Buildings/Architecture

Bosham Harbour and Church: the finished painting

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bosham-harbour-finished-painting

The finished painting finally!

There wasn’t too much to do since the last post. The boats had to be detailed and their reflections put in.

The boat in the foreground had a dark blue spinnaker tightly wrapped, which is probably the wrong word. I am not a sailor, and although I enjoy painting them, I am not up in boating terminology. The next nearest boat, had a spinnaker in orange and red which was highly convenient for the colour composition. I used a red buoy, and the reefed sail was also red. Again apologies to sailors if I have that term wrong. The furthest boat almost did itself really

So there it is. After the commissioned painting of Bosham worked out so well, I really wanted one myself for the March exhibition. This one, I think, will frame up well. Incidentally this is one of those occasions when the jpeg does not do justice to the original, which is softer somehow.

I have been looking at my list for the exhibition, for which I want fourteen framed pictures in all. I need to repaint the Notre Dame with Pigeons picture in a different mood, probably in bright sunshine and also missing out that dreadful marquee, which will make it look more attractive to people

One of my existing local pictures needs to be reframed, and there is also a painting I want to do of Sicily which I hope will turn out well. With what I have already, I could put fourteen pictures into the field, without doing more

Not that I will stop, of course, because I never do, and anyway there are other exhibitions coming up throughout the year, so still much to do. Inevitably if I have something better, I will change the entries for the March exhibition too

Hopefully in the coming weeks I will be talking about more work as I complete it

Bosham Harbour: continue with the painting

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bosham-harbour-continued

It seems a long time ago that I touched this painting, and in fact it is the best part of a month, which for me, in between stages this is too long. I have totally lost the thread of what I had planned for this picture, so I shall have to rethink it

We went to Germany for the markets, where I became ill with some virulent chest infection, and then celebrated a family Christmas over three days. Now different branches of the family have flown off to Spain and to Thailand, and so peace descends.After a morning sorting a few things out, I started to look at my easel again, and with confidence surprisingly ebbed away, I picked up my brushes and started to get my mind round the picture and how to tackle it.

If you remember the first post that I did on this painting, you will see that I have added the reflections of the quayside houses and the Saxon church. It may not look much for an afternoon’s work, but that is what it took me

I find with reflections that I do an awful lot of zooming in and out again. That is, I paint a bit and then go to the door and look back. I don’t do a mirror-image reflection, I never do. Some people do and do it well. I like a reflection to look as though it is on water, and not on glass. In other words, it has to wobble a bit, and the colours don’t reach the same intensity as the buildings themselves. But that is me!

I altered some of the houses and gave them a white facade. They were a bit too gloomy, and no distinction between any of them. There were also some flagpoles and masts of boats outside the yacht club to be added.

I am generally happy with the reflections. I think they look like reflections, although one or two need tidying up

The other thing I did was to put shadows into the boats. That has to harden and then I can start on detailing them which will be a long job. I still have to decide on colours. Red for one of the reefed sails and also the spinaker, as that will make a nice reflection. The others to be decided

Decisions, decisions!

Monschau in the Eifel Mountains, Germany

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monschau-in-the-eifel-mountains

The very pretty and old village of Monschau on the river Rur ( without an h). Very cold in the valley but nice where the sun caught. We were expecting to find a Christmas market open that day, but it wasn’t. The village itself was very attractive though, high in the Eifel Mountains, an area of Germany I hadn’t visited before. Very sparkly at this time of year, with the sun on the frost.In fairness I should say that some shops were open, and they were of a high standard, so our visit there was generally enjoyable

I took a lot of reference pictures whilst I was there. The lights and darks were good and the tumbledown buildings would be fun to draw. I haven’t painted German villages before and maybe I will. I tend to paint places that people buy at exhibition, which perhaps is wrong as nothing worse than a bored artist.

In all, our trip to the Christmas markets was not successful. Monschau was lovely, but the Christmas markets in Liege, Belgium the following day were poor, and even in Bruges on the way home, a city so beautiful normally, the markets were disappointing.

But what really marred the trip, apart from the disgusting food in our hotel, was the fact that we both became ill partway through the holiday, and towards the end all we wanted was home. I have no doubt that this jaundiced our view of the trip

I found, when I went to my own doctor,( and at my wife’s insistence), that I had developed bronchitis, so no wonder I had difficulty breathing! Thank heavens for penicillin, and now partway through my course, I am feeling much better, and interested enough to write my blog, which I have neglected.

