Yawning Cub WiP

Yawning Cub, Work in Progress

My latest pencil drawing is a cub yawning as s/he comes out of the den in the morning light. I am using a 2H lead in a mechanical pencil on graphic film. Maybe that is why the 2H comes out so black compared to drawing on paper. I like the smoothness of graphic film and the fact that it doesn’t buckle if it gets damp. As graphic film is translucent, I often colour the drawing on the reverse. If I do it on the reverse of the Yawning Cub, it might solve the problem of colouring the roof of the den. But at the moment I am challenging myself to do it in graphite pencil. 

I have had another challenge this week. I was blending pastel skies and distant hills. I was working on canvas primed with clear Colourfix. (Colourfix is brilliant for mixed media and I am using it to underpaint and sketch portraits in oils.) Colourfix is gritty which is why it holds the pastels. 

Many artists work with pastel on a sandy textured surface but in the past I always worked on Canson Mi-Teintes paper. But the paper absorbs water and buckles which is the main reason that I started working on graphic film. I wonder if I can prime graphic film with Colourfix? I will try it some time. 

Anyway to get back to the gritty surface on the canvas, I was blending the pastel with my finger and it got very red and sore. The next day I used another finger to blend pastel on the next 2 portraits and that finger got very sore. The next day I sacrificed a third finger on a big painting of a boy on his horse. 

After that I decided to preserve my forefinger and look for a solution so I searched for Colour Shapers online. I believe that they are made of silicone. I ordered 2 in finger sizes and another silicone blender which looks good for large areas. 

Time will tell. Today I drew, and did some oil painting. 

I also took Jasper for a walk. We have been kept in by the bad weather and he was beginning to go stir-crazy. Dogs are so valuable to get artists away from the easel and into the fresh air. 

Here are the silicone blenders. The black one is harder than the light grey. I don’t know which is best. 

Craft Fair 2018

Craft Fair 2018

I decided to show my animal portraits and drawings at this year’s Craft Fair at St Lawrence’s Church, Appleby in the beautiful Eden Valley near the English Lake District. 

I was given a pew to set up my artworks, which was great because there was a ledge to hold my smaller works so I didn’t have to take so many easels down the hill. 

From the left, at the far end of the pew (by my folding walking frame) you can see the portrait of Gucci in oils on canvas, followed by the portrait of Boots which is painted in pastel on canvas, then a pen and ink of my son with his horse. After that there are five drawings in pen and ink on graphic film. I drew the animals on the front of the graphic film, then I turned them over and put touches of colour on the reverse. Graphic film is translucent so the colour shows through. The wolf only needed his eyes and tongue enhanced to look good! Finally my masterpiece is the portrait in graphite pencil of my dog Bryn. 

I always talk of going down the hill when I walk into Appleby town centre because the town is in a valley with steep sides and I live near the top of the hill on the east. From my house I can see the top of the Church tower. It is a beautiful old Church in the centre of the community. I have been in so many churches that feel as if they are kept in mothballs during the week, but St Lawrence’s feels alive. 

The yearly Craft Fair is one of the events held to raise money for repairs to the Church and I like to support them though I don’t attend the church as I am a Buddhist. So this year I held a raffle. I offered a prize of a portrait by me and I managed to sell a total of 27 tickets. I was a bit disappointed as I hoped to sell at least 30. Hey ho! 

I have talked to the winner of the raffle and she wants a portrait of her cat who died. 

I also showed two of my old animal pastels. The wolf was facing the other way and I don’t think many people looked over the other end of the pew to see it. 

Here is a photo of the rabbit. I painted it back in 1997 in pastel on paper. If you think it is more whimsical than my usual style I agree. It was intended to be an illustration for a children’s story about a teddy bear having an adventure and this was when the teddy meets a rabbit. But I got bored with the idea so I cut off the part of the painting with the teddy bear and filled in the gap with the thistle.

 

Boots the Deerhound 3

 Boots the Deerhound 3

I had a number of visitors last week so the portrait of Boots is not as far along as I would like. At the same time using my pastel pencils is so much fun that when I did manage to sit at my easel I was working with enthusiasm and able to work for longer than I could with the oil paints. 

Remember from my last post that I primed the oil painting with Art Spectrum primer in clear so the painting showed through. I didn’t have to start from scratch. 

I have continued working on his back and side and I am feeling pleased that I am getting a nice soft fur texture that shows the rough coat of a deerhound. Boots isn’t wire haired. I think that would be harder to paint. 

Today I sprayed the work I had done with fixative. I was getting pastel on my hand when I rested it on the surface so I thought I had better do something about it before it got smudged. 

Tomorrow I am going to start on his head. 

I bought some Inktense coloured pencils to embellish the pencil drawings that I am working on to show at the Craft Fair on the 19th and 20th of October. So I added a couple of Faber Castell pastel pencils. I hadn’t tried them before. I was so impressed that I have ordered the whole range of 60 colours. They may arrive tomorrow. 

