of carbon pencil. The blackness you can achieve is impressive but not without effort, the rest of this is goood old fashioned graphite. I think I'll be using carbon pencil again. If you've not see Marsha's work it's brilliant and inspiring, go see it!

For my next effort at this reference I went to watercolour. I quite liked the result but when I scanned the piece it went very yellow so I've took a photograph too to comapare but it came out really dull looking, as you can see.

'3 Pears'

21cm x 15cm

Watercolour on Paper (scanned image)

(photographed image)

Neither of them really captures the colours in the original. This is the first time I've noticed such a marked difference between the original and the scan - I've always scanned before. And yet the photograph looks very dull, but then I'm not a photographer. Anyone else have this problem?