Ben's Art

A golden opportunity

2012-01-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

See this wee ship:

She's the Hans Hansson, a cruiser run by Golden Fleece Expeditions who do charter expeditions to the Antarctic. The owner Dion Poncet had advertised for a semi-voluntary extra crew member for her latest trip so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring....and I got the job!

So there we go, on Monday 16th January I'm away south for 6 weeks, South Sandwich Islands, The Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia. I'll pack my drawing stuff and see what inspires me down there in 'the freezer'

What an opportunity!

Christmas commission challenge....

2011-12-28T11:28:00.000-08:00

Now that Christmas is out of that way I can post about the three 'Christmas present' commissions I had this year. What made these interesting was the increasing difficulty and decreasing notice of the three. For the first I had a couple of months notice, nice, straightforward child portrait. No problem at all. A single, lovely reference photo that just about jumped off the screen and plenty of time. The next was a double portrait of two collies in late November, multible reference photos and a bit of compositional jiggling needed....Still no problem, a harder subject but a few weeks was still enough time to get the job done.

In mid December came the real test though, a big landscape commission (I find landscapes to be the toughest subject)...and I only had a matter of days...a very few days...to get it completed. It was a sunset view of a local range of hills called Rincon Ridge, fortunately they are right here in Fox Bay so I dashed out to get some references for the hills and foreground, a quick sort through my sky ref photos for a suitable sunset sky and a bit of photoshopping produced a workable composition so there I was, ready to go but it had to be finished, sent to towm to get framed and be back here before the big day. Really wasn't sure if I could achieve it.

But I did, Jane in the Pink Shop pulled out the stops to get it framed and sent back in time.
:-)

So here are my three Christmas commissions in order of increasing difficulty and tightening deadlines:

Ashleigh, soft pastels on 30 X 40cm yellow pastelmat.

Marni & Zia, hard pastels and pastel pencils on 30 X 40cm grey pastelmat. (really enjoyed doing this one)

Rincon Ridge, Soft pastels, hard pastels and pastel pencils on 50 X 70cm grey pastelmat. (This was tough but in the end rewarding, I didn't get stuck and it turned out better than I dared hope).

I learnt a lot from doing this painting, if I'm being honest with myself I was afraid of attempting large landscapes, the few I'd done felt like flukes. In finishing this commission I've managed to lay some of that fear to rest, I'm now quite looking forward to the next one (which BTW is already in the pipeline...and involves painting buildings as well as natural features....ulp!)

Blasted 2

2011-12-13T10:49:00.000-08:00

Another example of what the weather can do to trees in the Falklands, this example is based on a photo taken on Carcass Island. Happily this feeble specimen is not typical for trees on Carcass, that island is a real garden spot in our harsh climate.

There's palm trees there even...

....well....cabbage palms anyway.

For once I recorded the stages of this charcoal drawing, usually I'm in too much of a hurry.

Got another two commissions finished last week too. My lips are sealed though, they're both Christmas presents so can't be shown on here yet.

New studio

2011-11-08T07:28:00.000-08:00

Well...my wife and I have agreed that we need the bedroom that I had occupied as a studio to be a bedroom again. Fortunately there's a big ol' room in the attic of the building I work in that was sitting empty. Until recently the terms of the lease meant I was unable to sublet any of the unused rooms but that's recently changed so I thought why not? I'll treat myself to it, after a day hauling a surprisingly large ammount of art related junk up a tiny narrow staircase here it is...my new studio, must be four times the floor space of my old one and with wonderful light, just need to stop the velux window from leaking and it'll be tip top.

Fini...

2011-10-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

Had a call from Sarah today, good news was that another of my paintings has sold, bad news was that the exhibition had to be closed a day early (A cruise ship is due to arrive earlier than expected so the Jetty Centre had to be restored to it's former, painting free, austerity).

So that's that, the paintings are down, my first exhibition is finished. I'm really pleased with how it went, made plenty of sales, had some great feedback and loads of interest in my art. If anyone missed the exhibition you can still have a look at the remaining paintings by calling in at Sealed PR, they'll have them in their office for the next week or so, there's still thirteen left of the twenty three that were for sale....there's still some gems there, don't miss out. ;-)

Opening night

2011-10-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

Held the preview of my exhibition on the evening of Friday 14th. The day was a crazy marathon of picture hanging but all went well thanks to the expertise of Sarah and Hay of Sealed PR. Must admit I had a few butterflies but in the end it was really good fun. Loads of people turned up and had a good time, I sold nine paintings and sixteen prints which has more than paind for the cost of the exhibition. Result!

