Saturday 24 December 2011

Drawings: Some Christmas Holly

Pencil on Cartridge Paper

I created this piece today, especially for the festive season, of some holly leaves and berries. Drawing Santa or a snowman didn’t really seem ‘arty’ enough but I thought I could get away with this simple but seasonal sketch.
I used pencils to draw with for this piece, creating a rough sketch first to get an idea of the composition, before adding details like the veins and shadow.
One last thing to say and that’s Merry Christmas!

Friday 23 December 2011

Drawings: Jugs and Jars

Biro on A4 Cartridge Paper

This is a still life piece that I have just done for a drawing project on my art course. I was focusing on the ellipses of the lids and cylindrical shapes of the various vessels.
I used some biros pens to create this piece, varying the tones by use of cross hatching. I used the hatching strokes almost like contours, following the shapes of the cylinders; I find this helps to give the objects some body.
After finishing this piece I then altered my view of the objects slightly and created a second piece from my new position to see how the shapes and ellipses changed. I think I prefer the first piece but I found the process of doing the second one quite interesting.
By the way, I realise that there aren’t any jugs in this piece but that is the name of the exercise.

Biro on A4 Cartridge Paper

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Sketchbook: Rainy Archways

Indian Ink in A4 Sketchbook

I created this piece in one of my sketchbooks a while ago of the inside of a ruined cathedral. I really liked the drama of the place, this great gothic ruin in the rain, forming huge puddles in the middle of the stone floor.
I used some Indian ink, beginning with a light wash and working some darker tones into it while it was still wet. This let some of the tones bleed into each other. I quite like the effect, all the elements working together to create quite a simple but likeable piece of art.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Sketchbook: A Wintery Watercolour Tree

Watercolour in A5 Sketchbook

I’m being a bit inconsistent with my last post, but this time I thought I’d be faithful to the current season and put up a rather more wintery looking piece. This maple tree caught my eye with its bare branches looking almost skeletal, just looking at it makes me feel cold and shivery.
This was just a quick sketchbook piece so I used watercolours, sticking to yellow ochre for the light patches and a dark brown for the shadowy tones.

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Paintings: Summery Tree


Acrylics on Cartridge Paper 14"x13"
Bit of an antithesis to the current season but I am putting this piece up as a reminder of how colourful and alive the trees were in summer compared to now, and because I quite like it.
I used palette knives to apply all the paint on this piece, this was the first time I’d used them on paper, so it was an interesting experience, I still prefer using them on board or canvas though.
To start the piece off, I used some blue acrylic mixed with white to show the patches where that warm, clear summer sky would be peaking through the foliage of the tree. I then started on the branches to get the shape of the tree before beginning the fun part; the leaves. I went a bit crazy with these which is probably why the final result is a lot rougher than I had anticipated but I am not too disappointed with it. I put quite a bit of yellow into the leaves because they often seem to have a yellowish gleam to them where they reflect the sun.


Sunday 11 December 2011

Still Life: Fruit in Ink

Indian Ink in Sketchbook

This is a piece I created quite a while ago of some fruit I arranged on a chopping board, I was reminded of it because of the artwork I put up a few days ago where I was looking at the artist Paul Cézanne. I actually did this piece in a sketchbook, quite evident from the page fold in the middle, but I wanted to put it up as a still life piece.
I did this piece of work using Indian ink where I started by adding some of the details using a fine nib, concentrating solely on the shapes, following the body of the fruit almost like creating contours. I then mixed some water with a couple of drops of ink that I put on as a wash to try and create a mid tone. It is a very simple piece but I think it makes quite a nice piece of art.

Friday 9 December 2011

Drawings: Cezanne Skull

Charcoal on A5 Paper
There isn’t an awful lot to explain about this piece, but I really wanted to put a piece up before the weekend. It is simply a skull I drew from a painting, ‘Pyramid of Skulls’, quite a famous Cézanne piece of four skulls stacked in a pile. I used charcoal because I wanted to try and play around with some of the tones, but as I said it is quite a simple piece.
Also as you may have noticed, I’ve played around with the design of the blog a bit, hope you like it, might change it completely again depending on how I feel.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Back Catalogue: An Eerie Ruin in Watercolour and Mixed Media

Mixed Media on Cartridge Paper

Been a while since I put anything up on this blog, I shall try not to leave it so long in the future.
This is a piece I created a while ago as part of a project on Ruin and Decay that I think I have mentioned in one or two previous posts. I chose this ruined tower that I believe was part of a castle keep perched on top of a little hill as the subject for a mixed media painting. It had quite a serious, almost spooky feel to the place that I wanted to try and communicate in this piece.
I went quite ambitious with the scale of this piece being just a little bit smaller than A1 size. I roughly plotted out all the bits of shadows and darker areas in some Indian ink and then diluted some more to create a wash. When I was happy with this layer I proceeded to work into it with some watercolour paints, trying not being too strict with my palette. I also added some marks in crayons and some chalk, and finished it off with some last details in ink with a thin brush.

