Puddle on Hankley Common

Hideously protracted essay writing and last minute dashes to the Irish Embassy in London to sort out passport panic have made it impossible to go near a paintbrush for ages. I have acquire a puddle obsession lately, so I thought I'd attempt to paint one.

I have no delusions about this, it's murky, too purple, plain wrong in places  & I haven't a notion how to paint trees yet. But I'll get there. Next years resolution: get outside and learn to paint.

( When it's warmer. And dryer. And when no-one is around)

 ( I went back and darkened some of the trees next day)

Riverside, West Bay, and hut aspirations

I drove down to Dorset last Friday. The kids went off on the bus to school, Paul went off to work, and I set off on a grey dull morning. Two and half hours later, I was walking by the sea in the sunshine - glorious waves -bliss.

I took lots of pics of these  sheds/houses which sit overlooking the river Brit just near where it goes into the sea. One of the houses is for sale -it suggests offers in the region of £200,000.There are fields out the back, river, then harbour, then sea out the front. If anyone is stuck for what to get me for Christmas........

Littler Lily

This time I was armed ( or legged ) with welly socks, a puffa jacket, a cowl,  plus I had  a pint of hot tea inside me. I moved the heater on to a stool, so it would burn my middle and not my ankles. The things one does to get out of studying.

I was nearly done , when the bit of paper at the back fell down (possibly it froze to death). In trying to get it back, the flower swung round, which meant everything changed. I couldn't get it back right, so that bit at the end where I adjust the light and the dark bits and do finishing touches was all a bit of guesswork. Otherwise , it goes without saying, it would have been a masterpiece . (Ahem).

Flower P gave me ( because parenting was cracking me up)

This lily, ( for that is what it is) didn't fit in my shadow box ( cardboard box), so I had to poke a hole in the corner of the box and feed it through. I may have kilt the poor thing. I nearly killed  myself ( exaggeration) , the studio ( garage) is bloody freezing. Even with a heater, and slippers, and  scarf, and the odd daft dance, I was petrified with the cold. Fab excuse for the next few months.

I couldn't quite decide what overall colour this was, so I kind of put it together with different colours in a kind of  jigsaw way. It makes it too bitty I think, it's not quite obvious what's going on . Also, I think I  made the shadows on the flower too dark. Also, how did I not spot the too regular stamen shadows until now?

Pepper transformation.

The peppers  in real  life are vibrant and colourful. I have cleverly transformed them into a murky smudgy hotdgepodge. That takes real artistic talent :-)

Mind you, I kind of like the colours, or at least, there is a duck eggy blue grey in there somewhere that I like.  It's all a bit flat. I think peppers look a lot easier than they are, I've struggled a few times now.

Large chillies or small peppers

I bought loads of these at the farm shop this morning, I don't know if they are hot or just peppers. I plan to 'stew' them in a rediculous amount of olive oil, with tons of garlic & the odd caper. I suppose then we'll find out. They looked so nice that I went straight to painting and didn't study this morning... guilt overload.

Lousy photo, but there's no way I'm going outside again.

Pas de soupe

This week I've been painting two bowls, each day, paint, wipe. I'm trying to work out what goes first, darks, lights, main bits, small bits. Its fun, but I'm not necessarily sure I'm any the wiser. It it also for drawing practice, especially nasty horrid elipse things.

I didn't wipe this one, but I may. No point keeping everything, but also nice to  keep a record. I like the blog as a record , it's a record without a cupboard full of dead paintings. There is something a bit liberating and a bit destructive about obliterating what you have just made.

I need to have a good old think about compposition too.

The cube

Paul is artistic director  for a place called 22cans ( too lazy to add a link). This week they released a game/experiment called Curiosity, what's inside the cube. Its a sort of virtual cube, made up of layers and layers of little 'cubelets' , that people tap at, to reveal the next layer. Anyway, some of the layers have images, and they plonked 6 of my pics on there. This is when the orange layer above is being eroded and revealing the pics:

 

 

This is when this layer is completely cleared.

 

And this is the picture layer being destroyed again, to reveal a plain red layer.

Its all a bit odd. Last I heard, over 360,000 people were tapping! More than a million registered users! That's a hilarious amount of people seeing my onions !!As far as I know no one knows whos pics these are, which is fine with me. Some layer coming up has photos taken by one of my daughters of my other daughters eyes.