The crowd enjoying a few drinks (and the paintings of course)

The family, Me, Ma & Pa (who're both also excellent artists) and my two brothers Adam & Sam.

Thanks again to everyone who came along (especially to those who bought my paintings!). The exhibition is open for another three days until Saturday 22nd if you what to have a look at what I've been doing with my time for the last couple of years (still quite a few available to buy as well, five of the shearing paintings are as yet unsold).

A special thanks to Sarah & Hay at Sealed PR, you did a brilliant job organinsing everything.

Exhibition

2011-10-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

Win a painting!

2011-10-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

Penguin News has done me proud

2011-09-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

Article in our local paper Penguin News about my coming art exhibition, I've got a local public relations company Sealed PR to orgainse it all for me so they've been doing that PR thing and getting me interviewed by the paper, radio station even the local TV company.

The Tryworks

2011-09-29T03:13:00.000-07:00

Way back in April I did a commission for a client of a sheepdog against a backdrop of mountains, Here it is, Bruce the Huntaway. I mentioned then the possibility of another, bigger commission of a historical scene of the old industry of harvesting penguins for their oil, a grisly and largely unknown practice that had been overshadowed by the larger and more emotive whaling and sealing industries.

I have now completed the painting, This is by a long way the largest, most complicated and most difficult piece I've attempted so far in my fledgeling art career. No photographs of this activity exist (that I know of) just accounts and some rather fanciful illustrations so the entire scene is a creation of my imagination based on what is known about the process. It boils down to this (if you'll pardon the pun):

Penguins were driven into a rough corral on a beach using dogs to keep them together in a flock. There was a large trypot that had a spout running into a smaller pot for refinging the oil. The penguins were clubbed inside the corral then passed out to be bled and gutted (to remove as much water and bulk as possible), the carcases were then thrown in the trypot which was heated initially with wood or coal but as the rendering proceeded with the oil soaked remains of the penguins that were fished from the pot with a long handled scoop. the refined oil was casked and shipped away.

Here's how the painting progressed:

This is the initial concept sketch I knocked out to get the elements together in a way I felt worked. On the right is a full size study that helped me to finalise the composition.

This is the initial sketch on 70 X 100cm anthracite pastelmat and the first roughing in of colours and light/shade.

All the detail coming together, at this stage I didn't know about the refining pot, fortunately there was room to fit it in where it was needed.

The finished painting. I was trying to get a dirty, hellish feeling to it to reflect the grisly nature of the activity while not portraying the protagonists as wicked people in any way, just men at work with a dirty job to do. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Shearing

2011-09-29T02:30:00.000-07:00

Well....I've got all the work for my October exhibition finished, mounted and framed...actually there's five paintings that still need to be put in their frames but they're mounted and I've got the frames for them so I'm counting them as ready too. That's a grand total of 46 works to be on display...phew!

Here's my Shearing collection of seven paintings which I intend to be the centrepiece(s) of the exhibition, should get a bit of interest I reckon. All are on 30 X 40cm pastelmat.

The Bonebreaker

2011-09-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

Giant petrel (AKA Stinker or Bonebreaker) feeding. I wanted to convey the menace and strength of this huge scavenger, it's bloody head down, wings spread ready to attack to defend it's meal. Yet still I wanted there to be a feeling of trepidation, the desperation of the hungry opportunist that's made afind that it may well lose to another.

This is my biggest wildlife painting to date, it was a challenge but very satisfying. Absolutely unsaleable of course but sometimes you just have to do paintings like that.

Soft pastels on 70 X 50 grey pastelmat.

Motivation

2011-09-09T15:00:00.001-07:00

What are the things that can be motivate us to paint? What gets us to the easel to work with the object of producing a work of art? Financial rewards, ambition, experimentation, even possibly the therapeutic value of painting.

Let’s look at financial rewards, in there are two ways this can be our motivation to paint: either we’re working to commission or on a piece with the only object in mind being to sell it. To my mind this is the hardest way to paint if that really is all there is to it. A commission can be satisfying and pleasurable or it can be unbelievably hard, sometimes its brute force all the way, a rigid application of skill to force the painting out in an acceptable manner. In the latter case, to choose to paint a subject that does not excite you in any way just with the object of selling it, well...I wouldn’t bother, to do that makes art no different from any other nine to five job, what would be the point?

Ambition could certainly be a motivational force, without ambition how would we progress as artists? There would be nothing to get us over the rocky patches. Ambition is what keeps us being artists, I’ve never really believed in the modesty that some painters display about their work, if a painting’s on display then the artist has the ambition and self confidence to put it there. I must add that that’s not to say that I’m ever 100% satisfied with my work, if that ever happens then I know I’ll be in trouble. Experimentation can motivate us in much the same way as ambition can; they are linked in that without being ambitious we wouldn’t have the stones to experiment.