I am also working on Bentley, and on my pencil drawing of a wolf that I met and fell in love with, when he was 6 months old. I will tell that story after I finish the drawing.

Boots the Deerhound 2

Boots the Deerhound 2

I have been working a lot on some small pencil drawings of animals, but I got some work done on Boots too. I am enjoying working with pastel and pastel pencils. 

I mentioned in last week’s blog that when I used to paint exclusively in pastel about 20 years ago, pastel pencils weren’t good enough for my technique. But there have been such great innovations in art since then, that I took a chance and bought a full set of Derwent’s pastel pencils and I was very pleased with them. I think that one of the reasons that they are working well on this painting is because of the primer. It is gritty enough to catch the pigment. 

One of the best things about pastel back in the days when I was bringing up my 2 sons, was how you can just walk away and leave it while you deal with the next domestic emergency! Now I am living with dogs and cats I still have domestic emergencies. Moreover, it is so nice just to be able to pick up a pastel or pencil and make marks on the canvas without having to set out my palette and brushes. 

I have been working on the left hand side so I don’t know if the changes in the painting are noticeable. I am happier about the grass and the fluffiness of Boots’ fur against it. I have been blending the darker areas too. It will look more interesting when I have worked on his head. I am getting there. 

I am going to spray it with fixative so I can go over the details with oil paint. So in the end I suppose that I should call it mixed media. 

Boots the Deerhound

Boots the Deerhound

I used to paint exclusively in pastel until I lost the use of my right hand thumb, which meant that I couldn’t grip a stick of pastel without it dropping on the floor and crumbling. So I changed to working in pencil. I used a grip that meant the weight of the pencil rested on the fork between my thumb and first finger. Then, as my thumb started to get better, I painted in acrylic gouache using a method similar to the egg tempera technique. I lay the colours on the surface without directly mixing or blending them.

Then I tried oil paint. My hand isn’t strong enough to manipulate the paint except in glazes, so I was feeling frustrated. I started to wonder if there was any way of painting pastel over oils. Perhaps I could hold a pastel pencil. When I gave up pastels, the quality of pastel pencils weren’t up to my technique. 

So I started to look around at ways of combining pastel with oils. 

I discovered that there is a binder to turn pigment into oils. I bought a bottle of it but I haven’t tried it yet.

 

Then I found a fixative that claims to fix pastel and other dry mediums so that they can be overpainted in oils. I bought some and tested it. I painted over the blue sky in an unfinished oil painting with Colourfix primer. I have used this primer to use coloured pencils over acrylic and that is a challenge so I knew that I would be able to paint the pastel on top of it. I made a nice blended blue sky and sprayed it with the new fixative. It worked. But I haven’t tried painting over that (yet).

I have been struggling with the painting of Boots. I wasn’t happy with the hedge behind him or with the grass against the shadows of the hedge. So I tried using pastel.

I was thrilled to find that I could use the pastel sticks without dropping them. I was working on the hedge for nearly 2 hours without getting my arm and hand tired. I stopped because it was time to spray it with the fixative. 

What I learned: to spray it lying down and it takes more than a couple of minutes to dry. I set it upright when I first sprayed it and I got a dark green run over the light green grass. I laid it flat and it was easy to wipe clean, but I won’t do that again. It was a good thing that it was only the hedge. 

I brought it downstairs and set it up on the easel and worked on it some more today. I concentrated on improving the grass with pastel. I also worked a bit on Boots’ fur where it curls over the grass. The white is brighter than it was but it still needs work. I added a bit of grey but not enough. 

I am adding 2 photos of materials. First I want to show my “palette”. My brother made it for me by routing grooves in a piece of nice wood. 

Second I use quantities of putty rubber or kneadable erasers; two names for the same thing. I bought 3 different makes because the manufacturers change their formulas sometimes and it is a long time since I bought them. I cut them into small pieces with a pair of scissors. I find that they keep better with a tidy edge, rather than pulling a piece off. The important thing to know about storing putty rubbers is to keep them in the dark. Light makes them turn hard. 

I don’t use them for erasing much. I use them as a blending stump. The kind of stump that I have bought in the past transferred dirt once I had used it once. But a small piece of putty rubber can be squeezed to a new point for days. You can get a really clean edge with it.

The fixative is SpectraFix Degas Fixative. 

Maurice Quentin de la Tour

Maurice Quentin de la Tour

The portrait above is of Marie Fel. She was a popular singer, still performing when she was 65. De la Tour loved her and judging by her expression she loved him too.

When I first started to paint portraits, I tried acrylics but I didn’t get on well. I was going to a weekly evening class and one of the other artists brought in a box of pastels that her grandmother had given her. I took one look and knew I had found my medium.

A few weeks ago a man who is interested in the history of art asked me which artist inspired my portrait style. So I immediately said Maurice Quentin de la Tour. I got my book, “The French Pastellists of the Eighteenth Century” by Haldane Macfall, from the book case, and showed him the images.

