Three Men in a Bar

Three Men in a Bar

(acrylic on canvas board, 8x8 in)

Week 3 of the Shipley Art Gallery's Lockdown Challenge gave us this 19th C painting  and challenged us to "paint your friends, family or neighbour."

Grandfather's Tale 

by E J Davis

My painting is based on a photograph of me and a couple of friends at my stag night in 2014. The painting doesn't set out to be three portraits, although some might think they recognise two of the people in it.

My Back Door

My Back Door

(markers in A5 sketch book)

It's Mondaymonday again and for a change, I'm on time! Colin's Challenge this week for Mondaymonday (Isolated) Sketchers was "My Back Door". I planned on sitting outside but left it too long and the sun went elsewhere, so I sat and drew the back door from inside the french windows. 

The very patient wood pigeon sat on the wall for almost all the time it took to draw this, certain I'd go away and leave him to the bird seed, but eventually he gave up and flew off. An hour later, he was back, of course.

My Favourite Painting

My Favourite Painting

(markers, watercolour and collage in square sketchbook)

A bit of fun, really, and late for this week's Challenge from the Mondaymonday (Isolated) Sketchers. In fact it turned out to be a Thursdaythursday sketch.

It's a painting by Michael Scott (1946-2006), whose son Jonny I went to University with. Michael put the painting in our blind postcard auction and i was wise enough to buy it. It's titled "The Fisherman in Search of his Lost Soul"(December 2000).

Marsh Marigolds

Marsh Marigolds

(acrylic on watercolour board, 8x8 in)

The Shipley Art Gallery's second Challenge to Gateshead Art Society members presented us with two paintings, ‘Apple Blossom’ by Roger Ashby and ‘Summer Time’ by Ralph Hedley, showing the start of Spring and the middle of Summer. The challenge was to "create an artwork that shows how we are witnessing the start of Spring from our home, garden or daily walk. What flowers are starting to bloom and what animals are appearing?"

I wasn't going to do the Challenge this week because we have - or had - no flowers. Then the marsh marigolds in our little pond came to the rescue.

I found myself struggling a little with this painting, mainly I think because it's in such a very realist style and I could have achieved that more readily with oil paint. Blending acrylic is not so easy.

The Botanist

The Botanist

(acrylic on canvas board, 8x8 in)

I often think that when I'm unable to go out as now, due to Coronavirus Lockdown, I turn inwards to my imagination. When I completed the recent Man with Birds, it triggered a renewed interest in figure painting of a certain type. Previous attempts to get the idea up and running always failed, but this latest effort seems to be on the right track. 

Telephone

Telephone

(markers in A5 sketchbook)

In these days of Coronavirus Lockdown I find the days merging into one another, so it's not really surprising that it wasn't until members of Mondaymondaysketchers started posting their sketches online on Monday evening that I realised I'd forgotten it was Monday and hadn't done the Monday Challenge.

The Challenge, set by Colin again, was "This has meant more to me since the lockdown started". A challenge indeed. On Tuesdaytuesday, I asked myself what to draw? Abandoning the idea of drawing a bottle of gin or whisky (someone had beaten me to it!), I finally decided on the telephone in my studio.

If truth be told, I rarely use the landline these days, preferring emails, but I think the telephone serves as a symbol of the need to stay on contact we all feel at the moment.

Stay safe and well, y'all!

Man with Birds

Man with Birds

(acrylic on canvas board, 8x8 in)

Gateshead Art Society can’t meet these days at the Shipley Art Gallery because of the virus, so those nice people at the Shipley have set the Club a Challenge based on a painting in their collection. This is the painting:

'The Chorus of Birds'

by Jan van Kessel

 We were asked to "draw or paint any birds or animals you see out of your window or garden. If you have a pet, you could draw them instead." 

Being a disobedient artist with precious few birds in the garden and no pets, I decided I’d just riff on the basic idea and the painting you see above is the result. It's a curious affair, but one that answers a little voice in my head that often asks why I don't get on and paint the kind of figure paintings I've always intended to paint. How to interpret that answer I leave to another time, but the Coronavirus Lockdown is leading me down interesting paths.

Woman with Window Boxes

Woman with Window Boxes

(Mixed media on board, 8x8 in.)

I thought I knew where this painting was going but as time went on, it proved to have a will of its own. The wall became very textured, partly as a result of umpteen layers of newspaper, tissue paper, teabags, ink and paint used to get to a point where I was satisfied. In the process, a vine of some indeterminate sort grew up the side of the window and flourished.

In case you're interested, this is the photograph that inspired the painting: