Iris Watercolour & Sketch

Garden Irises

It's been a wonderful year for Irises in our Tuscan garden. They've been popping up in places I've never seen them before. The first year we were here I'd dash out to photograph or sketch each bloom as it appeared. Such is the abundance this year, I've been a bit overwhelmed. I know I should have tried for a big painting but I've always been inhibited by the benchmark set by Van Gogh.

Katherine Tyrrell, (Making a Mark) has put together a wonderful post tracking her inspiration through Hokusai to Van Gogh to produce a beautiful coloured pencil study after Van Gogh.

I was finally forced to attempt a watercolour when Jean gave me a splendid specimen from her garden. I hate picking flowers and cutting their life short but this one had actually fallen over due to the weight of its enormous blooms.

Abandoned Watercolour

I don't often give up entirely on a painting but something about this flower made me put down my brush. Part of the problem was that I didn't pay enough attention to the initial drawing. I cut corners and had no believable structure to guide me. Anyway I gave up and took some photos instead.

Trying to overcome a glum 'can't paint anything' mood, I went 'surfing' the blogs that so often inspire. Casey Klahn (The Colorist) has tracked down a fabulous site featuring the work of Henri Matisse. I started doodling Matisse-style in awe, as always, of the spirited beauty of his line.

So in the end it wasn't Van Gogh or Hokusai who sent me back to the dreaded iris, but Matisse. Armed with an A3 sketchbook and a Tombow brush pen I ignored everything but the spirit of the iris and I was finally happy with the result.

Oil Painting's driving me mad.

WIP after Giovanna Garzoni - oil on canvas 50 x 35cm

I didn't have any desire to paint in oil until I was invited to join a local group of Italian artists. I loved the idea of the company and the opportunity to practise my Italian. Everyone was painting in oils. Everyone was painting after the masters. Our teacher doesn't like watercolour. He saw me as a watercolour painter. I started painting contemporary pictures in oil - very slowly because I am totally lacking in confidence with this media. Eventually, in order to benefit from his vast experience, I started trying to copy the masters.

Currently I'm working on a still life after Giovanna Garzoni. She was an amazing woman - Italian artist who lived between 1600-1670, never married, sold her work for big money to wealthy patrons. She made enough to retire at 45 and left a fortune to an art school when she died. Mostly she worked in tempera on vellum.

Giovanna is probably turning in her grave because my picture is copied from two of her paintings. As usual it is going Very Slowly and I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm missing something in oils, I enjoy the feel of them and love the blend ability but it's driving me mad!

So I put aside Garzoni and grabbed a small canvas panel and set about offending Van Gogh....

After Van Gogh - oil on canvas panel 18 x 24 cm

Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of this genius! It was impossible to duplicate the wealth of his brushmarks. I worked as quickly as I could - got it done in an afternoon but still had that empty, lost feeling.

There was paint left on my palette so I went mad on a piece of watercolour paper....

I sat back and looked at what I had done and thought - something about this looks familiar - not good but familiar. Is oil painting driving me mad?

Mirror, Mirror

Since I seem to be taking so long to complete the watercolour I am doing after Hiroshi Yoshida's beautiful print - At the Mirror 1928 - I thought I would post a warts and all work in progress, sharing the errors and corrections along the way. This is my first half sheet of Fabrino HP 300lb paper. It is so beautiful and so forgiving.

I have only seen a reproduction of the print on the internet and am besotted with it. It's interesting that I happened upon this wonderful Japanese artist after exploring Vincent Van Gogh's work through the Fine Line Artists February Artist Project. Van Gogh was inspired by Japanese art. I'm reading a lot about all types of print making at present and am in awe of the process Hiroshi Yoshida went through to produce his prints. I hope my humble watercolour does not offend.

Almond Tree in Flower

Il mandorlo in fiore - sounds beautiful in Italian. This started as a quick impression in my sketchbook but ended up rather tighter than I intended. Difficult to capture the blossom against a pale watercolour sky. I ended up adding a little Gouache.
Have you seen Van Gogh's oil painting Peach trees in blossom? Beautiful. I'm tempted to try this almond tree in acrylic in the VVG style but not sure that I should be distracted by acrylics again at this stage.

We finally got our Italian driver's licenses yesterday! It only took five months! Even more reason to beware on the Italian roads ;)

Van Gogh inspired colour

I printed the scan of my original sketch for the Cloisters on a piece of very old 90lbs Canson Montval watercolour paper. I did a light wash of Cad Yellow and Cobalt Turquoise WN watercolours and then went to work with the watercolour pencils (Lyra Rembrandt and Caran D'Ache Prismalo). My inspiration for the colour was Vincent Van Gogh's Hospital Hall.