I found the book in a second hand bookshop. The prints are tipped onto blank pages in the book and I feel lucky to have found the book with all the prints in place. So many of those old books had the prints removed to hang on the wall. The book includes many Eighteenth Century pastellists, but it is clear that Mr Macfall considered that de la Tour was the star.

I am inspired by Maurice Quentin de la Tour because of the liveliness of the expressions he portrays. Most of his portraits tell me as much about the artist as about the subject. It is obvious from their amused expressions that he was an entertaining and witty man. 

Most Eighteenth Century Portraits by famous oil painters look more like furnishings for their patrons’ mansions (chateaux?) than interesting individuals. I understand the desire of the patrons to want to present an image for posterity, but I don’t feel sad to think that I can never meet them. In de la Tour’s case I feel that I have already met them. So he inspired me to emulate him, not in wit but perhaps in kindness.

A lot of Maurice de la Tour’s portraits are in the Louvre. I haven’t been to Paris to see them but I have seen and appreciated a portrait of a young man in the National Gallery, London. It was in an obscure corner. Pastels are undervalued. 

His most famous portrait is the one of Madame Pompadour (below) but there are many to see at this link which is where I downloaded the images on this page. It is free to download the jpegs and you can buy prints of the portraits from the site.

The site is a wonderful resource for looking at great art: 

https://www.wikiart.org/en/maurice-quentin-de-la-tour

Dufton Art in the Hills exhibition.

Dufton Art in the Hills exhibition. 

As promised, I am writing this week about my visit to the Dufton Art in the Hills exhibition. 

But first I must tell you that I solved the problems that I had last week. I stopped the cats keeping me up at night, and I found out why my knee wasn't getting better. I had slightly dislocated my kneecap. I popped back when I kneeled down on the floor and now it is getting better steadily. However it is a bit weak so I got very tired at the exhibition and I haven't done much today. 

Back to the exhibition, I went with my friend Barbara and she was enthusiastic about the quality of the art. There were examples of all mediums. We both loved these sculptures made out of cutlery. 

I hope you can see the humming bird on the left. 

I must apologise that I didn't write down the names of the artists. I apologise to the artists in particular. 

If anyone wants to know who they are I can find out for you. 

Pencil on the left and a photograph on the right. Both are equally full of atmosphere. 

This lady works in all mediums. I like the pastel of the dog's eye. 

This is brilliantly done, enhanced with stitching. 

Finally two of my portraits, and a painting by my friend which I like so much that I voted it as my favourite artwork. 

I have a pastel and an oils. The portrait in oils isn't quite finished. She asked me to fluff out her hair. It was rather flat on the day we took the photos. Of course I agreed, saying that I am better than Photoshop. I am pleased at how vivid the portrait looks. Remember it's my first attempt in oils. 

I love this painting of Jean's granddaughter in Dufton Ghyll. 

I wasn't able to finish the portrait of Gucci, the gypsy dog, in time for the exhibition. It is nearly finished except for the grass in front of her. I chose a photo that had been cut off at the bottom because I was holding the camera very low to get the photo at Gucci's eye level, and I couldn't look through the lens. I have used some of the other photos to see what I lost, including the grass she is lying on. 

My new camera can connect with my new iPad by wifi so I spent some time this afternoon trying to make it work. Next time I want a very low angle for a photo, I will be able to see what the camera is looking at on my iPad screen. What an amazingly useful thing. I also uploaded the photos above, into the iPad by the wifi. It was very slow. I won't use it for a lot of photos but it is useful for small numbers. 

King Charles Spaniel

 

King Charles Spaniel 

It is many years since I last did a portrait in pastel. But pastels have always been my favourite medium.  

I had to stop working in pastels because I had trouble with my hand and I kept dropping them. Dropping pastels is very bad for them and you end up with a colourful floor and pastel crumbs too small to hold. 

In those days pastel pencils were not good quality, in the sense that the pigment had hard bits that scratched the painting. Now there are a number of art material companies that are producing wonderfully smooth consistent pastel pencils. 

It is still easier for me to hold a pencil than a piece of pastel but I did work with both in the portrait. I used the pieces of stick for background colour and rubbed it into the paper then I worked over it with the pencils. 

I use kneadable erasers to blend the colours. I tried stumps once but I quickly discarded them. Once the tip is dirty they are useless to me. But with the eraser I can keep working a new point. 

I wish that I had had longer to work on the portrait. I lost some time because I had a couple of falls, and I took part in a craft fair, but also I had to learn new techniques which takes time. So it isn't as finished as I would have liked. The dog's paws were fluffy and complicated so I left them sketchy. I am not good at sketchy. 

I had a fairly strict deadline with this portrait which I went over by two days. It took 24 hours in total. 

Despite my problems, I am happy that I captured the character of the dog. (I would tell you her name if I knew how to spell it.)