paintings prints and stuff

The cliffs at Hunstanton in greyscale to show tonal values Tonal Values Getting to grips with tonal values is essential to capture your subject in an interesting way.  The original version of the striped cliffs at Hunstanton in colour You need to use the full range of tones observable - this may be a limited range as in a subtle Gwen John interior (below) or a misty day - but more often has a wide range of contrasts.   I find students are often wary of pushing the darks enough and the finished work lacks impact - deepen those darks (with colour not black) and the painting comes to life.   Gwen John This Gwen John interior is a beautiful study using a limited tonal range, the shadows under the chair the darkest area, though not intensely dark, the rest bathed in a diffused light. Half close your eyes to simplify tonal values and capture them with more ooomph.  Colours are a totally separate issue from tone - yellow in the shade c...

  Leonardo da Vinci, Hands I've been asked to expand on the points I made in my post about what I considered the essential elements in drawing and painting.   So, I'll take each point at a time and expand on what I mean, with examples.  This is 1 of 10. Because I think globally, holistically, I find it difficult to separate them!   My brain is wired so that these elements totally interlock and depend upon each other.  I will attempt to talk about each separately - with occasional lapses and links because I can't help it! 1 Observation:   All the images shown here are the result of intense observation from life . Unless your work is totally abstract, with no representational element at all, observation is crucial.  A different kind of observation is still needed even then.   Learn to look hard.  It's often necessary to take longer looking than actually drawing. Each time I say drawing , please read painting-and-dr...

 Cardoon, detail, coloured pencil What are the crucial , vital, key elements in drawing and painting?  There isn't a hard division between painting and drawing - they blur into each other - for instance, charcoal is extremely painterly and paintings need drawing elements (with paint). For me the key elements are: observation and underlying drawing skills even in very free or very sketchy work, it's what makes it hang together believably -  it doesn't need to result in a photorealist image, just one where proportions and perspective and form are shown.  The observation in a Degas sketch is amazing, with life and vitality,  but not photo like.  The sketches of David Hockney or Van Gogh are made up of pattern and marks - but the landscape reads, uphill down dale and the woods and hedgerows flow. . good use of tone , showing the full range observable - this may be limited as in a subtle Gwen John interior - but more often has a wide range of con...

Mawgan Porth, Moonrise, coloured pencil and gouache on a deep buff paper Originally the cliff top showed more clearly against the dark clouds, paler.   It jarred, I didn't like it, so I sat down to create a lost edge - the cliff top edge barely visible against the dark cloud.  I like it better. This is another in that sketchbook with the deep buff paper - you can see it in places in this and the other images. I also added  a little white gouache to enhance the gleam on the water, moved the moon (with the flick of my hand!), added a ring around the moon and I'm happier with it now.. The clouds haven't scanned well  - they are softer with more subtleties and changes of colour than is picked up here.   I think it's finished. details:

Pollarded willows, charcoal and pastel in limed ash frame or black frame, framed it's about 3ft Selecting frames is difficult.   The frame can make or break a picture - but it also has to fit in with a buyers house. I notice this makes for a huge difference in opinions on framing between the US, UK and the continent when discussing framing with friends.  American friends always seem to go for dark dark wood, continental friends like more ornate frames, in England we tend to go for pale, minimalist framing - it so much depends on the surroundings in which they are to be hung as well as the image itself. Originally I had framed the piece above in limed ash with an antique white (pale cream) mat/mount but wasn't at all happy with it.   I hadn't thought enough about it.   The drawing has a lot of darks with compressed charcoal as well as deep colour, is 'heavy' and the frame didn't stand up to it, seeming too pale and insubstantial.   The pale limed a...

Early Winter Woods, oil on deep sided canvas, approx 24 ins wide, old painting Do you always stick to a standard size for work to enable easy framing?  or do you allow the subject to dictate the format? For me there is no question.   The subject dictates the format.     I tend to find the standard sizes are frequently not right for me.  I enjoy working on long thin formats, vertical or horizontal, square, just off square - all sorts. OK it involves custom framing if they are on paper, or making my own canvasses up if on canvas.  Use the same framer regularly and the they will usually do you a competitive price - mine does, so the extra cost is minimal. I don't frame canvasses, I use deep sided gallery wrap, paint the sides neatly and that's that.   Winter trees, oil on deep canvas,  I no longer have it but it was 30/36 inches tall My husband made up the stretchers for these long thin canvasses for me - B...

Another drawing of my daughters cat, sleeping this time with her beautiful bushy whiskers curling, fur glowing in the sunlight. Again in the A4 moleskine folio sketchbook, done with a mix of Lyra and Polychromos pencils.  This one is much closer up, so the fluffy, overlapping texture of the fur shows much more with lots of drawing back in with the Jakar eraser for the pale over dark sections and the whiskers. I deliberately gave the background a mauve/blue haze of colour to cool down all those warm glowing colours and offset them. detail of details drawn back in with the Jakar eraser You can see the layers of colour in this detail and the lines drawn back in with the Jakar eraser, clean back to the cream moleskine paper.

A quick demo done for my class of splattering watercolour wet-in-wet and drawing through with the brush handle as a pen One of my students, just starting watercolours, was doing some very heavy, one dimensional trees. This was a quick demo to encourage him to consider them as 3 dimenstional, with branches coming towards him as well as sideways :>) and to leave 'sky holes'; to consider colour variation, texture, light and shade and different intervals/areas of colour. It's very important not to let marks become same-y and standard sized. Colours were splattered wet-in-wet by holding the paintbrush horizontally, only an inch or two above the paper and tapping it sharply with the forefinger of the same hand. This means the area that the drops land in is fairly controlled but with the lovely randomness of nature. 'Throwing' the brush Jackson Pollock style results in more directional marks - and more mess :>) and isn't always suitable for small pai...