And therapeutic value? Well we wouldn’t paint if we didn’t enjoy it would we? I find that to just sit down and draw or paint, no pressure, just a subject that gives us pleasure to portray is a great way to relax and unwind. This doesn’t really fit the bill as motivational though, laudable though it is as an activity this is painting as a means rather than an ends. One can achieve good results through this but that’s not really the point, just a bonus.

There is of course something else that can motivate us, that element that means we can stand to our easel and the painting just flows out almost without effort? I’m talking, of course, about inspiration. We know inspiration when it occurs, whether it’s a scene, a photograph, another painter’s work, a piece of music, whatever it is it draws us in and motivates us. The joy of inspiration is that it can be tied in with other motivational forces, a commission isn’t always a dry exercise of skill, we can be inspired by the subject even if it isn’t one we have chosen. We can paint subjects that inspire us with the motivation of making money; again the combination is greater than the sum of its parts. Ambition & experimentation? How could these have any real worth as motivational forces without inspiration to be the catalyst? When inspiration is paired with any of these motivational elements our art is at its zenith, it’ll be the best of what our skill and talent can achieve at that time.

Falklands Conservation Charity Ball advert

2011-09-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

This is a screenshot of our local paper the Penguin News, the advert is for the annual Falklands Conservation Charity Ball which I've donated a couple of paintings to....and like last year they've used one of my paintings in the Ad, reckon they must like it.
:-)

Walk on the wierd side.

2011-09-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

Every now an then I have a go at painting or drawing something wierd, a nut doctor would probably love these...

Charcoal on A4 cartridge paper:

Pastels on brown card, 35 X 50 cm.

Interpreting and composing, why & how?

2011-09-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

What makes a painting 'right'? what combination of elements does an artist bring together to produce a composition that works? I found myself pondering this after seeing a painting presented in an Artists group on Facebook. It was by Grizelda Cockwell (before anyone asks she is a relation of mine, my mother actually), a simple, exquisitely executed oil painting portraying a window in the wall of an old, corrugated iron shed, to the left is the edge of another shed, an iron clad nissan hut. Everything is very weathered, paint peeling, iron rusted, broken pane in the window....anyway why am I trying to describe it? look for yourself, here's a link to it. To my eye the only thing that didn't work was that composition was slightly off, the focus of the painting (the window) is pretty much central and this didn't quite do it for me, perhaps this wasn't the place for critique but I did comment as much, Griz then asked me how I would have composed it and I replied that I would have shifted the point of view and altered the contrast of some elements. A friend of Griz's (David McEwen, a very skillful professional artist) who had seen the painting in the flesh then put me in my place with the comment "I've seen it, it's right as it is.". That comment is what got me thinking about what's right or wrong in composition.

Can a composition can be fundamentally 'right' or fundamentally 'wrong'? Things can be wrong with a composition for sure, incoherent jumble of elements, objects distorted to fit the canvas, poor distribution and so on. But what about being right? can a composition be so 'right' that anything else is lesser? Taking an example of working from a good, well composed photo or static reference: If I alter the appearance of some elements or move elements around to make it work how I want it to would then the result then be a 'wrong' composition? and why? Would it be wrong because I had taken a good reference and messed around with the elements or wrong just in that the composition was bad in some way? If the latter was the case then fair enough but the former? I don't buy that at all, I've on several occasions taken a perfectly good, accurate reference photo or set of photos and composed the elements in a way that I felt worked as a painting, unless I've been suffering from some horrible compositional blindness this has always worked for me.

Where this is taking me is to thinking about that fine old platitude: "draw what you see, not what you think you see", this is fine up to a point as advice to help aspiring artists get over the hump of seeing what's there rather than a montage of preconceived ideas of what objects are...the sky is blue, grass is green, a human nose is a triangle with two holes in it and so on. Where it breaks down is when you've got that nailed, your eyes are open and you can draw what's there, now comes the problem where you need to paint or draw something that is known in the eyes of the viewer and yet cannot be accurately portrayed in two dimensions as a facsimile of what's there (as a photograph does). I'm talking, of course, about interpretation. As artists we can interpret what we see or what references we use in any way we like, some like to enhance colour, movement, feeling, some push or pull perspective, some allow themselves to be guided by the process of painting, by responding to how their paint reacts as they progress (as with watercolours of course). What restricts interpretation is only such discipline as to which we adhere, the discipline that is most restrictive to interpretation is photo-realism, at the other end of the scale is the crazy world of abstract expressionism, in this the artist has interpreted so freely that it can be the case that the subject or meaning of the painting is lost to the viewer. As to how much we as individuals interpret what we see...that's up to us, do we interpret and compose our paintings to please ourselves, to get across our feeling or our message, for the satisfaction of achievement, to please people who'll view our paintings, to make a money? When I paint I would hope to be able to achieve at least some of those goals.

