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:

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.

Inking the Gravestones

Jesmond Old Cemetery

(Marker ink over printed pencil drawing.)

Because of our holiday break in Spain, I wasn't able to get my designated gravestones drawn for inclusion in an Urban Sketchers/Friends of Jesmond Old Cemetery project. In the hope that some of my less specific drawings from our first visit to the Old Cemetery can be used, I spent some time today inking in a copy of my pencil drawing from that Sketch Crawl.

Jesmond Old Cemetery 22 April 2017
(2B pencil in A4 sketchbook)

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.

Chinese Bamboo

Bamboo (detail) (Chinese ink on Xuan paper)

Today I finally overcame the obstacles preventing me from attending a meeting of Gateshead Art Society. As I've explained previously, I won't be able to work in oils there so water media of some sort will be what I have to get to grips with. Finding subject matter to work that way and a general mental resistance have held me back, so when I realised that today's session would consist of a workshop in basic Chinese painting techniques I figured that that at least would relieve me of the need for subject matter.

The tutor was enthusiastic and demonstrated the basic strokes for painting bamboo stems and leaves very clearly. I have to say, however, that by the time I'd covered the (quite large) piece of paper with bamboo and leaves, I'd probably had enough of bamboo. What I did enjoy was using the brush and learning how to get the best out of it.

When we finished the session by learning how to do the "8 stroke panda" I began to lose patience a little. While I understand the tremendously long tradition behind this kind of painting, it goes against all my instincts to learn a "how to" technique to paint anything. It's like students I've heard asking "How do I paint a tree?" or worse, tutors who tell you "This is how to paint a tree." You learn how to paint a tree by looking at it. I guess you learn how to paint a panda by looking at it too.

As painting an 8 stroke panda was on the cards, I did one. But it looked lonely, so I painted two more. If only there was an instruction on how to paint a bowl of porridge.



Pandas (Chinese ink on Xuan paper)

Silver Hills

Silver Hills (Fountain pen, coloured pencils, A5 sketchbook)

At a bit of a loose end following the intense period of making the Edinburgh paintings, I found myself looking out of the study window today. For the first time in the twenty years I've lived in this house, I decided to draw the view across the Team Valley to the Silver Hills.

Old Drawings #31, #32 and #33

I was woken from my slumbers by the call of the lesser spotted scaffolder this morning. Can window replacement be far behind? Not far at all - Monday, in fact. I'm having all the windows at the back, including the studio window replaced with uPVC.

This intrusion of scaffolding, coupled with my first heavy cold of the winter, meant I didn't go to the Club today. This winter is seriously affecting my work production, although on the positive side, it's giving me ample time for further reflection.

So, with no new work to show you, Old Drawings steps into the breach. These are from a drawing workshop I went to (at the Art Club, as a matter of fact, before I became a member) in 1996. The one above was done using graphite sticks and white spirit on cartridge paper. An interesting method, but a smelly one, and probably not particularly good for your health.



This one was simply charcoal on cartridge paper.

And this was made with a bamboo pen dipped in Indian ink applied to cartridge paper.

Flawed

(Ink, digital colour)

This poor chap is for this week's Illustration Friday brief: Flawed.

Clandestine

Clandestine (Epsilon 11)

Pencils: Rob Hansen; Inks and digital colour: Harry Bell

[Used with Rob's permission]

Back in the 1980s, my old friend Rob Hansen and I collaborated on some fanzine covers. This one, dated 1982, was for Rob's own fanzine, Epsilon, and I did the inking over his pencils. The subject seemed to suit this week's Illustration Friday subject, Clandestine, so this time round I added some digital colour.