Polar Dancing

Cicely wasn't sure she had the figure for it, but this polar dancing was all the rage with the younger penguins these days. The thong however was definitely a mistake.

painting with a limited palette

So, having finished the four A4 charcoal studies required for the first project in my painting course, the next step was to paint the still life I'd been drawing, on A2 paper, using a limited palette of three colours only (black, white, yellow ochre) and beginning by painting the negative space. The idea was to concentrate on shape and tone, to get a feel for them in paint, and not to worry about the detail of the objects themselves. The idea was not to come up with a polished, "finished" painting. This is a photo of the painting on my drawing board. The yellow has come out a lot more intense in the photo than it is in real life. I enjoyed the exercise a lot more than I thought it would. Once I started, I tried not to think too much and just kept going.

Even Fortune gets caught in the rain...

So this is an ink and watercolour version of a 16th Century ink drawing that I found on the internet, researching images of fortune. The original drawing (the bottom one, in case you hadn't figured that out!) caught my eye because of the exquisite line work. I'm afraid my version of Fortune makes her look like she's just been splashed by a passing car, or rather a carriage, running over a puddle. But I reckon even Fortune has days like this, hence the title of this post.

At first I was intimidated by the original drawing and wasn't sure about attempting to copy it, but then again, I love a challenge and will try anything I haven't done before. In many ways, it was a pleasure to copy because the line work was so good, and I learned a lot from doing it. The drawing has at times been attributed to Durer, which is an error. The artist was a German engraver known as Master MZ.

final charcoal studies

The top two drawings were the first two studies that I posted a little while ago here, except these are the "improved" versions, where I added to the drawings as suggested in the assignment. The bottom two are the final third and fourth studies that we had to do for this project.

It was a first for me to do so many studies of the same subject, and to stick to the same subject over a number of weeks. I really enjoyed doing so and definitely benefitted from applying myself in this way.

Soon, I will begin painting.

the blue room - work in progress

Remember this place Na?

trees in pimlico

Landscapes with green (playing with gouache)

cut flower

pencil & gouache

dreams of green and blue

ink, watercolour and gouache

Snap too...Lotty napping

up close and personal

Some recent mandalas