Art in the Forest no. 1

Happy New Year! Bit late, but what’s new. What is a new, is that I’ve started a series of art workshops deep in Borgie Forest. The programme has been funded by Highlife Highland providing a creative outlet on our doorstep. Having delivered a number of individual workshops on various themes, I found that there was often too much to cover in  one day’s event. The grant enables me to facilitate a programme of learning at very low cost to those attending. Nothing too serious, just a bit of fun in the forest, an opportunity to get out of the house and mix with a bunch of like-minded new friends. So, we’ve started with some drawing techniques using various forms of graphite and charcoal. More of the 8 lovely ladies, lots of cake and a cosy log fire to look forward to next week, when we dabble in a bit of ink......

Drawing each other – 64 quick 2 minutes sketches

Hands on mark making - 8 quick group compositions

Vegetable matter close up – working up an appetite

Vegetable matter enlarged – working off the cakes!

Sketching Workshop

And yet another mad busy week, culminating in the second of my local workshops. A good day was had by all – sketching outside in the sunshine, watching the light change on Castle Varrich. We looked at the value of sketching and finding the right “kit” to help us fit more sketching into our busy lives. My latest appendage is an overgrown bumbag (in a lovely lime green!) which holds everything I need for a long walk with Titus, including a sketchbook. Finding the right tools and having them to hand is the key to doing more sketching – but finding what is right for you can take a little while. As an illustration, I chose to draw the same view several times using different dry materials and paper sizes. Sketching is a very personal thing, an emotional response captured on paper in just a few minutes – sometimes a photograph is simply not enough.

The happy sketchers finding their own style

from the top:
4B, 8B, charcoal, conte in small moleskine sketchbook
 pen with conte on larger mid tone paper

sepia pen with cream conte on mid tone paper

Greek Highlands

Well it’s jolly hot here and very nice it is too. The grass is beginning to smell warm and crispy, the Horny Hamishes are paddling in the loch and today I saw a couple of lizards basking in the sun. Yesterday we ate fresh langustine (the exact same ones you eat in Greece!) and the sea is as calm as can be. Whilst everywhere looks and sounds like the Islands Highlands of Greece, the sea is not quite as warm which I found out when I went for a dip in a lovely isolated and deserted sandy bay. At least I hope it was deserted, my screams will have exposed the fact that my swimming costume is 500 miles away in storage! Anyway, my Charcoal Chickens are now hanging in the Caithness Artists Show in Thurso. Next week – sheep. Baaaah.

Don't forget to check up on my Daily Painting progress......

The Thief of Time

The funky foursome are finished and the design for the hotel sign is done, but there has been some procrastination (isn’t that something Pooh had trouble with? – well it appears to be a common artist’s trait as well). I’ve bought new materials, reorganised my pastel box, painted my toenails and done a lot of dreaming! But in all honesty, I have been very busy “thinking” whilst procrastinating over the next painting. It’s my desire to master a personal style, knowing that if I just paint without thinking about it I’ll play safe and get myself bogged down in detail. I’ve done a fair amount of analysis – collating paintings I admire, studying the colours and styles and appraising my own work. During this journey, I have come across hundreds of paintings and artists – but there are only 3 that I have obsessed about. By that I mean researched, bought the book and lost hours on the laptop: Mervyn Peake, Kyffin Williams and Eyvind Earle. Apart from the fact that they all have first names that are difficult to spell, they all used strong notan and produce drawings and paintings where colour is secondary to line and form. My series of chickens has probably stopped at 2, and whilst my hunt for the perfect Horny Hamish continues I shall try to convert my thoughts into some landscape paintings.

I couldn’t find the Pooh quote on procrastination, so I thought I’d leave you with this one….

" When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."  A. A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh.

Fishermen and the opaque chick

It’s been a funny week – all to do with a lot of socialising and some disturbed sleep. As we approach midsummer the days are getting longer and longer, it only really gets dark for about 2 hours. This means I stay up longer thinking it is too early to go to bed, and get woken up by the light before I’ve had enough sleep – so I’m buying some blackout blinds to match the dark rings under my eyes! I'm a bit tired, and consequently, the funky chickens haven’t moved along a great deal this week. I joined a small local art group who get together to paint and chat on a Tuesday night. At 9.30pm we were still painting with warm sun still streaming in through the open door. When everyone was concentrating too hard to chat, we listened to a melodic blackbird doing his evening song. I did some quick chicken sketches whilst others laboured over delicate watercolours. I was very careful not to blow any dirty clouds of charcoal dust onto their translucent masterpieces. I'm not a fan of watercolour - I think it is the translucency that puts me off  – I’m more of an opaque chick! Whilst not clucking about with chickens I’ve been creating a watery scene for a hotel sign. This afternoon should see a paper pile of salmon and fishermen turn into a colourful digital graphic ready for my client to approve on Monday. However, the need to slump over my computer is less inviting than doing work on last week’s unfinished chicken picture – but the funky foursome will just have to wait for another day.

Charcoal Chickens

I’ve been painting for the sake of painting this week and I’ve really enjoyed it. I fancied working on a larger scale and in an attempt to overcome an internal resistance to experimenting in pastel, I unpacked my willow charcoal and swapped my expensive Spectrum pastel paper for something less precious. But, what to draw? In order to keep at least one constant I opted for animals. The weather did nothing to encourage me to take my materials outside in front of some live models, and the cats were either outside or comatosed, and I wanted something in an animated pose! I have a vast library of photos for inspiration – but since my printer was temporarily out of action I was limited to a small handful of ready printed photos. So chickens it was and a series has begun. My wish to be loose and fluid quickly slipped back into detail and the hours whizzed by – but I enjoyed the freedom and the opportunity to play about with composition. But to really loosen up a bit, I may need to set myself a time limit! I’ve started number 2, this time with an old grey Fergie in the background (Henry’s idea). Whilst I only wanted a hint of Fergie, my critical friend (Henry with anorak) quickly pointed out a few technical misgivings – so a little more work yet to do to the right hand rear wheel. The sun is now shining again and my printer is restored after a heart transplant, so I shall cycle out this afternoon in pursuit of some horny subjects for my next series……