Charcoal Jug

Charcoal on Rives.

Charcoal Pot

Working with charcoal to revitalise a flagging artistic spirit.

Eggs

Pastel on paper

A small part of our household goods arrived last week including my pastels, some paints, panels and paper. Great delight to be reunited with them, followed by a more than a little trepidation and procrastination. There is only so much alternative living (where you do the alternative rather than doing what you are supposed to be doing) you can do before you have to bite the bullet and get down to it.

Egg studies - to get my feet wet with colour. The deceptively simple shape of eggs provides complex possibilities for colour, shadows and light, reflections, warm and cool tones.

Vertical Limits - Charcoal

I've been rather tied up with a lot of stuff lately but have been working away slowly at this charcoal - a version of Vertical Limits that I did in pastels when we were in Saudi Arabia. Its been nice getting back to the subtlety of tonal values.

Seeing Red

Still playing with the red paper and reflections in the glass topped table. Using red paper has been a real test for me, pushes your way of thinking way of center and away from what you thought stood true.

I've just ordered some other coloured papers and it will be interesting to see how they are to work with. I am particularly looking forward to using the green.

Shadowy Corners

pastel on paper
I have been in an artistic ditch for a while but hoping that is past now and that I am back into the groove.
This was quite fun to do and I limited myself just to catching the way the light fell and not letting myself get too caught up in the extraneous details outside of the light.
The time off since my last post has given me space to think about artwork in general. Some decisions made about what I am aiming for and my enjoyment in creating which I was in danger of losing.

Red Paper

I haven't posted for quite a while - suffering with daily headaches has dammed my artistic flow somewhat.

I fell in love with some pastels that Michael Newberry did on red paper and as I had some in store its been kind of lurking out there that I might play with this a little. This is my first attempt. It was really hard to think of red as being my darkest colour when the objects I was using had no red in them at all. Definitely a new way of thinking. I really liked the way this came together and the abstract forms in the composition.

Rear View Mirror

Core of a Rose, graphite on paper, 4" x 4"

Its funny how when you look back at work you did years ago a lot of it makes you cringe but other pieces still feel right. This piece leaped out at me recently because I have been thinking about abstracts and expressionism increasingly. I have to admit I am now really enjoying colour but monochrome still has a real magic for me - especially in photography.

Determined to get back to some serious work over the next couple of days after suffering a block in my creative urge.

Jeanette in Watercolour

My second try at Jeanette in watercolour (the first while I was happy with the my application of paint was not quite right proportionally) - I am a total novice with this medium and find its unpredictablity both delightful and confounding at the same time. This is only my third portrait in watercolour (the first is here) if you include my first attempt on this particular one and I'm quite pleased with how I am getting on with the medium.

I'd love to have a go at pours as mentioned by Billie Crain and demonstrated by Nick Simmons. One thing that really appeals to me about this kind of use of the medium is the freedom and dynamic quality to painting. I find myself leaning more and more to a more expressionistic way of painting.

Happy to say that I sold "Strawberry Cheesecake" this week. Interesting that I had just had some notecards printed and was showing them to a colleague and she bought the painting from seeing it on a notecard. A marketing technique?

Jeanette

March's offering to the portrait group to which I belong is a portrait of Jeanette, wonderful and talented artist, printmaker and maker of delicious jewellery. Not sure how much more I will do to this, maybe a little tweaking. Seeing it here I wonder if I have her nose at the right angle. Trying to decide if I might experiment a little and try a watercolour version.

Spring is well underway here in Pakistan - I'm taking my camera with me tomorrow to take pictures of the lovely flowers and blossom that is bursting out all over. I even have sweet peas flowering in my garden which seems very odd to me as in England they are a summer flower. The bottle brush trees are starting to bloom and I expect that next week they will be totally covered in flowers.

Doodling through Recovery

Doodling, nothing serious. Been out for the count in a drug induced stupor for over a week. Trying not to overdo it and set back shoulder recovery.

Bedside

pastel on paper

I have mentioned several times recently my struggle with trees. Admittedly in paint and a desire to make a recognisable painterly tree. Today Jeff Smith posted these really wonderful trees on his blog in pastel.