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Knife Garden
(acrylic on watercolor paper)
All those who suggested I shouldn't touch this painting I produced with a painting knife at Tony Montague's workshop, may or may not be dismayed to find I couldn't let it lie.
I said I didn't like the sky and I meant it, so I took my brush in my hand, dug out some different blues and painted over the rather scrappy, turbulent sky of the original. I think the new sky is calmer and makes the painting much less frenetic. Using different blues has left an interesting halo round the big tree and I like that effect. I'll probably leave it alone now.
I've photographed the painting in a temporary mount, just to see how it might look framed.
Last Saturday should have been another Sketch Crawl for me. The Sketch Crawlers were meeting in Nudo Noodle House in Chinatown before going on to the Discovery Museum again. Although I'd drawn in the Discovery Museum before, I was sure there'd be something new for me to look at, but as it turned out, I couldn't go.
In an attempt to finally get my old house on the market ( I moved out over two years ago), I'd arranged for someone to look at my overgrown golden cypress and quote for its removal.
The quote was good, but the best time for him to take it down was Saturday. So no Sketch Crawl for me, although the photographs are calling to me to find a painting in them.
The Climbing Tree, Saltwell Park
(0.5 Micron marker across two pages of 21x26 cm sketchbook)
If you have a good memory, or if you're prepared to look back to this entry, you'll know that in July I did some drawing with members of Gateshead Art Society in Saltwell Park, Gateshead.
In the time available, I was able to fill one page of my sketchbook with part of The Climbing Tree but was disappointed not to be able to continue onto the opposite page with more of the Tree. It was a delight, therefore, to return to the Park and to the subject with the North East Sketch Crawlers on Saturday, 16th October.
It took a while to relocate the ends of the branches and recapture a feel for the structure of the Tree, but I'm glad I did. I had planned to fill the background between the branches with a dark green wash, but for now I like it as it is.
After coffee in Bewick's Cafe, we had some time left to get a little more drawing done, so I found this view of the path leading to Pets' Corner with the roof of Saltwell Towers in the distance and drew it quite quickly as kids on bikes and scooters tried to knock me over.
Saltwell Park Path
(2B mechanical pencil in 21x26 cm sketchbook)
The Climbing Tree, Saltwell Park
(0.5 Micron marker in 21x26 cm sketchbook)
As a break from the normal session in the workroom of the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead Art Society decided on an afternoon sketching in Saltwell Park.
Amazingly, after a morning shower, the weather decided to co-operate and half a dozen of us turned up in bright sunshine to make minor masterpieces in our individual ways. For good or ill, I opted for the very complicated "Climbing Tree". It's a very old yew tree whose branches have played host to generations of kids, and I speak from personal experience.
Part way through the drawing I realised the sun had moved round and was now shining directly into my one good eye. I should have brought a hat to shade my eyes, but in the absence of one, I went for a walk to see how others were doing.
Coming back to the tree about ten minutes later, the sun wasn't being any more helpful, so I moved position to work on the right hand side branches, ignoring the small boy now clambering over them. Eventually, however, I realised I'd done enough for the day and coffee called at the cafe in Saltwell Towers.
I walked home via the bird cages and listened for a while to the nice grey parrot in the end cage telling people to "F*ck Off!"
The tree still intrigues me and I plan on going back to work on the drawing some more, taking in the branches that will spread across the left hand page.
Hancock: Hall of the Fossil Tree
(Charcoal, compressed charcoal and coloured Conte across two pages of A4 sketchbook)
Although it probably wasn't intentional, the design of the new curved display panels under the somewhat elderly museum lighting system gave a strange otherworldly aspect to the hall where the fossilised tree stood.
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