Blue Boardwalks

We are fabulously lucky around here for fantastic walks within a really short distance. We go to the Moat once or twice a week, where there are boardwalks out over a nature reserve/wetland/bog. The colours can be spectacular sometimes, with vivid bright blue, or ultramarine, or slate gray water, and sometimes the boardwalks look bright blue.

Honest - they can look that blue. Not that cartoony, not that jaggedy, but really, that blue. 

Not quite Tate Modern

I popped up to London to see the Malevich exhibition in the Tate ( extremely interesting) and took a photo from a balcony. The shadow of the huge chimney was falling rather dramatically on the scene below. It was a daft subject to try and paint,  but I just liked the idea of giving it a go.

There's a huge amount of blankish space, and absolutely nothing is in focus, plus the shadow makes the clump of birches look like they have a sharp corner plus plus plus - still, I loved doing it. I realised I haven't been painting because now that the hols are here, so are my daughters, and for some reason, I'm quite uncomfortable painting with anyone around. Anyway, I locked myself in the end room and told everyone to pretend I didn't exist. which worked apart from approximately 57 milliion interruptions.

Trying a tree again

I quite liked sitting outside doing the tree, so I tried again this morning. The garden is tricky for a good pic, lots of green, lots of up close finickity detail. I walked about for an age trying to find something that looked good composition wise, but then decided that it didn't matter really if all I was doing was tree practice, so I just sat in the shade and went for it.

I got a bit lost in tree detail, one minute I'm looking at overall shapes and the next, I'm trying to do a goddam leaf. I think the grass/shadow is better than the last attempt though, so that's okay.

If I'm to keep going with this plein air business, I'd really want not to end up with paint on my jeans, my hands and my eyebrows. I came inside with green lips, how did that happen!

Tree practice and unhelpful weather

I thought it would be good to just practice doing a tree now and then; if I ever go off out and paint outdoors, it just may come in handy to know what to do when confronted by one in the wild. The Mulberry in the garden seemed a good place to start. Sun out, paints out, hopes up.

Almost immediately the sun went in! how mean was that. I had sketched in the shadow on the grass, but it then disappeared, as did any helpful highlights on the tree, as did the contrast between the tree and the hedge behind. Therefore there was no subject except some green. So lo and behold, I did a picture of some green. 

Max the dog wasn't impressed, he sat beside me pulling up moss with his teeth and depositing it on my pic. 

Finally dug out the oils again.

I had no idea what to paint after not painting for so long - I want to be able to paint everything!... but where to start!! I was sort of beating myself up about not going off doing the real thing - i.e go off and do Plein air - but I just cannot make that sort of time at the mo. Instead I figure if I want to learn landscape stuff, well then it's just going to have to be from photos. I know that painting from photos is deeply frowned on by proper Plein air painters, but if you are getting experience mixing colours, applying paint or again, just looking , well that must be of value.

This was taken up  at the top of the road at Guinea common,.The dog kept leaping in disturbing the water when I wanted it to be beautifully still. P was there flinging sticks in, aren't family great!

 

I spent an age doing the bottom bit of water, I just couldn't mix pinks and purples for a pond. It was only when I stopped thinking of it as a pond and just looked at patches of colour that I managed it. I just applied lots of blobs for each patch,  stood back, and it had sort of worked.

 

P says it is lacking a focal point, the kids have suggested a periscope...again - isn't familial support just wonderful.

Garden bits on the tablet.

I've finished studying for this year, but of course rather than being released into a life of blissful freedom, I've been released into catching up with all the stuff I've ignored while manically writing horrid essays. Hence, I've been painting the kitchen, battling with the Laurel hedge( it won), battling with the weeds ( they won) and attempting to get two daughters ready for their prom next week. What very silly things proms are!
So up to this I haven't been painting at all, but I kept up a small bit of sketching on the tablet. It's darned quick and handy for just little exercises.

It's not something that is done for the results ( obviously) , more for the practice - it's very  useful for just thinking about tones and colours, or just looking at light - this is a bit of late afternoon sun at the end of the garden. And this was just done sitting in the bay window.

I'd never attempt to paint something like that - but it's nice to try and do something.

some tablets

I thought I'd better put something in my blog before it died of boredom and gave up on life. I've  not been able to paint at all, I'm studying a course in Renaissance art for a Humanities degree at the moment - it is fantastic and fascinating and I adore it to bits, but it is quite incredibly time consuming.

This is a sketch on a tablet ( Nexus 7) of Holbein's portrait of Sir Thomas More. I've convinced myself that by sketching the paintings I'm studying, I'll learn something about them. Sketching on a tablet is new to me, this is attempt no 2. I'm using a free sketching app, which is probably quite basic, but is easy enough to get the hang of. 

I thought this course would be all Florentine Madonnas and such, but we are also looking at Netherlandish art. This is a sketch of poor Mary Magdalene from Rogier van der Weyden's Deposition. 

She is contorted and distracted with grief - in the original anyway. I'm made her very grey. Okay, back to the books.