ball Point Pen

In the Style of Aubrey Beardsley

/ davidrpharmer / 2 Comments
Social Distancing using the style of Aubrey Beardsley

During lockdown we formed a zoom art group within the family, mostly for fun, and yet some of the results were interesting. People who were new to art, were surprised at what they could produce. Old hands like me, who have painted in watercolour for some years, found, when they moved to other media, that they were beginners again. Digital painting was beyond me completely, whereas my grandchildren excelled.

We closed the group for various reasons, although the ground we had covered was amazing. My grandchildren had to devote more time to school work, and as lockdown eased different people were going on holiday

We have started the group up again, with grandparents and friends only. Grandchildren are now even more occupied with studies. How it works, one member of the group sets a task. The current one is to use the style of Aubrey Beardsley, the illustrator, within a scene that is topical. All these tasks make you scratch your head, I can tell you.

My effort is shown above. The topical scene is Social Distancing, some thing we are all familiar with, when queuing for the supermarket or any store.I haven’t been terribly original, as I have borrowed from Beardsley’s many drawings. I have added face masks, which is useful, as it saves you drawing faces. I have added the store front from his picture The Girl in the Red Gown

At the same time, we have to introduce another artist, whose work you were reminded of. I chose Utamaro the c18 Japanese artist who works in line like Beardsley. He, Beardsley was in fact influenced by Japanese art, as were many in the c19, especially the French Impressionists

My submission has gone in. We will see what happens and what the next task will be.

In between time, I am working on the Camargue horses. I have transferred the drawing to watercolour paper, which is the tedious part, and have applied the first wash

Baguettes

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Baguettes

I quite like doing these narrative paintings from time to time. This one I have done in a vignette style, again something I do for a change. In some ways this style takes less time, as I don’t have to tape up, and without big expanse of sky or sea, there are no big washes to worry about.

This was not done from one of my reference photos, and my thanks and acknowledgements go to an unknown photographer whom I could not find. This painting is not a copy of but was inspired by a photograph.

This is pure nostalgia in one sense. I don’t know of a visitor to France who didn’t enjoy that early morning trip to the boulangerie for the fresh bread.

In England we don’t have that culture. Our bread is homogenised and comes plastic wrapped, although some of our supermarkets are now baking on site, and producing something worth eating. But we still don’t go for it early morning when it is fresh and still warm

This is Paris obviously. The location was not marked, but looks like Montmartre, with those steep steps. Again a place much visited and much painted.

I changed the background considerably. I have lengthened the perspective so that the Eiffel Tower looks much further away. The buildings are deliberately out of focus, so that we concentrate on the lady in the foreground. We look at her with great compassion as she struggles homeward up that steep slope, heavily laden. I see her almost pushing that basket with her knee, to take some of that strain off her arm.

This painting is smaller than my usual, this time about 30×25 centimetres. I found it a pleasant change to do. At the moment,thanks to lockdown I am sorting and consolidating my reference photographs, so who knows may find more of this type

Painting Someone Else’s Photo

/ davidrpharmer / 2 Comments

With their permission of course

A typical square in the south of France

This was really something of a diversion, while I considered where my priorities lay, for the next painting.

This exercise is really part of a competition, which appealed to me. I don’t usually enter competitions as I never get anywhere, but what intrigued me with this one, was, that it was using ball-point pen with watercolour. Something I had thought of doing but for some reason, not got round to .

This took me back to the days before I retired. I worked for a company that made specialist furniture and fittings for the hotel and restaurant industry. I designed things to customer specification, which is a grand term for drawing out from people what they wanted, and then sketching them during the conversation, until we arrived at a solution. This is very good drawing practice and I can recommend it.

Ball point works well on a hot pressed surface, the motion is fluid and the image is instant. You can’t rub out of course which can be a problem. It doesn’t work very well on cold-pressed watercolour paper which is what I use. The ball clogs and pulls at the paper

Nonetheless it was a useful exercise and interesting to see how it ended up. I sent my entry in after all, very much tongue in cheek. If I never mention it again, you will know that it bombed