I masked the drawing with masking tape which proved to be a disaster on this paper. It ripped shreds off when I removed it! What did I learn from this exercise, apart from the nasty masking tape lesson? This is far from the actual colour of my reference (below), so it really has encouraged me to be much bolder with colour choices in future.
The Entrance Hall of Saint-Paul Hospital - 1889
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Cloistered with Van Gogh

This is the Cloister of the Church of San Francesco here in Castiglion Fiorentino. Rebuilt at the beginning of 1600, it has a Tuscan-style double loggia in a rectangular plan. I began this time with a pencil sketch which I inked over using a fountain pen with Pelikan Brilliant Brown Ink. It was a relief to discover that even Vincent liked to give himself a pencil outline as a guide. I tried to replicated many of Van Gogh's marks and the little bird in the sky is a tribute to him. I'm rather pleased with this one!

I can't go on aping Vincent forever but what I can take away from this project is the realisation that there is more than one way to make a mark. I hope that in future the marks I make will give my sketches a great deal more energy.

Since the pencil sketch took so long (I find arches really difficult) I scanned it and printed a copy to practise my marks on rather than risk spoiling the drawing. I am now going to use the scan to play around with this image with some watercolour pencils. Since I originally posted this I have replaced the scanned image of the drawing with a photograph, which shows the true colour.

See the link in the previous post for more about the Fine Line Artists Van Gogh Project.

Did Van Gogh get his sleeve in the ink?!

I wonder how many people over the years have sat stabbing at a piece of paper with a bamboo pen trying to channel Van Gogh. If I ever make contact I'm going to ask him how he avoided getting his sleeve in the ink.

I revisited that marvellous learning resource at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website How Van Gogh Made his Mark as part of my ongoing exploration of the artist. I wanted to move on from charcoal to ink. I don't have a reed pen but I had a virgin Hake Series Bamboo Pen and some rather nice brown inks. What I was interested in was how VG made all his hatches, dots and curlicues. I've concluded that curlicues are definitely beyond my present level of skill. I think the Met. site is for children but since my inner child is alive and well it suits me down to the ground.

I then went off to the Vincent Van Gogh Gallery - what a debt we owe to the creator of this site! The Fine Line Artists February Artist Project will be long over before I have sampled more than a morsel of what is on offer there. The drawings are amazing. I was totally unprepared for the extent of VG's genius for sketching. I am inspired by everything but spent a good deal of time look at Harvest in Provence and the Courtyard of the Hospital in Arles 1889.

I look around and realise how blind I have been until now. I take lots of photographs but I never really know how to exploit them in a non-literal way.

So, taking baby steps, with eyes wide open, I'm going to follow Van Gogh on a journey through Tuscany. For sure we are both going to be happier when the weather warms up a bit and we get out of my tiny, windowless studio into the countryside.

First attempt above is Olive Farm - Cortona. I lightly drew myself a little map of the design of the landscape in 2B pencil and then went in with the ink. I've made quite a mess in spots and of course, managed to drag my sleeve through the ink.

I think you will find a link on Katherine's blog of all our fellow travellers on this Van Gogh Journey.

Palazzo Pretorio

I've joined the Fine Line Artists Van Gogh Project with the intention to study this wonderful artist during February, in an attempt to improve my work by drawing some inspiration in line, colour and composition from a master. Of course I've dashed right in with a charcoal sketch, when I really should be making a serious plan of attack and pondering exactly what is is that makes Van Gogh - Van Gogh. In a way, I think the answer is in the fact that I couldn't wait to get started when I saw, for the first time, his drawing The Weigh-House (Building in Eindhoven) posted by Casey Klahn as part of his Van Gogh project.

The charcoal sketch above (26cm x 20cm) is from a photo I took a couple of days ago when we were walking the dogs in the late afternoon sun. The big building is Palazzo Pretorio (1412), which has been modified since medieval times. It is currently our local library. The small church on the right is the Church of S. Angelo (12C) which is now the Municipal Art Gallery.

I think Van Gogh would have been attracted by the dramatic shadows and the interesting pattern of grass and paths. I've never sketched a landscape in charcoal before (hate getting my fingers dirty!) but I must say I'm really excited by the potential. I may come back to this picture a few times during the project, to see what I can make of it in pen and ink and possibly watercolour.