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....

Nothing Is Easy

Happy New Year! (or is it?)
I seem to recall a track by Jethro Tull - 'Nothing Is Easy' and that sums up my mood at present.
The excesses of New Year are finished and I've had a clear run to get on with some painting. But am I happy with the results? ....NO....it's been a struggle this week.
I thought I would start with my pencil sketch of Slumbay....

Reflected on the composition - looking for connections and abstract values. 

 Continued working in ink and graphite and white acrylic.

I set this aside - not entirely happy - I think a landscape composition might be better.
Another day this week I wanted to try out some eggy paints, but was distracted by the stormy weather. I did a pencil sketch of the waves that I could see out of the window, and then I found myself doing a pic of the stormy sea in 'glair' - ink made from pigment and white of egg.

Stormy Sea (1)

I was surprised about how good this looked and I decided to try doing the same image again on a smaller format.

Stormy Sea (2)

What do you think?  I really liked the way the eggy ink moved around the surface. It was very fluid.
I also tried out some home-made tempera paint and finished this little pic in a mixture of tempera and glair.

Coral Beach, Applecross in egg tempera and glair

But these little pics were the best of the bunch this week....I'm not so happy about my bigger pics..for the next post.

Urban Studies

For various reasons I've not had as much time in the studio of late. However, I did want to explore a few urban scenes before the turn of the year. I focused first on the sketches I did on our recent sketching group visit to the museum.

I focused first on Greyfriars Corner.  What I liked about this as a composition was the glimpse through the gate to the graveyard, and the gravestone sitting like a focal point. So after re-drawing it once, I started again in graphite, rubbing out and oilbar.

I was wanted to use ink to get a darker moodier look to the painting. So I worked in both diluted and undiluted black ink.




Then I added a little oil-crayon/oil bar for a little colour. I somewhat boldly decided that the double-yellow lines were important to the painting, and so it has ended up like this. So far so good.

The other view I focused on was the view from the Meadows to Argyll Place.  I particularly liked the drama of the white sheen of the light on the wet tarmac and wanted to try and recreate this. This one started to look like this after a bit of work.

But I realised when I checked it against the original sketch that the position of the trees and the proportions of the street were not quite right. And I had not really captured the drama of the light.  Again by working in ink, I tackled these shortcomings.  I think it's close to the look I'm trying to get, but this pic is a bit out of focus.

 Continuing with this urban theme, I pulled out an earlier sketch of Stockbridge Market gateway. I love this piece of townscape and wanted to try a pic. I started on an old piece of card.

But I thought this was a bit too pale - wanted a darker look.

 By this stage it was close to the textured look I was trying to achieve, but the card was disintegrating, so I realised I should do a new painting.

 I ended up with something looking like this. However at this stage I thought some of the texture effects were a bit unsubtle, so I continued to work at this aspect. I also introduced a couple of ghostly figures - can you see them?

Not sure if I've finished it or not yet. Perhaps it's just a bit too dark now. And I need to go back to my sketching spot and check the proportions against the actuality.



Anyway, I'm setting aside my urban preoccupations for the moment; hoping to do a little landscape painting. If only the wind would drop and the rain would stop raining....