Monday 28 November 2011

Drawings: Fallen Tree on the Canal

Pencil on A5 Cartridge Paper

I created this drawing over the weekend while I was a way on a narrow boat, chugging along the Grand Union Canal. This fallen tree, extending over the side of the bank and dipping its branches in the canal, creating some delicate ripples caught my eye. I used a few different pencils to try and quickly capture it in my sketchbook before it passed.


Friday 25 November 2011

Sketchbook: Still Life Watercolour

Watercolour on A5 Cartridge Paper

This is the first Still life piece I have featured on this blog and the first that I have done for quite a while. I used a small branch and a sprig of something I discovered in my garden; trying to avoid a very cliché still life I arranged the two bits in a rather ugly plastic soft drinks bottle. Although I didn’t want it to look like a typical still life, I did want it to allude to one, which I think this has achieved.
I used watercolours on this piece as it was only intended as a quick study to begin with. I limited my palette to mostly cool colours, pairing the hues of blue and green in the bottle and the green sprig on the left. The only warm colours used were a touch of red brown and yellow ochre in the branch on the right.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Drawings: Blitzed Building

Pencil on Cartridge Paper
I created this drawing of a building, completely ruined after a World War Two air raid, from an old photograph recording the event. I thought it was interesting how although totally gutted and ruined inside, the defining feature of it is not the burnt out remains but the tower and the entranceway that still stand proud and defiant. In the photograph I drew this from, there is no background, due to the smoke and dust from the collapsed building, leaving the building looking like it had been drawn onto a bare canvas, feeling lonely and forgotten.
I employed the use of several grades of pencil, specifically a 2H, HB, 2B and in just a few places a 6B. I concentrated most of the detailed drawing techniques on the tower and doorway, leaving the ruined part of the building a little bit more vague. I left the background almost totally blank, much like the photograph where all you could see was the dust, I think it captured the forsaken feel of the place quite well.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Sketchbook: Inky Trees

Indian Ink on A5 Cartridge Paper

This was a really quick sketchbook piece I created using some black Indian ink. I found a couple of skeletal looking trees completely bare of any leaves and sat down to draw.
I avoided using any brushes or pens in this piece, instead I simply used a folded strip of cartridge paper dipped in the ink and dragged this across the surface of the paper to form marks. I managed to attain some different levels of tone just by simply using different amounts of ink on the paper. I think this has worked especially well on the tree trunks where I made sure the paper was very dry before dragging it with a slight curve to give the impression of the curved shape and the roughness of the bark.
The branches seemed to weave in and out of each other, almost not knowing where to go without their leaves to cover them. To try and convey this in the piece I used a straw to blow some of the ink, so I wasn’t in complete control of where the ink would go, this helped to get the branches feeling busier and more natural looking.
P.S. Yay for it being my Tenth Post!

Friday 11 November 2011

Paintings: Remembrance

Acrylic on A3 Cartridge Paper

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


John McCrae.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Drawings: Elm Tree Sketch

Charcoal on A2 Cartridge Paper

I produced this piece at the same time as another charcoal drawing which I featured in an earlier post. I actually prefer this one as it just feels more gratifying, It may not be as polished in some places, maybe a bit rough around the edge but its feels less cultivated and more genuine and authentic somehow.
It is in the same location in Canterbury as the earlier piece was, but it is a different tree, this time an Elm, in this one I made the branches fill the page creeping into all the corners and spreading beyond the paper. I used a variety of different marks in the background, aiming to avoid creating anything too rigid or structured, instead opting for some more obscure and softer marks that give just the impression of the habitat in which this tree stands. I diffused some of the background imagery to make the focus move even more to the central subject of the Elm tree, standing defiantly, almost obtrusively straight down the middle of the page, cleaving the entire sketch in two halves.


Thursday 3 November 2011

Back Catalogue: Colourful Crumbling Church

Acrylic on Board 24"x20"

This was a piece that I created a while ago as part of a project at college, I decided to experiment and not hold back with the colour. As a result I ended up going slightly mad with it and this eventually culminated with the piece above.
The Subject is taken from a quick sketch I had done of a ruined church situated on the side of a hill, though to look at you would hardly recognise it as such if it were not for the tower still somewhat identifiable. The whole place is locked in a fierce battle against the elements that it unfortunately seems to be losing; however it is definitely going out with a bit of a bang, in the form of this dramatic ruin that staunchly refuses to go quietly.
As I said before, I didn’t hold back with the colour on this piece and just went for it, smearing it on in various hues with your bog standard brushes and few different palette knives for the larger areas. I think this has added a slightly eerie quality to the overall appearance, which I have decided that I quite enjoy, although I’m not a hundred percent sure why.

Friday 28 October 2011

Sketchbook: Some Seasonal Spruces

Watercolour in A5 Sketchbook

Autumn seems to be speeding along at quite a pace so while we are still in the midst of it I thought I would capture a little bit of this all too short-lived season in my sketchbook with this warm watercolour painting of a line of leafy autumnal trees in the park.
I employed a limited palette of some typically warm autumnal reds and yellow ochre’s for the majority of this sketchbook piece, as it was intended as just a quick composition to look back on for future work. However, having completed it, I am quite pleased with the ultimate result. It is quite a simple representation, I didn’t try to capture anything more detailed than a fleeting impression of the subject but there is something in the simplicity of it that I appreciate and regard as quite engaging.
P.S. I googled it and apparently these trees aren't technically spruces but then my alliterative title wouldn't have worked.

Thursday 27 October 2011

Some Arboreal Botherations

Watercolour on A2 Cartridge Paper

I used watercolour to create this piece of a lonely oak tree on the side of a slope. I went slightly mad with this piece, incorporating any colour or means of applying the paint that took my fancy.
I started with the main trunk of the tree, deciding against including a distinct background of any sorts, so I sketched it all out in a light burnt sienna. Then I filled in much of the main trunk and the thicker branches with various brown hues adding touches of sap green to give the impression of some mossy patches clinging onto the bark. I also gave a slight hint of the hill upon which this oak tree grew with a faint wash of sap green at the base to give this tree something to grasp on to. I was quite pleased at this stage, but then I started on the foliage and that’s were it started to go downhill in my opinion.
I started on the leaves with another sap green wash, like with the hill at the tree base and then suggesting some more frondescent details using a hookers green applied with a rigger brush. I was still quite happy at this stage, but this is where I began to go a little bit crazy with the colour. I thought I would give it a more autumnal mood by utilising some warmer pigments to the foliage with some cadmium yellows, oranges and a light red. I applied these colours by flicking them onto the surface with an old toothbrush dipped into the mixed colours in the hope that it would add little flourishes. I’m not totally convinced this has worked but I don’t think the piece is a complete disappointment, and others have said they liked it so maybe my efforts with this piece were not completely wasted in vain.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Trees by the Riverbank

Charcoal on Paper

So this is a rough Charcoal sketch based upon a peaceful little place that feels like an oasis, starkly contrary to the bustling crowds of Canterbury High Street only a stones throw away.
It should be noted that I didn't actually draw this on location as it were, but rather in the studio from a combination of memory and a few sketches I had already completed, which is why, having been back to te place with the sketch it doesn't quite match up in many of the details. However, it is still a piece I am fond of and am also pleased with as it captures something of the mood of the place.

Sunday 23 October 2011

A 'Back Catalogue' Piece

Acrylic on Board

A piece from my 'back catalogue' as it were, produced earlier this year on a project about Ruin and Decay I was working on.
This painting was a practice piece for a much larger painting that i worked on soon after completing this. I used a old cloth rag to rub the acrylic paint straight onto the surface of the board, creating this blurred, coarse effect that I quite like the appearance of. I didn't mix the paint before adding it to the piece, applying it raw, straight from the tube allowing the blending to happen both on the surface and in the eye of the viewer.
The subject is a completely ruined stone wall where there is only just about enough left of it to get an impression of an archway. I thought that the rough, rugged way of applying the paint echoed the state of the remnants of the ruined structure itself.


Friday 21 October 2011

Plaster Re-Leaf


Plaster Relief of Leaves 8.5" x 4"

So this is something that I had never tried before until a few weeks ago; Using moulds to create plaster reliefs. I started by carving a few basic leafy shapes into a slab of old clay to form a mould, into which I poured some wet plaster and left it to dry out. This was the result of my first try. Considering it is a method that I've never employed before I'm pleasantly suprised and quite satisfied with it.
I did have a go at using plaster last year on my art foundation course however I never seemed to get any decent results, I would just inevitably just end up staring at a sloppy white mess.
So yes, considering everything I am quite happy with this, I think Plaster reliefs are a good cross between a drawing and a sculptural pieces. Oh, and I hope my corny joke in the title of this post is appreciated.

Wednesday 19 October 2011

First Post (Again) - Canterbury Cathedral

Charcoal on Paper

So I have restarted this Art blog and with only this piece of work being posted on my old blog I thought it wasn't a bad idea to repost it to start this one off.

I posted this desciption of it before;
"For my first post I decided to share this piece created today from Cantebury Cathedral. It is a pillar from a chapel in the crypt underneath the Cathedral, the oldest part of the building, or so I've been told by all the tour guides. The place itself is abundant in interesting little artifacts dotted all over the place, from the medieval grafitti covering all the walls to the headless statues, haf destroyed during Henry VIII church reformation. At the centre of all this is this little chapel that is astoudingly quiet and peaceful, that is until the regular flood of tourists swirl in and out again. I think that will just about do for this post, remember it's my first one so be nice."
So there ends my first post, hopefully the first of many on this blog.