Well, they are in seasonal Christmas colours: a painting of my oleander which came from a cutting I took in Lake Garda, Italy. My grandmother roamed my home town with a pair of scissors in her handbag ready to increase the range of her garden plants – so it could be a hereditary trait.
At present the plant is indoors, out of frost’s way. I do like the petals with their wedge shapes, pushing to get at the sun’s rays.
Well, the last post for 2018 – A Happy New Year to you all.
With a houseful of visitors I haven’t done much work over the past few days. I did this one last Saturday when I slipped out early whilst the house was asleep and got a morning’s drawing in. I used larger paper than I normally use – this one is on a 85x65cm sheet. I have been using 75x50cm sheets. Frequently I have trouble getting all the figure on the paper as I am trying to maximise the head as I do like working on the facial features – a larger sheet should reduce the incidence of chopped off feet – well that’s the theory anyway.
I am still overworking the application of the pastel and not getting the effects I am after, and on reflection I realised that Crawfurd Adamson, whose course I recently went on, recommended working on a paper covered board to help with the smooth application of the pastel.
Saul, the model in the top painting, allowed me to take a photo from the other side and I have a few other life photos, so I might practise at home on the pastel application as when you are working against time in a studio it is hard to reflect on the details of pastel application and colour combinations .
Another taste of summer and on Christmas Day – well summer is now on its way. This bush sits by my decking and is buzzing with insects in June and this year it was still throwing up the odd flower into November. I do find yellow a difficult colour to work with, maybe because of it’s opacity, but I was quite pleased with the way the top part came out.
On the cusp of the Midwinter solstice here’s a taste of summer – well for us in northern lands anyway – the rest are having the real thing. I was hoping to get more light into this and capture the translucency of the petals but something more stolid took hold. This is a ‘red’ lily that grows in my garden – well that’s what they told me when they sold me the bulbs. They’re monsters though, and I like the skyward view into the drooping flowers which you can easily do without bending as they’re over six feet tall.
A Merry Christmas to all my readers which could include the troll who hasn’t yet tired of exposing his sad ignorance – maybe things will change in the New Year.
I started again with the painting I posted on my last blog and here is the result. It is a little rough around the edges but it now has the feeling of a mad hatter’s tea party – not that I’m calling my step-brother mad for one instant – he could be reading this. I thought that the first version was too static and it needed something, so along came a bit of humour and action. I did consider just altering the last offering but changing the poses and adding the bottle and hands blocked out bits I wanted to keep – so it was start again.
I will allow time for reflection and then perhaps refine a few bits, but I feel John will appreciate this version a little more or dislike it a little less.
Other paintings for sale are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
This is John, my step brother. He gave up running a shopping mall and, with his wife, opened up an Filipino/English Cafe. She is from the Philippines and her son, DJ, is in the background, though he is soon off to a job in Japan.
When I was on my painting course, last week, we popped in for lunch and I thought I might do John a painting – though I think it needs to be livelier and more quirky than this.
I do like his pork-pie hat which seems to be fixed permanently to his head and the cafe counter is covered in paper and paraphernalia, so this may be another project I will be doing again. The second goes are piling up.
Anyone got a spare lifetime that they can let me have?
Having travelled back from my Life Drawing class and needing to set up an exhibition this week, I have not had time to paint anything new. Then as I was browsing through images on my camera I spotted one I had done a couple of weeks ago and not posted. I recall at the time I wasn’t too taken by it, but after a couple of weeks my antipathy has softened, so here it is.
I also should post it as I have a rule to post everything I do, whether I like it or not, which I pretty much follow, another reason to inflict this on you.
Over the past three days I have been on a life drawing course with Crawfurd Adamson, a painter I have admired for a while. He employed good lighting and uses colour in an exciting and almost abstract style.
There were two models he used in a dynamic and interesting way and we started off with quick sketches trying to find a pose we could use for the next three days.
I then started painting with pastels, working around the models for the next few days. I was about the only one who moved, so I found myself having to squeeze in the few places left.
This was the first painting I did (above) and employs some of the scratchy application I have used in the past. Crawfurd showed me how he works with pastel and the way he applies it and in the next painting I used some of his techniques.
It was also good to see how I could further develop this as Crawfurd does work in many similar ways to me. He also has a similar approach to lighting and colour, which, though people on the course thought were theatric, suits me down to the ground.
This week I am going on a three day life drawing course with a guy called Crawfurd Adamson. I have seen a lot of his work at the London Art Fair over the years and you can see more on the internet.
I have been checking out some of Crawfurd’s work and trying to get into the style and here, above, are two of them. It is evident that Crawfurd uses good lighting, demands interesting poses and works in a purposeful way.
I have been unhappy with the poses and lighting employed at our local sessions and am looking forward to this course.
So I thought that I would publish my latest drawings, done in the last couple of weeks and then hopefully compare them with the work I produce in the next few days.
So, as they say, watch this space and see if anything emerges.
Another sketch just to get the feel of the subject. I had come out of a life session and was getting the train home. The sunshine was bright and the figures were set in deep contrast making me get my camera out. If I do it again I must get the tracks right – it looks like a model railway and there isnt a conductor rail but the use of masking fluid to get the glinting tracks worked better than I thought it would.
Paintings of Formby and other townscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
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