Between this, the Travelling Chicken and the gallery, it's been a darned odd week. I'm not trying to paint pictures for the moment, I'm just painting the same bowl over and over and wiping it. Just for some good old fashioned practice.

First landscape.

I've always always wanted to be able to paint landscapes, especially clouds & reflections, I have a thing about them. ( as is a bit evident from  my pinterest page) . I suppose the gallery person mentioning landscapes, reminded me to try. That and the new working from a laptop idea. There is no way I'm going to actually sit outdoors yet. Quiet places would be too quiet, and busy places would have nosy people!

So this is my first try. I had a blast. It was the most fun thing ever to paint. I could have faffed about with the sky forever ( maybe I should have :-)) I had glorious music on, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

It is the view from the bathroom window in the  house in Dorset, looking across to Burton Bradstock cliffs and West Bay.

Big scary little chicken.

I have to say, quite honestly, this  was quite an ordeal. This is effort number three!

I've not painted under such ( self imposed it has to be said) pressure before. I'm sure there is some awful mean rule of the universe that says the one time you really want to produce something good, is the time it won't happen.

 

I'm happy with bits, and I don't think it's an utter failure of an attempt, but, being entirely honest with myself, it's by no means wonderful, which is what would have been nice for this sort of thing. It isn't loose free and lively. I've discovered before that my best pictures happen when I'm not at all bothered , and when I just try without thinking. This involved so much thinking and bother, it's a wonder I didn't wear through the paper.

 

I suppose it is good to take part in things, but at the moment I feel like scurrying right back into my nice private safe little hole, where I paint just cos I like painting.

 

EDIT: for diary record, this is the first time I've painted from a photo/laptop. It sort of feels like cheating, but I don't know why; it's still trying to translate what you see into marks made with paint. I think it also felt like I had nearly too much information. logically it must be the same information being fed through your eyes, but it felt a bit more stark and all there, whereas just looking, I think I'm more able to break it down into a more  simplified version. Dunno, will see in time.

Chicken Nerves

In a moment of lapsed sanity, I signed up to take part in the Travelling Chicken blogsite. A little ceramic chicken travels around the world, from artist to artist. Each artist does a piece involving the TC, and blogs it, which makes a nice record of different approaches, and is, in theory, a lovely idea.
Where the idea falls flat, is when the actual box actually arrives in the actual post and you actually have to actually produce something. Not only that, but you throw it on out there for others to see. Now I love seeing peoples artwork, brilliant , it's just I'm ever so slightly neurotically wary of people seeing mine. I'm all for great big stonking bushels plopped on top of any glimmer of light. Whatever a bushel is.

Rant over. This  morning was beautifully sunny , so I tootled out to the garden with the TC to meet the girls. This is Bunty. Any diversion really rather than hit the paint. I'm sure I need to clean something.

Measuring up for baking.

My eyes were killing me yesterday, I must have been at the computer for four hours at that horrid essay, and it's still not written! Anyway, I decided enough was enough and dashed out to do a pic.

These are my measuring spoons ( in case that's not apparent!). I think they turned out to be a bit complex for me & I was tired & my eyes stung & I was pushed for time &  it was freezing & that's about as many excuses as I can come up with. It didn't really work.

Off to Dorset this afternoon for half term, I won't bring my paints as if I have free time, I'll have to use it to write about the blasted crusades.

Framed!

I'm all chuffed and excited. This is the first time I've had a picture properly framed, I picked it up today and have been childishly smiley since.

It just seems to have transformed from being a sort of thing hanging around the kitchen into, well, sort of  a proper painting. How cool is that!

I got it framed to send to Mom for her birthday. I tootled off to the framers fully expecting to get some nice minamalist modern plain thing, and then I got a bit carried away, and ended up with more frame than picture :-)

If anyone happens to see this that happens to live in Surrey that happens to need a picture framed, it was done very reasonably  by a  nice chap in Farncombe in Aquarius framing.

A little shot of leaves

I keep bringing leaves into the house, and leaving little bundles of them on the kitchen ledge. Nobody else around here seems to stop and grin at them... philistines!

I quite like this, the leaves don't sing like the real thing, & the  shadows may be a bit heavy, but still.

