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.

Dressing Table

Dressing Table

(0.2 marker in A5 sketchbook)

I've got several paintings on the go, quite a few of them scheduled to appear in a group show in a theatre gallery in Alnwick. However, the Coronavirus has put a stop to that, at least for the foreseeable future.

With the pressure to finish the paintings off for now, I found myself yesterday eyeing up Pat's dressing table in our bedroom. I've always liked the look of it and planned to draw it one day but somehow never found the time. Coronavirus provides us with copious spare time!

Normally these days I would start a drawing like this by simply making a mark with my marker and carrying on from there. With this piece of furniture, however, I lost my nerve and made a quick pencil layout to make sure I'd get it properly placed on the page. Sometimes it's just necessary.