Dirty Boot - Still Life

Dirty Boot

Acrylic - A3

 

"Dirty shoes and roses can both be good in the same way." - Vincent Van Gogh

Lilies - Still Life with Flowers

Lilies

Acrylic - A3

 

'There are always flowers for those who want to see them'

- Henri Matisse 

Drawings: OCA Part 4: Proportions I - Quick Poses

Marker Pen on Scrap Paper

 

Now onto the fourth part of my drawing course and it is time for some figure drawing, a subject that always seems to be very hit and miss with me. I know I can produce some very good figure drawings but at the same time I’m prone to some awful ones too, shall just have to see how it goes.

 

Producing these quick drawings in a few minutes was quite refreshing after spending hours on the same drawing of a tree and such like. Although it was challenging to capture the character of the subjects in such a short time, sometimes it started to come through surprisingly quickly with just a few well chosen lines.

 



Biro Pen on A4 Cartridge Paper

 



Marker Pen and Biro (L) - Soft Pastel (R)

Biro Pen (L) - Pencil (R)

Paintings: A Very Warm Portrait.

Acrylic on A1 Paper

This piece is a portrait from quite a while ago but I thought I should probably update this blog with some more art before I completely forget about it.

I completely covered the paper with a thin coat of orange acrylic before proceeding with the rest of the painting. I tried to be quite spontaneous with the colour but the whole piece seems to be biased towards warmer tones, so I think if I were to try again with this I would add some blues and pale greens to defuse this. Overall I quite like this artwork though, especially the shape of it.

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.



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.

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.

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.