A HINT OF AUTUMN – ACRYLIC SKETCH

With the lifting of the complete lockdown I went into Liverpool and got myself some acrylic inks this week. I am thinking of putting some of these line and wash style images onto canvas. Up until now I have been using standard inks for the line and watercolours to add washes and I feel I need acrylic inks to apply to canvas. This one above is done in acrylics on paper with acrylic ink, liquid acrylic and heavy body acrylic. I am happier keeping it simple than adding layers of complexity as I did in the one below.

In this one I used black and white inks to create the lines and I feel that has some mileage for developing.

I am still playing around with standard ink and watercolours as they are quick to do and here are a few more below.

The one above is a more complex version of the first painting and I dont think the complexity adds much value.

Putting ink onto a wet surface can give an overpowering effect especially with black ink, so it needs to be done sparingly. I did buy some red, yellow and blue inks and havent yet started using these. They look more potent than the liquid acrylics I use.

There may be more of these to follow.

Other abstract paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

HUE, LINE AND PICTURE – INK AND WASH

I wanted to try and further develop the ink experiments I showed in a previous blog. Keeping things simple in this new set, I didnt prepaint the paper before inking and also left the ink to dry rather than adding colour whilst it was wet which had resulted in bleeds invading the paint. Though, this time, where the ink appeared dry, when I applied the paint, I still got some bleed, giving interest, but not so that it was overwhelming.

I wanted to leave open paper and be influenced by the lines to give a stained glass effect. To emphasise this I mixed colours in some of the cells to give the impression of light shining through. This one above had a more organic feel to the lines so I limited myself to yellows, blues and greens.

I suppose in contrast this had a more urban feel with the lines in a gridded pattern and they now took on a slightly more subordinate role with the paint crossing intersections. Though, even in this busier piece, I have left a large amount of white paper.

I am thinking of transferring this to a canvas or A2 sheet when I get a design and approach that is worth scaling up.

Other abstract painting is available for purchase on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

LAND GRAB – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

My internet connection has been down these last few days, so I have been delayed posting, though I have been painting, At least with painting there is very little that stops you operating.  I remember when I broke my right arm, I started to doodle with my left hand – perhaps it’s something I should have persisted with…

Anyway back to the present; in April I posted a  watercolour sketch called All Sides Now. Above is a variant of this idea worked up into a more finished piece. I am quite pleased with the result here and it has moved the idea on a bit. I will have a go at reworking All Sides Now and also see where this could lead.

Other landscape paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com