This farm shop punnet of strawberries looked so wonderful I just had to do a ink and watermedia sketch. I have my sketch book which has a nice midtone colour which helps speed up the process. White was done with a pitt artist brush pen. A nice treat to eat them after the sketch was finished.
The beautiful red roses in the garden inspired me to do a pastel study. With my secateurs I sniped an unopened bud as I knew it would open quickly as soon as I brought it inside. Flowers are great subjects as they need to be done immediately. Therefore you can’t put off the task at hand.
The first daffodils to flower in the garden inspired me to set up a still life. I used my pastels on pastelmat paper to do this study. It was nice to look at the flowers up close. I chose to have a complementary background of purple to enhance the lovely yellow of the flowers.
Snowdrops were early to flower this year. I decided to pick some from the garden and put them in my glass snowdrop vase, found in a charity shop. I set up a small still life in my studio. Below is a quick sketch in conte on a blue background. I decided to add additional pattern for interest under the vase.
I next did a tonal study in oil using 4 tones only. I mixed these tones before starting to paint the still life. This was a fun exercise. A nice way to show appreciation for such delicate flowers which cheer us at this time of year.
Recently I demonstrated the above pastel painting for the Carnoustie Art Club. I set up a still life inside a box which had a hole cut out at the side. I had brought along a lamp so I could directly illuminate the set up through the opening. This created an almost theatrical and dramatic affect to the still life. I enjoyed the process and sharing how I was approaching this painting.
I was so busy leading up to the ENOS event that I did not get a chance to post about the event beforehand. Thank-you to those that came to visit me at my new studio (Wash House Studio).
I enjoyed meeting with many people during the open studio event. I was even able to do some sketching during the day. A lot of people commented favourably on the sketch book and liked seeing what I had been painting. They could see my still life on the window ledge and were curious as to how I approached my sketch. The pastel book below is full of various coloured pastel papers, these give me a wonderful colour choice for the background. The green I decided to work on particularly suited the sunflowers.
During the week I did another study using watercolours and a long handled brush which was great fun to paint. My flowers were still fresh and inspiring.
It is full on right now for the Pittenweem Arts Festival 2017.
There is lots of work to do for the new studio but I was able to take some time out over lunch and make a quick watercolour sketch looking out of the window.
I set up this still life to work on inside the studio. It gives me a good exercise to work on when the weather is not so favourable outside. This was started using acrylic then finished with Sennelier oil pastels on Pastelmat card.
Recently I did a demonstration at Stirling Art Club. This was the pastel painting I did during the evening. I had prepared a sketch on mid to dark green Canson paper along with some tonal sketches and colour studies. This enabled me to explain how I would approach the painting.