In the Studio....Continuing

Had a busy weekend with the Morningside Artkist exhibition  - was up there on Friday and Saturday and looked in on Sunday too.  It was busy and I got some good feedback on my pictures, and a few sales. (Not many pictures sold overall). People mostly liked my black and white pictures and my drawings - can't say I'm surprised.  Anyway, I found it a little bit difficult to settle back into painting today but I decided to keep focused on my thumbnails.  As usual, I started doing a black and white exercise to get into the mood for painting.  I had a painting on the wall of Fisherrow Harbour and thought I would try it in black and white. I got so absorbed that I forgot to take a photo until I got beyond the charcoal stage.

Emerging Fisherrow Harbour B+W copyright Aileen Grant

I carried on with more ink and white acrylic, remembering that the floor of the harbour was much darker than the harbour walls.  I took it as far as this.

Fisherrow Harbour B+W copyright Aileen Grant

I wasn't pleased with this at the time, but looking at it now, it looks quite interesting.  I was having a bit of fun with the muddy harbour, spraying lots of water as well as mixing the ink and acrylic.  It's helping me to create a dark and interesting space which is really my aim.
I got the oil paint out in the afternoon and returned to the applecross pictures. I had already painted this small  (A5) version of the view over to Attadale.

Attadale oil colour study copyright Aileen Grant

I quite liked the colour treatment in this, and the brushwork (it is just a small picture), but I thought the composition could be improved. I had already made a start to a small square picture which I had prepared with an orange acrylic ground.  I added some pencil marks in a similar treatment to my big pictures.

Attadale oil colour study copyright Aileen Grant

Actually, I quite like this now, this light treatment which allows the orange underneath to shine through.  It has a delicacy which may have been lost now, with this.

Attadale oil colour study copyright Aileen Grant

Apart from the difference in composition, in this new version I have used Prussian Blue in the mix (not used in the earlier verion).  It gives a richer colour.  So I think this composition has some potential and I may take it further in a larger square picture.

Back in the Studio Again

I was glad to get back into the studio and back to my thumbnails today.  Trying to keep the momentum going.  Basically it's more of the same, so not very exciting.  I've decided it is a good idea to 'warm up' by doing a charcoal study, so I had a go at yet another version of Lochcarron View.

Emerging Slumbay View With Trees copyright Aileen Grant

I do think this view of Slumbay has potential, but I'm just not sure where to place the trees.  So as I progressed with it, I added some extra trees in.  So by the time I finished, it looked like this.

Slumbay View With Trees copyright Aileen Grant

I don't think this picture works.  I think the composition is too jumbled with the extra trees.  The question is - would it work in colour?.  Is it worth trying?  Not sure.  What I do like is the curve of the shore.  It's got a nice dynamic, a nice feeling of movement.  So I may revisit it in a different version.

After this, I did another colour study using oils.  I wanted to have a go at the one of the blue blue sea. It turned out like this.

Shingle Spit and Blue Sea (small study) Copyright Aileen Grant

This turned out better than I thought.  I think it benefits from a resticted palette.  And I like the dark shoreline. My biggest decision was where to position the white boat.  I gave this a lot of thought, but I don't think it is in quite the right position yet.  Ah well, for another day.

A little success

Have had a couple of days running around and organising things, so no work done on my precious non-working day.  However, today I was in Paisley to view the results of the Scottish Drawing Competition.  I'm pleased to report that my two drawings were on the wall, and just to prove it, here I am with my big drawing.

The picture (Edinburgh's Disgrace (No. 1) is the drawing I did at the end of term at Leith School of Art http://www.leithschoolofart.co.uk/ when we had the trip up Calton Hill (see my blog for 24th June 2011)  The colonnade is of course known as Edinburgh's Disgrace - a big project started but never finished....does this sound familiar in current times?...that's why I called it No. 1..haha.

Anyway, I'm very pleased to have this and my little drawing of the Harbourwall at Fisherrow selected for the competition.  It's good to have a little success!  There were a few works by other artists with LSA connections - Jacqueline Watt, Kitty Jones, Jane Couroussopoulos, Ruth Nichol - so I am in good company.  What's more, it's a great show and it goes on until 26 November.

Back in the Studio

After the distraction of sketching on Friday, it was back to the thumbnails today.  I suppose I felt that going out sketching had slightly interrupted my flow - and I'm determined not to get distracted from focusing on these pictures.  So I started with a black and white as a kind of 'warm-up'.  I tried to re-draw the cottage I had sketched at Fearnbeg. It turned out like this.