I am desperatly trying to paint as I think next week will be horrid essay writing week. Shudder.

jug with fabric I never quite got around to making curtains with

I had to try the jug again, I wasn't at all happy with that last dull old pic.

Thats better I think. Not perfect by any means, but there was a hellovalot to concentrate on.

Fabric could be fun - I better go rummage.

Yet another new resolution

I've decided I should force myself to paint more jugs/cups/bowls/solid things in order to get better at drawing correctly. Its too too easy to skirt the issue when you can get away with a bit of error with natural objects.

Erk! what a dismal start to my new resolution. I suppose the jug is sort of nearly drawn right. But beyond that there are no redeeming factors. Lesson learn though regarding painting white things, I made it too white which I only realised when it became impossible to make highlights.

It's a bit of a pain that all the crockery in the cupboard is white!!

A rush of chillies

I had told myself quite severely not to paint, but to study instead, but then  the weekly veg box arrived with a little bag of  fun looking chillies including a strange little twirly one.



It was all a bit of a guilty rush , so is probably ( okay definately ) not drawn entirely accurately. I don't mind that so much today, but the composition is poor.

Chillies are great fun to paint, but peppers, which you have to assume must be closely related, are a complete and difficult pain, I don't understand that.

Conkers

More Autumn. Lovely walk on Sunday, came back with some nice shiny conkers, or as my daughter Evy put it, icky nature stuff in my bag.

 I think these aren't awful depictions of conkers, but it doen't really excite as a picture. It's probably too much of an attempt at realism, but I'm finding it  hard to do detailed stuff without going into detail. If that makes sense.

More leaves

I'm doing a fine impression of a bit of a nutcase , wandering around the garden, picking up, examining and discarding leaves.

I'm not at all sure why I put the least interesting leaf out front. Ah well. I prefer yesterdays attempt.

Feeling autumnal.

The last few morning walks have been beautiful, with that lovely low autumn light turning even the most mundane scene into a thing of beauty. Much though I'd love to,I'm not at all brave enough to venture outside and paint. These few leaves, picked off the grass in the garden, will have to be my little autumn attempt.

I enjoyed doing this. It was quite different, especially not really having any highlights to rely on to try and bring it to life.I might try and look for more strongly coloured  or more crumpled leaves and try again.

Weary flower

I had flowers in coloured glass vases on the table for our curry night. The flowers, like me, are tired and droopy.

I wanted to loosen up and paint in a more lively way, I think things have tightened up lately. The problem with loosening up is that it is way too easy to get things wrong. Hence the wonky vase. I think that balance between correct but loose is crucial but very tricky.

Getting ready for curry night.

The ingredients are beginning to look lovely, I love a fridge full of fresh green healthy looking stuff.

I'm much happier with these chillies, especially the two at the back which I think work with fairly few brushstrokes. This is my first time painting a leaf. I really enjoyed doing this, there was a lovely scent of lime, and things went okay.

 

 

Chillies for curry

We seem to have gone from a vague notion we ought to have people around sometime, to having about 15 coming for curry on Saturday. Oops.  Many chillies purchased. Much beer bought.

This is okay from across the room, quite far across, with a squint! Some bits worked, but I got a bit bogged down in colours and reflections, and faffed too much with the shadows, and the second chilli on the left is a bit horrid!

Rosehips to the rescue

After a miserable morning painting where I managed to make a chrisp white china jug look like an invading alien smudge monster, I didn't want to give up defeated. I should have gone in and got some serious studying done, but instead I went and  found some pretty rosehips in the garden

That went better, nearly well enough to offset study guilt. Ther was a much nicer reflection going on in the shadows than I managed to capture.

 

Row of spring onions

Bought for a spanakopita, these onions had there lives ( temporarily) saved;  their lovely colours meant they were diverted from kitchen chopping board to garage .( Still feels a little pretentious to call it a studio).

I wanted to try and simplify the brushstrokes and not smudge everything. I thought they ended up a bit cartoonish, but Paul liked them, so I'll go with his opinion on this one.

skittles

Paul suggested trying the skittles.

Nice subject matter, but the detail and funny perspective meant I worked on it for too long and lost any sense of fresh fun colour. It seems hard not to make blue and yellow turn to murk.