I have done no more on Bosham Harbour sadly, not having had the will to take up a brush, but now I am looking forward to getting started again

One little ray of sunshine to brighten my gloom this week, was to hear that my charity card, Christmas Shopping in Guildford High Street, which is described somewhere in the archive of this blog, actually sold out. That was 250 packs of ten, so very pleased at that. That in addition to the original painting which I donated as well, which they sold for £150, so delighted about that too

I hope to get back to normal soon

Bosham Harbour: the painting started

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bosham-harbour-interim

Some while ago now I finished the drawing of Bosham Harbour and Church, and I posted that. I left it, as I completely messed up the initial wash. It wasn’t something I could correct, so I abandoned the whole thing. Very,very rarely do I do that, but sometimes it is the only way.

I find in situations like that, that walking way is the best thing to do.  Walk round the block, metaphorically speaking and then come back, otherwise you just get more and more frustrated, and make more and more mistakes

My way of walking round the block, was to do the Conkers painting. Completely different and completely unimportant, I was able to unwind and get myself back into finding the colour recipe for conkers which was in my head somewhere. After all that, my little bit of therapy produced a quite usable painting, and I framed it not so long ago, and was pleased with the result. This will go towards my next exhibition which will be in the Guildford Institute in March, not that far away now, so I need to work.

Back to Bosham Harbour, after redrawing the village with sailing boats, I put in a different wash, and played safe. I have no time to experiment. Phthalo blue and Cobalt produce a nice sky/sea colour and across the horizon a band of sunset produced with permanent Rose and Cadmium Orange. I started the blue wash downwards whilst at the same time starting the sunset colour at horizon level and worked upwards so the two met, and blended comfortably. Tricky using two brushes and two palettes at the same time, but it seemed to work

As you can see, I have just been detailing the church and other buildings in various reds and browns. I needed to get those roof tops really bright, and after several different glazes used cadmium red to give them some zing, so that they looked as though bright red evening sun was bouncing off them.

Still a lot of work to do, on reflections and those boats, but that is to come

Paul Nash and the Turner Prize Finalists

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Hoping to go to the Tate Britain Art gallery tomorrow, weather and circumstances permitting to see amongst other things , the Paul Nash exhibition

Paul Nash, known as a war artist covering both world wars, not as a documentary reporter, but with his own surrealist style, was also a superb landscape artist in his own right

In fact an artist of many facets

I shall look forward to writing about him and his work when i have learned more myself

Bosham Harbour: Second Version, Preparatory Drawing

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bosham-preparatory-drawing

I painted Bosham Harbour in West Sussex as a commission a few weeks ago. I painted it in evening light which I hadn’t done before, and was very pleased with the way it turned out, and relieved too seeing as it was a commission. The colours worked exceptionally well, and I was left wishing that I had something like it, to include in next year’s crop of exhibitions.

Using a number of different photographs, some of my own and some from different sources, especially the boats, I compiled the composition which I have drawn above. The church and houses I have thrown back into the distance, and extended out at the left past the boat house. The boats themselves are entirely different to my previous painting, so everything will be new, which I prefer.

One day I will be stumped as to how to paint Bosham Harbour without referring to something I have painted previously. There are other views, but this is the one people always want, with the church in the background and boats in the foreground. Move along the coast, I suppose, but there is something about Bosham which is hard to find elsewhere. Perhaps it is the historical associations with Saxon kings like Cnut and Harold, with the symbolic Saxon church as a reminder, or maybe just the sheer charm of the place, that makes it difficult to replicate

Anyway, I am going to attempt this composition as a watercolour painting and see what happens. I shall use my previous painting as a colour guide but may still experiment along the way, but still the objective will be to create a painting in evening light

We shall see how we get on

Flamingos in the Camargue: Finished Painting

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flamingos-in-the-camargue

This follows on from the last post on flamingos which just showed the preparatory drawing. I think this is one occasion where I prefer the coloured version to the black and white. The colours are really vivid

We were in the Camargue region in the Rhone estuary watching the white horses which I have already painted, and also the flamingos which breed there. This is apparently the only place in Europe that flamingos breed, although I have subsequently seen them in Sicily. Matbe they were just stopping over.

Curiously these flamingos were more white than pink, which is the image we tend to have of these birds. I have probably used more pink wash than necessary in order to get some definition between the birds. In actual fact their heads were pale pink, whilst under their wings they were bright red/orange. I used cadmium red for these markings and that was spot-on accurate

The legs again were a very deep and bright pink. I read somewhere of someone using permanent rose with some cadmium orange to get a good flamingo colour. I tried that and got cadmium red !  Oh well, two routes to the same destination, which is not necessarily such a bad thing.

