Experimenting and Playing

I didn't feel that I managed to achieve very much while away, but I did have a go at playing with some pigments and making egg tempera and glair.

Using the tempera paint, I thought this would be best suited to small paintings and I cut up some Arches card and before I knew it, I was painting little hill pictures, like this one.  The motif was based on a little image I've had in my sketchbook for ages. I found the egg tempera made me paint very precisely - I had to use a small brush - and I wanted to do something a bit looser.

 So I tried another hill motif - based on the view of Beinn Damph from the Torridon Road.  With this one, I tried to make the pencil marks stronger, as an intrinsic part of the painting.

I stuck with the hill motif, and another day I got out the beeswax. I wanted to experiment using aluminium foil encased within the beeswax. This was the best version - using a single piece of foil cut to a recogniseable shape. I thought it was interesting, but not sure what to do next......

Another day I tried using graphite powder dissolved in rabbit-skin size.  This was how it looked on Arches card. I added some water, and scattered a little salt.

And this was the same graphite 'paint' but applied to a board which had been gessoed.  Some interesting effects here...especially with the salt.

I tried another painting on a gessoed board, using a tree motif. Again the effects were kind of interesting.

I was not immune to the weather outside, and after doing a few sketches of the raging sea, I did this little painting using white-of-egg ink or glair.

But the best thing about using pure pigments is the intensity of colour. My favourite colour studies from the hols are these two.  I love the cobalt violet pigment and keep thinking of ways of using it - it's such a pure and bright colour.

And, of course, I always have to do some kind of hut. I had seen this hut as the last dwelling standing in a deserted village in Strathcarron.

Now it's back to the studio and on with some serious work (?).  But there'll always be time for play....