 

Study books for my next university module have arrived, soon garage/studio time will be hard to find.

coloured glass

I ran about the house looking for something what wasn't a little white dish and brought a selection of stuff out to the garage. It's the third time I have met the postman en route. I had a lamp under my arm, and a tray with a vase, serving spoons, scissors, tea light holders, chillies, a global knife, glass medicine bottles and an aubergine. He is beginning to give me funny looks.

This, for me , was mightily hard. It even too an age to draw it. It must be the longest it ever took me to paint anything & I've now developed a  permanently furrowed brow ! I'm actually quite pleased with this, yes, there are problems, but I found it a huge challenge, and think, in the main, I didn't do too badly.

Last try for present

I thought I'd give those bowls one more try, although, I've rather had it with them. I think the shapes and complication are a bit tricky for me. In an attempt to simplify, I've only painted two.

I think that might do. It's better than the others I reckon, and some of the cherries work okay. Bowl persective and underside of bowls is a bit shakey, but it's a bit fresh and colourful at least.

I need to get away from bowls, and from blue and green backgrounds, and try something else.

Annies bowls again

Oops, worse not better, the looming bat pic may well be the present after all.

The bowls are much better I think, less worked and sludgy. That background is vile though! Why on earth did I use that colour. A nice crisp blue would have been much nicer, I think I thought I was overdoing the blue lately though.

The practice is good though, and extremely enjoyable, and I didn't despair so much over the new paints today.

Clever sister

I wanted to paint a pic as a pressie for my clever sister Annie, who has just had her shop voted one of the 12 best in Ireland by the Irish Times Newspaper!!! She got first into the best 50, which was good enough, but then got down to the last 12.  The shop is  called butterslip, and years ago when she began, I bought these little dishes from her ( And didn't get a  family discount!).

Bits worked, but I don't feel it's present material, I'll see if I can do better. Why doesn't that shadow at the back seem flat? it's like a bat looming over the strawberries!

Mom's spoon

I'm still struggling with these darned paints and have binned a few attempts in frustration. I'm either dragging sticky stuff unwillingly across the paper, or I make it too 'watery' and lose any brushstrokes. I'm also wierdly finding that the colour I mix on the palette changes on the paper, that didn't happen with the cheap paints. I can only imagine it's something to do with reflection or something as the new paints are shinier.

I can't blame the paints for the fact I seem to paint the front and the inside of the spoon, as if I'm looking both on and in. Good lesson on keeping your eyes in the same place.

Proper paints!

I got real paints! As in, I bought proper artists oils. So far I have been using student stuff (Winsor and Newton Winton range) which I have to say, I have really enjoyed using. For some reason, I figured having the real thing would be much better.

 

What I didn't at all expect, was for it all to be harder! The paints were so different to use, thicker and stickier, and therefore I had to add medium, and dip into things, and have to think about a whole heap of new stuff like consistency.  I had envisioned buttery beautifulness, paint swirling on sublimly, masterpieces miraculously appearing effortlessly from the brush. ( Okay, I exagerate). I feel I have a whole new learning experience to go through! Bummer.

 

This set up was entirely to try out the colours and see if they were okay. The Yellow I bought is too orange... and at this price!!! .

Crab Apples.

The only problem about being out in the garage is the lack of decent subject matter. I can't seem to get excited about rusty saws, bits of wire, or dead cans of paint. After frustratingly wasting heaps of time trying to arrange bits, I ended up rather desperatly running around the  garden looking for something that looked nice and wouldn't wilt under the spotlight. Crab apples seemed to fit the bill.

After wasting so much time I rushed this, not really expecting anything to happen, and definitely expecting to mess up the scissors. Funnily enough, I quite like the result. It's looser and therefore a bit more alive. The moral must be to carelessly dash things off in a hurry!

Compositionally it could be stronger, the is a lot of blue in the top that I didn't quite know what to do with.

 

Bowl for nuts

I bought this odd bowl/stand in Cork when we were home, I'm a sucker for white china. I don't really know what it's for, it's like a little stand for displaying your favourite apple that day. I think it may have been labelled as a nut bowl, which may well refer to the purchaser rather than the purpose.

Oh where to start: Elipse thing proved tricky. Cherries have too much reflection and not enough cherryness. And it's hard to make shadows on a bowl without going into murkiness. Ah well, live and learn etc.

