After the frenetic activity of Open Studios and art-working for Hungerford Summer Festival, it’s good to be just drawing again. It’s so easy to lose the basic skills because of other projects – for me this is where it all starts so I am now visiting life drawing workshops whenever possible, as well as trying to keep my sketchbooks active.
I can see the sunshine in this. It was made in my sketchbook some time before the darkness and cold arrived, when there were real shadows surrounding objects sitting on a table. One of many (seemingly endless) exercises in the early stages of OCA Watercolour 1 – this one working with warm colours. There are messier ones in this series; the painting with grey and brown tones had a particularly bad ending.
However this one was made off-piste, away from proscriptive exercises, just for the pleasure of painting, after I had worked out a lot of issues surrounding a begonia and some citrus fruit. Wax resist and masking fluid also feature.
Watercolour sketch, working out depths and tone. Its messy and badly done but I can see some interesting stuff coming though. (I know what you are saying at the back; pity she didn’t use proper watercolour paper. Yes, well, it’s just a bit of messing around but I take your point.)
Abandoned shoes on the quay at Warsash – my new favourite place. I saw more than one pair missing their owner after a boat had been loaded on to the trailer! Pressed charcoal and watercolour. Just a sketch.
Off-piste – a bit of a mess around with a wax crayon (borrowed) and a 3/4″ brush (also borrowed) at art group yesterday – meanwhile stuck in the middle of all those exercises for OCA Watercolour Practice – where will they lead? Will I actually be able to produce a coherent painting using watercolour at the end of it ?
(ps the view is of Marcay, near Chinon in France – I was working from a photograph taken in sunshine and warm air, neither of which were present, sadly, when I finally put wash to paper. Sigh.)
…slipped under the curtains, they made their way home.
Really must finish this exercise sometime soon before I forget what it is all about….
(OCA Illustration 1, Part 5, Packaging Exercise: Produce a series of illustrations for packaging to be used for a new range of organic biscuits for children.)
First ideas for packaging exercise (OCA Illustration 1, Part 5); the illustration has to feature extinct animals – this is a caspian tiger.
– can you tell?
back to the drawing board... Andi Mulholland 