I started with a light pencil drawing taken from the original sketch. I used violet to put in the shadows on the birds and on the water, which gave me the form to base the painting on. Underneath the birds, and running down the paper, I laid a very dilute wash of Windsor Yellow, as an  experiment really, which I was glad of later, and I will explain why when I get there.

I then started to put in the red markings, and the birds started to take shape. I put in reflections of the legs in the water. I left this for 24 hours to harden off, and then laid a dilute wash of phthalo blue and cobalt mix, for the water. Over the yellow, this glaze turned a soft green, and I think, made a better water colour The red reflections showed through and looked convincing. So far so good

The shadows on the water made by the birds, I deepened with Indigo. Likewise some of the deep shadows on the birds and especially on the legs, I put in with Indigo. The same colour worked well for the tips of the beaks

So there we have the finished painting. I keep looking at it and thinking it looks bright but then again it was a bright subject

Always pleased to hear from anyone else who has experience of painting these colourful birds

Exhibition in Woking Lightbox: The Camden Town Group

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This painting is by Robert Bevan 1865-1925, one of the the Camden Art School, painting as the name suggests in North London during the Edwardian period

This painting is entitled Dunns Cottage and was painted in Devon, although Bevan was just as at home painting in London, usually horse fairs and horse drawn vehicles. Bevan studied in Brittany in Pont Aven painting alongside Gauguin, and the influence on this painting is plain to see, large blocks of flat colour and unrealistic shades

Other artists represented at this exhibition are Walter Sickert, sometimes known as the father of them all, Spencer Gore and Ginner

Rather like the French Impressionists a few decades before, the Camden group painted contemporary scenes of city life, the streets, theatres, places of entertainment like pubs and circuses. Sickert portrayed young women in the nude at their toilette rather in the style of Degas, who was a great influence. Non erotic portraits of women in dingy surroundings were something he often came back to, as though the flatness of their life was something which fascinated him.

Preparatory drawings of the figures for his famous painting Ennui are also there, a study of tedium and of people trapped in their lives

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The Balcony, Mornington Crescent  by Spencer Gore (1878-1914)

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The Circus by Charles Ginner (1878-1952)

Ginner was born in Cannes of a British father who established the Pharmacie Ginner. His brother was a doctor on the Riviera . Ginner himself studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and was influenced by the French art of the day. The circus was a favourite subject, and this picture can be compared by one of Seurat, which is in the Kroller Muller Museum in Holland

Ginner moved to London and became an influential member of the Camden group

The quality of exhibitions at the Lightbox continues to improve, and well worth a visit if you are in striking distance. The other exhibition one floor below, on the History of the Comic, extremely informative and comprehensive for those interested in graphic art

Flamingos in the Camargue: first sketch drawing

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flamingos-in-the-camargue

I took a number of photographs of the flamingos when I was in the Camargue. None of them were usable, so I took this group from someone else’s picture as the birds had formed a natural composition which, I thought, would make an interesting painting.

This is just the sketch done in my favourite Payne’s Grey. What is it about black and white, that I often prefer the sketch to the finished painting

They breed here apparently, the only place in Europe where they do that. I have seen them in Sicily as well, but perhaps they don’t have a breeding ground there

These birds are white, with bright pink flashes under the wings. Legs are a very bright deep pink. Always interesting trying to paint a white bird on white paper. I don’t really want any background against those long white necks, as I want them to stand out sharply. I will have to give that some thought

There will need to be colour around the undercarriages as reflections will be important and part of the composition, probably a blue of some sort. Phthalo with some Cobalt mixed in is a good Mediterranean colour, and could work with the deep pink legs. The pink will probably be Permanent Rose with a little Cadmium Orange.

Whether I shall have this finished for the Pirbright Art Club December exhibition remains to be seen. Let’s see how it turns out first!

The Contented Donkey: finished painting

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the-contented-donkey

This is the finished donkey painting supplied to Egypt Equine Aid for their next auction which is early next month. Full details on their Facebook page, as well as news of the wonderful work that they do

I don’t think I deserved the build up they gave me. I didn’t really recognise myself. I was just happy enough to do something to help.

Let’s hope it sells after all that. Embarrassing otherwise

Flinging myself now into exhibition work for pre Christmas and into the new year, as am rather behind. Just starting a drawing of flamingos, as seen on our recent holiday in the south of France. Not drawn these birds before. I have to say that they are rather a strange shape

Just a short post this time, but wanted to mention the finished donkey painting