Found the paints again

The paints finally came out and as usual I hadn't a notion what to paint. I know I should practice with still lives and things actually in front of me, but when you only paint ever so rarely, of course the temptation is to give something bigger a go. We were in Venice last October, so I dragged out the photos and attempted things way way beyond me. Trying stuff and faffing about are surprisingly enjoyable, even when the results are dodgy.

I would like to be able to do things more simply, but as usual, I muddle about a lot. I didn't like (among many many other things) the sort of brownish old edges from drawing with brown paint. So I tried it again with a colouring pencil! Well, it was there and I'm lazy.

It seems cleaner to me. Stoopidly I utterly forgot to draw in the top bits of the lamp shade at the start, so when I shoved them in later and ( again) lazily, so they are rottenly done, all wrong. I quite the top of the left hand boat, it kind of has a bit of that shine those gorgeous wooden boats have. 

One more attempt, which even if it had worked well, was a weird photo to choose as there is no focal point whatsoever. In fact, there is a big gap where something interesting ought to be! I also shrank the poor gondolier. Some bits on the right work a bit I think. I cannot imagine for the life of me how people go there and do this from life -bobbing boats, changing light, moving sparkling water, and the crowds!  I have utter respect for anyone who does it , I'd freak out! 

Sigh, not even a yearly painter

Annual guilt time when the study books have been packed away and the gummy unused paints and hardened dusty brushes sit there looking at me. Doing an MA turns out to be a whole heap of work - who knew?  I kept up a small bit of sketching, but even that was sporadic. I brought w/colours etc on hols and thoroughly enjoyed my attempts there. No study books, no housework, much wine, bliss.

I did this sitting in a loggia in a little square in Visnjan ( Croatia) one quiet evening. I was ridiculously delighted with myself for being all brave and arty, but actually I was only doing it as I knew there wasn't going to be a soul around

The next ones were done in the garden. Nice memories to have, both of the place and of sitting there warm relaxed and thoroughly enjoying myself.

Lovely lovely place, no great results sketching wise, but v. nice memories.

Swimmers below Corte

Although I didn't paint when we were on hols, I did of course take lots of pics. The one this painting is based on was taken looking down from the Citadel in Corte  - where we huffed and puffed up to on  on a ridiculously hot day. The kids in the river below had the right idea.

 Now personally I don't think that's too too bad a start after a long gap in painting. My own assessment of where I'm at: I think I'm okay at colour mixing mostly, I think I'm okay at getting some light and dark , or tone or whatever. I think where some of the problem lies is just in how to approach putting paint on the darned board - thickness of paint, brushstrokes, how big, what direction, how much paint, which ones first etc. I was sort of okay on the rocks and trees on top I think - I just went for it, blobbed it down and it's alright. I faffed, fussed and fretted over the water though, and worse, I went back in this morning , with - crime of crimes - a small brush - and fussed and faffed some more. And I think it shows. I have a feeling that it is only practice that will help there.

On the whole though, I'm not unhappy with it, and there are bits I think worked okay. I think.

Had to edit - I mixed up my place names - this was in Corte, not in  Bastia - Corte is right in the middle of Corsica, in the heart of the extremely stunning mountains. Very striking citadel.

bits of faffing about - new oils and hols.

Well I'm done with study - I shall allow myself to be smugly boastful - well it is my diary after all - I've just finished my BA Hons Humanities with Art History, or some such title, and gotten myself another 1st class degree. Ta Da. I have no idea how that happened.

I found it to be a killer year - it was art of the 20th C and was therefore a horrendous morass of truly nasty critical theory so I completely dropped painting and even sketching. So it's back to scratch and trying to remember which end of the brush to use etc.

Out with the old peppers - a half-hearted attempt as just did it on a desk without didn't do a proper set up . The house is upside down from what seems like endless building work, so it's all too much of a bother finding anything.

I've bought myself water based oils - a) because I'm messy as anything and get paint everywhere and b) cos I thought it might be easier to being the paints on hols. 

 I've sat in the garden a few times giving it a go, it is a bit subjectless out there though, but at least I'm practicing again. I thought I better get accustomed to the new paints. 

We went off to Corsica and I very diligently packed the  paints, but they never came out of the bag! It's kind of hard to put aside that sort of time when ye are all off doing nice stuff together, and I suppose I chickened out too. I did do some simple sketching though, so I wasn't utterly and entirely useless. 

I tried this a number of times, the view down on St. Florent from the terrace, but it was always the late evening by the time I tried it, and although the light was nicely hitting the town when I started, it had always gone by the time I got around to colouring in! Hence, sort of dull. But I do like having this sort of thing as a little record. 

This was my one and only attempt to paint out in the big bad world, i.e , not from the safety of the house. I sat under a brolly while the others were snorkeling. It is only a quickie, not least because the lady in the hat under the pink brolly seemed highly suspicious  of the way I kept staring in their direction.  

Nice to be giving it all a go again. 

If only all houses were plain modernist blocks with no details whatsoever

We were in Amsterdam last week for half term which was fab. Brilliant city to walk around with so so many stunning leafy canals lined with gorgeous tall narrow houses. Some were astonishingly  narrow , much less than 2 meters wide, and some were a bit tipsy and lopsided. Our apartment had great big windows overlooking a canal so I had a bit of an attempt at sketching.

I was  painstakingly slow trying to draw the buildings even though they were mainly hidden behind trees.

And this took more brow furrowing tongue protruding concentration than I've ever put into any thing before! And it still looks boketty and crooked! I could of course claim that they were exact drawings  of the city's older architecture, ahem. 

More sky practice

Today is stormy rain windy and horrid. I wanted to paint so I tried a photo I'd taken up on Puttenham Common. I walk there a lot these days, the sky is huge and fab up there. I keep getting caught in downpours.

I tried to limit myself to a short time, to see if I could keep some of the fun of painting the real thing. Not great, not shockingly awful. I should really go up there and paint, but to go there for a dog walk, and then go again to paint takes just too too much time. Aren't excuses fab. 

Back to basics and cloud practices

Tree practice proved difficult as the trees in the garden are too close to simplify and as I don't want to end up painting individual leaves, so I thought I'd turn to cloud practice. We don't have great big vistas, more's the pity, so these are glimpsed up between trees.

Figuring it would be difficult, I decided to just do monotone sketches and concentrate just on tonal values. Bit of a rubbish start, but so what. 

It's wonderful just using one colour: a) you don't care how it turns out so you are not precious b) quick set up and clean up c) you can squeeze in little sketch in a spare fifteen min or so and d) hopefully by not thinking about colour, you can think about something else i.e brushstrokes, paint texture, lunch. 

I may well be deluding myself, but I'm seeing progress here at the end of a week of various attempts. 

I tried some colour then and lost all that simplicity. Mind you, it was a complicated, ever changing, temperamental autumnal sky. It is quite mental trying to look, mix and paint when the subject is moving away and morphing into something else. 

This was looking south, so things were a bit backlit. I never really thought about directional cloud lighting before, now I'm continually looking at it and boring P about it when we are walking.