Roy's Italian Door

Roy's Italian Door

(mixed media on board, 30 x 30 cm)

As I said last month, I enjoyed making the painting, Door Textures, and decided to make more of these texture pieces. This one uses acrylic paint, paper collage, Posca Pens, coloured inks and acrylic gel.

Pollard

Pollard

(Ink, Pentel Brush Pen and Posca Pen in 8x8 in sketchbook)

In March I spent six days in Belgium; first of all in Bruges, then in Leuven. They were both fascinating places to visit and I'd love to go there again. If only Brexit can be prevented from cutting us off completely from Europe. Or just prevented.

Being new to a place always makes it more likely that I'll spend the whole time there walking about, looking and photographing, rather than sketching. And so it was this time.

I'd love to go back, especially to Bruges, where I saw so much I'd want to draw. Oddly, rather than the buildings, the thing that stuck in my mind was the Flemish obsession with pollarding trees and I wish I'd taken more photographs of pollarding examples. I'd certainly make more of them were I able to do some drawing there.

Using one of only two photographs I took, I made this drawing today by quickly brushing in the shape with some ochre ink, then drawing over it with a Pentel Brush Pen. The cut ends of the branches were highlighted with a white Posca Pen.

Old Buildings, Chania

Old Buildings, Chania

(mixed media on board, 12 x 12 in)

Finished about a week ago, this painting is based on some buildings near where Pat and I stayed on Crete last year. There's a big post needed to deal with that, as I've hinted before, but this isn't the time for it. 

This picture was long in the making because I'm going through a quite experimental (for me) period of trying out new materials and methods. For this I used acrylic paint, Posca Pens, FW Acrylic Ink, a bottle of dye with no label on it, tissue paper, and collage papers. It was a fascinating, if messy, experience.

The London Bookbarge

The London Bookbarge

(acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in)

On a recent trip to London, we went for a walk along the Regent's Canal towpath and came across the wonderful Word on the Water - The London Bookbarge. Taking a few photographs, I knew there was a special painting there, and so it proved to be.

This is possibly the most abstract painting I've done, yet, of course, it isn't abstract at all. It's just that all the shapes and marks suggest an abstract. I like it a lot and am pleased to find the owners of the Bookbarge like it too.

Just a note about the materials: although it is an acrylic painting, I used quite a few Posca Pens and resorted again to some old Letraset for the signage.

Mint Street Recovery

Mint Street WIP

(acrylic on board, 25 x 25 cm)

I'm pleased to say my solution for eliminating the annoying Sharpie lines worked. Using acrylic matte medium, I pasted down two layers of very thin paper so that I could see the general outlines of the painting, then re-established the main colour areas. 

Tidied up and corrected with a few Posca Pens (which is why you should ignore the rather insistent blue lines), it feels ready to to be taken forward. The little man outside the shop has become a ghost, but I expect he can be summoned into life again.

Lost in the Woods

Tower in the Woods WIP

(Acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in)

Thinking I was on a roll with these woodland path paintings, I decided to try this one, based on a conflation of two photographs taken in Croatia. I've always liked  the idea of finding deserted or derelict buildings in the middle of woods so the Romantic in me was pleased. I think perhaps I would have liked it to have become darker, more sinister, but my sunny personality won out as always (winky emoji).

Initially, I'd planned to paint it on one of the more recent 8x8 inch canvases but then decided the subject deserved something a little larger, hence the 12x12 inch panel (incidentally cut from one of the many paintings I've had to destroy in the last year). Yet, as I've often found to be the case, the change in scale, even this small a change, proved awkward. By restricting the available area, the smaller sized paintings made me more economical with the shrubbery; given the relatively broad expanse of the new support (I exaggerate), I ran amok with wild and florid bushes and tree tops.

It was all too busy. What I've done now - and the photo shows where we are at the moment - is draw round the main clumps of bushes with a green Posca Pen and flatten out the shapes with darker paint within those outlines. It already looks better, so I'll try to reassert some of their solidity without, I hope, making it all too busy again.

Sketchbook Circle - nearing the end.

Holidays in Spain meant I had little time to work on my Sketchbook Circle book, so only four pages this time. Materials used : Posca Pens, torn envelopes and magazines, cut up prints from my Circle Partner, Gwen, maps, a postage stamp, a chocolate wrapper, various other found papers and some basic printing.

General Dealers

General Dealers
(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

Well, nostalgia isn't such a bad thing after all. I'm rather pleased with this and may consider doing more, if I can find material I like.

Working with acrylic is certainly interesting. I had intended to hand letter the shop signage, but a memory surfaced of a big binder of Letraset I had stored away and I dug it out. Sure enough, there was a sheet of white Letraset Printpak so I decided to see if it would apply itself  to a surface of acrylic paint. "GENERAL"went on nicely, but I hadn't counted on the age of the Letraset. It seems after forty years or so, the carrier film becomes very friable and as I started on the word "DEALERS" I found the plastic film simply breaking up as I rubbed on the lettering.

The result is as you see it, rather patchy and broken. I figured I'd have to try to repair it with a pen and acrylic ink, or at a push, a Posca Pen, but the more I looked at it, the more it looked appropriate for the signage of an old corner shop. So it's staying.

More Sketchbook Circle Pages

These are the latest pages in my Sketchbook Circle sketchbook 2017. The first three show additions I made to Gwen's pages, the rest are those I've started or completed alone. Materials used were Posca Pens, watercolour, acrylic ink, patterned parcel tape, washi tape, magazine cuttings, wrapping paper, paper bags, simple printmaking, postage stamps, sheet music, black brush pen, and various adhesive shapes.