Fearnbeg Cottage copyright Aileen Grant

I used the ususal - charcoal, oilbar, acrylic and black ink. It's a bit messy, this, but I suppose it has a bit of liveliness, and the environment at Fearnbeg that I was trying to portray was a bit messy and unkempt.  I wasn't sure about the composition, and I struggled with the foreground. So there's a couple of things I still need to work on.  I then decided I'd had anough of acrylics and got the oils out to do some little paintings, re-working a couple I had already done.  My favourite of course is the view from the Applecross viewpoint (see post on 8th October), so I started with that.

Raasay View (Oil Study) copyright Aileen Grant

This little picture is only 18x24 cms.  I felt reasonably happy with it, but it is only small. How would it look as a larger picture? Shall I try it? Anyway, quickly on to another oil study, the one towards Attadale (see post of 15th October).

Attadale View (Oil Study) copyright Aileen Grant

There's quite a lot of sea in this, and I wasn't sure if I could make it interesting enough, but again I think it's turned out all right.  I might try this at a larger size and see how it looks.  For both these pictures I limited the palette to ulramarine, lemon yellow and crimson allizarin - I think these work well for Scottish colours.  If I do them in a larger size, I might add a little bright red to get some orange hues, but I'm not sure about this.

I also had a go at finishing off a couple of other pictures, and this one now looks satisfactory, I think.

Bass Rock from Seacliff copyright Aileen Grant

I've toned the red rocks right back to give them a more mysterious feel and added a little yellow/orange. I also made the bass rock more angular.  Anyway, I'm not sure if this works or not.  But I'm not doing any mre to this picture!

Sociable Sketching

I had a break from the studio yesterday - went sketching with a few friends (Rona, Heather and Mhairi). Surprisingly the weather stayed fair, but it was a bit windy so we had to deal with the hazard of flapping paper.  But no other excuses, really.  We met on the Mound - an excuse to go for a nice coffee in Porto & Fi - and then it was down to business.  I wanted to sketch Victoria Street, but it was really windy up on the Terrace, so I drifted round to one of the closes off Johnstone Terrace.  I had spotted these interesting gables earlier in the week, and as a fairly simple image I thought it would be a good start.

Old Town Gables (Charcoal Sketch) copyright Aileen Grant

What I liked about these gables is the way the wee small windows are scattered apparently at random. The forms look so solid, too, harled and ancient, arising out of a jumble of buildings.  I then went down to the Grassmarket and found a bench to sit on - always makes sketching a bit easier.  The townscape looked a bit complex and daunting to sketch, but I found a good view looking out of the Grassmarket towards the Cowgate.

Sketch of Cowgate from Grassmarket copyright Aileen Grant

I used a graphite stick which rather suited the grey austerity of the buildings at this time of year.  The only two bits of colour were a little turquoise on the window frames in the Cowgate, and the red frontage of Armstrong's shop so I added just a little colour in oil crayon to remind me. That church steeple (must find out what the building is!) rises out of the darkness of the Cowgate and its shiny grey roof and golden cockerel weather-vane really catch the light. They form such a contrast with the darkness around.

I then attempted a skech looking up Victoria Street, but I really needed a taller sheet of paper and I was a bit cold. So stopped for lunch shortly after this.  After we got warmed up, Heather and I carried on sketching in the afternoon.  We both sat in Lady Stairs Close which had a bit more shelter. My effort in the afternon was a bit more interesting.

Sketch of Lady Stairs Close copyright Aileen Grant

Spent a lot of time trying to get the texture of the stonework - again using graphite stick (this photo doesn't quite catch it) and I was remembering how in first year at College we had these awful "Building Sheets" to do.  One of them was on stonework - ashlar, random rubble, coursed and snecked rubble, etc.  How we slaved over those A2 building sheets to try and draw the details perfectly in pencil. And now I try not to draw the stones too exactly, not to show the coursing and the mortar joints, but (through a lot of rubbing out and re-drawing) try to achieve a lightness of touch and a mystery about the stonework and the windows.  Trying to get the essence of these austere and forbidding but beautiful facades and those narrow escape routes out of the Old Town.
So it was a good day's sketching, and lucky with the weather.  Our next session will be November in Portobello...looking forward to it.....brrrr.

SEASCAPES IN PROGRESS

Today was another day in the studio working on the thumbnails I did on Friday.  I have decided to work through each one in turn and then review the studies to decide which to take further.  In order to make a start, I got the charcoal out, and focused on the view from Applecross over the coral beach towards Skye.  Using a large sheet of paper I made a few marks.

Emerging sketch Coral Beach and beyond copyright Aileen Grant

I carried on with oilbar, oil crayons, white acrylic and black and blue ink, and the picture ended up looking like this.

Coral Beach and Beyond copyright Aileen Grant

This looks a bit overworked, so I decided to stop. I'm considering adding a bit more texture for the sea and the beach. Maybe also a bit more work on the sky over Skye.  It could be another in the black and white series.
After this, I wanted to do a bit of colour and so I had a go at a picture of the shingle spit at Lochcarron.  I gessoed up a sheet of paper for a change and then, before I realised it, the picture was taking shape and looked like this..

Emerging colour study Shingle spit with boat copyright Aileen Grant

Actually, looking at it now, I think it looks quite good.  Maybe I should have stopped there. But, no, I ploughed on - what a fool I am!  To be honest, I was trying to get the right colour for the sea - that purply navy blue colour - and while I was painting I was thinking about a particular picture by Arthur Melville. I think it was the combination of the rich blue sea, the white boat and the orange of the seaweed.  This then became a goal for me.  This was where I took it to.

Colour study Shingle Spit copyright Aileen Grant

Have I overworked this? I'm not sure.  I think some parts of the picture look a bit overworked, and I don't think I should have added the green.  But this is just a colour study, and between the two versions I think I have enough for a further picture using oils.  I do like the richness of the colour (but I'm afraid this got the thumbs down from Peter, so maybe I should limit this to just a small oil picture).  This richness of colour is a bit different from another study I did on Friday.

Colour study Attadale View copyright Aileen Grant

This view is based on the view south over Loch Carron. In this study I used a much more resticted palette than I used today - I added a little yellow today to bring the foreground out. I don't like these colours as much as the Shingle Spit picture with the navy blue sea, but on the other hand, I quite like the trees, and there is potential to explore the atmospheric aspects if I take this picture further.  Plenty of scope for future work.

Studio Planning

Yesterday was a studio day, and I was a bit unsure about this - I've been struggling with studio work recently.  I think my sketches are not bad, but when I get into the studio and try to take something forward from a sketch, I seem to lose focus - haven't really worked out properly how to do this on my own (without help from a tutor on a course at Leith).  I've been having a real think about this and so yesterday (with my head still up in Lochcarron) I decided to use my recent photos and select some scenes which had a bit of interest - something to work on - and do thumbnails of these as a starting point.  So that's exactly what I did....

Lochcarron thumbnails copyright Aileen Grant

It was interesting doing this.  It allowed me to get a feel for these views.  Although they are so familiar to me, it's a different matter to try and paint them, and paint them in a meaningful way.  It's so much easier if I have done a sketch, and even easier if I've done a colour sketch.  Doing a sketch allows me to look at the scene with greater concentration and intensity and I can recapture some of this in the studio.  (I think I need to do more colour sketches.)
Anyway, I had to decide which thumbnails I should run with first, and I thought I would have a go at the view I did the colour sketch of - the view over to Raasay and Rhona (posted in my previous blog).
So I re-drew it in charcoal to start with.

Charcoal of Raasay View copyright Aileen Grant

I used charcoal to map out this picture as I thought this would allow me to keep loose, and hang on to the emotion of the view.  There is some oilbar in this too.  Then I got the acrylics out - first white, then some blues, purples and a little lemon yellow, and more charcoal.  I was trying to keep that intensity of light on the sea. And I felt that little bit of roadway (the route in front) was important to the picture. I finished with this.

Raasay View copyright Aileen Grant

It needs more work - another picture.  For another day. (Maybe I should call it the road to the isles..haha.)
So then I had a go at another thumbnail image - the view of Attadale.  My start to this was this

Attadale - quick sketch copyright Aileen Grnat

Again I used oilbar to keep the treatment loose. (Interesting to look at this again).
The next step was to introduce some colour and some painting i.e. using brushes.  I got as far as this.

Over to Attadale copyright Aileen Grant

I was trying to capture something of the view of the trees, the glade behind them and the mystery of the topography behind the trees. And capture the feel of the light.  And also the feel of the sea in the foreground.  This is the view from the cottage at Lochcarron and I have sketched it so often, but seldom tried to paint it.

So, a couple of thumbnails done, several more to do.  I must ty and keep focused on these. I've decided to make the end of the year a target - to come up with one big picture in oils by then - one of these images.  And work towards this with a number of smaller studies. I think setting a target like this will allow me to settle  down into the work and stop me being too impatient...hopefully....I certainly feel happier about this approach.