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.

Reflecting on a week of paintmaking

I've learnt such a lot about making paint this week. It is somewhat scientific, and I found that I was thinking back to my studies for higher chemistry many moons ago.  Emulsions and polymers.  I think my favourite has been making and using Egg Tempera, particularly painting with tempera on card.  Here is the one I like best. It was really a test strip, but I like the quality of the finish.

My other favourite from the week is the work we did with beeswax and encaustic.  On Friday we painted over our beeswax pictures with encaustic - a mixture of beeswax and turps, with pigment mixed in.  So my painting of the boathouse ended up looking like this.

I quite like this - and I definitely like the general effects you can get with encaustic.
My other picture - of the dog walker - I changed somewhat radically.  Jill said...why are you trying to do a figure painting when everything in your sketchbook is based on landscape images? So I converted it into a painting of Applecross.

It's not finished yet - still a bit more to do - but it's got some potential, don't you think?
So a great week and great inspiration to take forward.