Peppers in Dorset

The only other thing I painted while on hols were some peppers I bought at Bridport market, fab market, and fab fruit and veg. With all that choice I should have bought something else as I don't find peppers easy for some reason.

Peppers day one: I was very cross at this pic, the bowl is wonky and the colours are a bit murky.

Peppers day two: better.

Peppers day three: I have no idea why on earth I chose this angle, as it left a big bit of nothing on one side of the pic, but painting the glass bits etc was very enjoyable.

Pic of kitchen set up which I think convincingly demonstrates that painting wasn't easy and that therefore sitting on the deck in the sun with a book was by far the most sensible thing to do.

Pears in Dorset

We went off to Dorset for the last two weeks, and even though I very diligently brought my paints etc with me, it was hard to find space, or time, or nice things to paint.  The kitchen ledge was the only place to set up, and then the house there seemed to have no nice glasses or bowls. Actually, I'm probably only making excuses, I was having too nice a time sitting around lazily reading and tootling off on picnics when the weather allowed.
I did buy three pears simply because they looked nice and bumpy and paintable.

Pears day one: I quite like some of the blueish brushstrokes on the pears.

Pears day two: it all went a little more subtle.

 

 

 

 

 Pears day three: some very odd colours found there way in there.

 

 

 

 

Pears day four: we ate the subject matter.



Honeysuckle

I thought I could do a better job on the Crocosmia then I did yesterday,but on the way to pick some , I thought that the honeysuckle on the gate was looking nice and garish, so I picked that instead.

That was the fiddliest thing I ever painted. I nearly fell over from concentrating.

I love love love going out to the garage and everything being there all ready to go.

New state of the art studio

I'm all excited, we're back from Ireland ( wet) and I have a new studio! Well, when I say studio, Paul cleared a corner of the garage and set up some tables etc. It's so cool. I've been painting in the kitchen which involves a half hour set up of finding the easel/paints/rags/jars/lamp/box/painting shirt/etc/etc, and then, when all is done, it takes an age to tidy up again, especially as I seem to manage to make oily paw prints on most the kitchen surfaces ( and wierdly, on my face).

I brought all the stuff out today and have space to leave all the bits there - how fab is that. I can just go out and voila! ready to go. And also, I can do it when people are at home, something I cant bring myself to do in the kitchen. ( all that nosyness!)

I only meant to set up , not to paint today, as I have to chauffeur love sick teen son about, but as I was there I attempted a quickie. It's not great, flaws too numerous to mention, but it was fast and fun.

Not big enough bowl

We're off on the ferry to Ireland tonight, so I wanted to squeeze in one last painting. I think it will be a while before I get the chance again. The apples I bought for travelling have been subjected to an hour in the (very hot ) spotlight.

Darn damn and blast, I like my apples, I even like my bowl, I hate that horrid knife. I may well be tempted to paint over it when we come back. Is that cheating??

I'll miss painting.

Jam jar

We're off on hol back to Ireland tomorrow, so the fridge and fruit bowl are all a bit bare. The ( quite past it) apple seemed to be the only thing in the house, apart from potatoes.I faffed about for ages with different different dishes, spoons etc, and then , for some unknown reason , picked the most complicated jam jar I could lay my hands on.

The idea with the jar was to indicate a jar in a few clever brushstrokes, a la Carol Marine, who seems to be able to indicate glass just using a few perfectly placed swipes of the brush. It didn't work out that way, a few swipes, looked, well, like a few swipes. So I spent an absolute age on fiddling and faffing. The result isn't at all what I was aiming for, but, I'm not unchuffed with it. I may even be a teeny bit pleased. 

There is so so much every time to think about, so much that you have to get right or it's wrong. if it's not composition, its brush strokes, or shadows, or line, or colour, or edges..... sigh.

Three cherries who lack purpose in life

I wanted to paint cherries, so bought some yesterday. All got eaten by the food hoovers that are my children, but I left strict instructions to leave me four. I got left three.

The paint is a bit looser than lately, and I like the idea of that. There are more highlights than cherry going on though. Mostly I reckon it suffers from the dullest composition ever. Aimless, clueless non involved cherries hanging around for no purpose whatsoever. It's hard to care about them. They may as well be eaten.