When my Hyenna painting found a new home (as described in an earlier blog), I had a look for other interesting animals, I had seen whilst in Namibia, as potential subjects. Here, above, is one of a pair of warthogs I sketched by the waterhole at our lodge. They were a young pair and this one was probably a female. I was struck by their incongruous appearance with a big head and body on thin legs. Not only that, but she appeared to me, to be tottering on stilettos as she made her way around the edge of the water.
So I had to have a go – a bit of fun to paint – here for your amusement.
I attempted this small painting three times until I was happy with it. This version was done on Pastelmat support and it gave me the saturation I was after. For the background sky I scraped different pastels onto the board and wet the scrapings with a brush to get an even transition of colours.
The first attempt was done on pastel paper. This is the one below. Here, I used gouache to get the background sky, not pastel, as I did above.
The pastel colours do not sing out and appear flat and dull to me. I also felt there was too much foreground. So I tried again:
This time I obtained the background sky, as I did with first painting – scraping various pastels and wetting the scrapings to get an even background on pastel paper. I also reduced the foreground. It had a better saturation of colour at the end, but some of the darker colours failed to sing out. So that was when I resorted to the pastelmat.
I have used Clairefontaine pastelmat in the past and have always been happy with the results. I did not use it much as I couldnt find any larger sheets of it. The top painting was done on a 30x40cm sheet. Recently, someone told me bigger sheets were available and now I can get 50x70cm sheets which allows me to tackle slightly bigger pieces.
The downside of the pastelmat is the price and the lack of even bigger sheets. However, I wont be using it for life painting, and it is here where I go even larger, but it will allow me to do my small and medium size paintings and get some great vivacity of colour.
After some quite aggressive dental work earlier in the week, I have felt the need to take things a little slower and, at the same time, halt my consumption of nuts. Fortunately with painting, I have something to productively engage me in the meantime, something that isnt too physically demanding. With a couple of exhibitions looming, including one which monitors your previous entries and prohibits any returning, I thought I’d get myself a new selection of local topics. This is one of them – a venue I’ve painted before.
I did like the old wharf buildings before they were renovated, but I suppose without some renovation things would go into terminal decline. So I have excluded the more radical changes and focussed on the the less altered part of these old buildings. I also misted out the canal-side houses in the distance in this morning scene.
Other canals and narrowboat paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
I am exploring a few subjects for a local, upcoming exhibition and wondered whether this beach scene might be worth an airing. I have done similar versions of it before but the open expanse of beach, as it melds into the sea and sky, is a difficult proposition to balance up. In the past I have filled the top part of the open expanse with cloud – this time I thought that the energy of agitated gulls might be a better resolution. I have over a week, so there is a bit of time to play around.
I was talking to a fellow blogger about the perils of reworking a piece. At the time I was reworking two paintings, one of them was this, above. My fellow blogger explained the problems of reworking poems and stories. I felt there was more peril in changing paintings, as it can take a lot of work to correct bad decisions, particularly if you want to get back to where you started. With text, you could keep a copy and quietly lob the revision binward, ressurect the original and pretend nothing had happened ( well, that’s my blinkered view)
I was asked to submit a painting or two to an exhibition and was scraping around for something suitable. I did like the original of the painting above; there was an understated and almost abstract passage in the foreground, but despite a few showings it stayed in my possession. So I thought that I would shake it up ready for another outing.
I was reluctant to change as I was pleased with the original foreground, but having made the change I am equally happy with the outcome. It now looks very similar to the view I saw when I did a watercolour version one sunny summer’s morning, sitting on the hill amid the rough grassland and weeds, a few years ago.
Another in a long series of paintings of my town’s main street. There are a couple of exhibitions coming up that are held on this street, so it is useful to have something of local interest to display. Add that to the fact that I am a sucker for the winter sunsets here – a painting is inevitable. There may be another to come.
A week or so ago I showed some sketches for abstracts. Since then I have been working a couple up. I put this version on a 1.2 x 0.6 metre canvas. This may not be the completed piece, but it is getting close. On this version I focussed on brighter colours than I had in the sketch and have since then dulled a few down. That process may continue – I am a constant fiddler, particularly when I have the painting in front of me and paints to hand. There is another one on the go, but I also have a watercolour which I started before this and need to finish, so at least I’m keeping busy.
I have been asked to do an illustration for a neighbour. It is of the building involved with a project that he has been running. The building is, in my eyes, boring, but the project means a lot to him. This is the second sketch I have done. The first involved combining the front with the back of the building in an effort to shake things up a bit. He didnt like that, so I went with a bog standard view – though on the right of the illustration above, I did a pen and wash whilst on the left it is a standard watercolour format. At the moment the jury is out and he will be getting back to me.
The project is about replacing the old council- run local library which the council sold off and is now a small housing estate. Locals got together and established a small library and community centre at the old station masters house that is owned by the Mersey Rail Company and loaned to the group. This house is attached to the local railway station and, up to this point, was empty. The community centre is now up and running and my neighbour wants a momento of the hard work put in by him and the rest of the team.
I find commissions quite challenging, as left to my devices I would be off in one direction, but as a commission I feel I must be meeting the tastes of my client – that’s where it can get difficult. Hopefully a compromise is in sight.
This is the view I used to see as I cycled to work across the fields behind our town. The sun rising and a mistiness still clinging to the low reclaimed marshland. Occasionally you’d spot the ghostly form of a barn owl swooping above the ditches and reed beds.
The painting now resides in my neighbour’s house. They used to take the same trip – but in a car, not on a bike.
I need to force myself just to play around with art materials. Most times when I face an easel or board I have a purpose – an image I want to create. So I have changed pace in the last few days and just got some paper ( in the case above, and most of these below, an old discarded painting) and started putting paint down over it. This one I’ll call – Fallen.
Coming from a scientific background I do veer towards structure and the next two show a development of an old theme based on an imagined cityscape, done with mainly square brushes.
I was looking at form on a flat plane and the painting on the left, though I like texture, just felt too busy – even messy, so out came the brushes and paints again to turn it into the painting on the right. Comparing them, I dont think I have moved forward very much – but then this is just about playing.
So, after that cul de sac, I forced myself to into a more organic approach with emphasis on light and shade – a theme I explore in my more representational pieces.
Again, working over an old painting. I think that there is potential in this one. It has a forest feel – similar to some of the representational paintings I’ve done of late. There are some lovely soft edges contrasting with the hard lines I’ve created with acrylic ink.
Bouyed by this, I struck out in a similar direction with the final piece, below.
This is done in a much looser style – mainly using just my fingers. I added moulding medium that allowed some texture which I highlighted with the mix of yellows I still had on my fingers. This use of texture is certainly one I’d like to further incorporate into my painting.
So I might be putting some of these ideas on canvas in the near future – just a warning.
graham mcquade 