"Draw what you see, not what you think you see" tells us to open our eyes and see clearly without interpreting, without automatically superimposing our knowledge of what we're looking at, This has to be achieved before we can take the next step which is to see clearly then to interpret what we're seeing, one could say: "Don't draw what's there, draw what you need to be there".

You've been framed!

2011-08-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

Don't let the title give you the horrors, thankfully this is nothing to do with Jeremy Beadle. I've just finished framing twenty three paintings & drawings for my exhibition, that breaks the back of it and just as well, framing's an expensive business. Now I've GOT to sell some of these paintings to pay for all the wood & glass I've just forked out for.

A big heap of paintings:

This is the venue, the Jetty Centre in Stanley, nice isn't it?

What sort of 'Artists' are we?

2011-08-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

Lying abed this morning I got to thinking about what the definition of ‘artist’, it being a Saturday morning you could assume I was pondering about piss-artists but actually I was (of course) thinking about visual art. Not so much the literal definition of ‘artist’ but how Artists define themselves.

There’s this bloke I’ve known for a while, a highly acclaimed professional portrait artist. He paints not just portraits but a wide range of subjects mainly in oils in a down to earth, accurate fashion, not ostentatious photo-realism but straight and very skilful portrayal none the less. What’s interesting is that he does not call himself an ‘artist’, he called himself a painter. I’ve never discussed this with him at any length but the impression I get is that he has a deal of scorn for the ephemeral, high-brow art scene (you know the kind of thing I mean).

This outlook is understandable, there’s me (hypothetically I might add), applying all my talent, my years of experience and practice to produce with much toil a beautiful painting....and there’s some snot nosed kid out of art school piling up some bean tins or splattering some emulsion paint on the floor and having the art world falling over themselves to heap acclaim on him/her for this rubbish. The pompous guff that’s spoken about such ‘art’, its great meaning, importance and so on.

I find it interesting that the even the term ‘artist’ can become tainted in the minds of some artists, painters, whatever one wants to call oneself. I find myself in two minds about this, On the one hand I, like many artists, despair over the insanity of the art world where ‘artists’ with no apparent skill, vision or talent can present banal, meaningless daubs and installations and with the right arty bullshit thrown in these works are somehow meaningful or even acclaimed as masterpieces. Who wants to associate themselves with these charlatans ‘artists’ in any way?

On the other hand I curl my lip at slavish reproductions of photographs in paint, no matter how skilful or how exquisitely executed, at any work that is portrayal of an artist’s skill rather than of the subject (look what I can do sort of thing), these pretty pictures without soul, without passion or meaning...pah! Art is more than this.

So what are we as artists? How do we see ourselves in this world? Visionary, conservative, revolutionary, traditional....? Clearly I can only speak for myself on this issue. For me the subject of a painting has to get something more across to me than its appearance, something that I can then attempt to portray in the painting. I can paint a subject without this element but it is much harder and the results (in my opinion) are lesser because of it. This is what makes painting work for me, in that I suspect I’m an artist.

My Jetty Centre exhibition update

2011-08-21T01:52:00.000-07:00

Got the dates for my up and coming Jety Centre Exhibition. It'll be open between 15th and 22nd October....there! committed myself, no getting out of it now. I'm flying off to Stanley today with the first (and largest I might add) batch of paintings to drop off for framing at the Pink Shop (Jane won't know what's hit her!)

Collection so far (there's a few in here that I'm still not sure about mind):

Pearls of....?

2011-08-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've got into the habit in the last few months of writing down ideas for paintings, ideas on technique, things to do, notes about materials, thoughts about art etc etc in a big notebook that I keep with me whenever possible. On several occasions I've recalled that I've had a great idea for a painting....and that's it...just that I had an idea but cannot recall the idea itself, very frustrating. Writing these sparks of inspiration down as soon as they occur at least means that you've got a record of them, no matter how bizarre or untenable they are.

Been reading back through the pages of ramblings that I've filled so far and thought I'd share a few of my, in my opinion, more worthy pearls of wisdom regarding the intangible lunacy that is art.

"Lines only exist in your mind, there is really just light and shadow. Once you see that you've crossed a line."

"In art the perfect mindset is in balance, doubt and confidence are equal so they cancel out, it's just you and your art, nothing else."

"A photograph can freeze a moment in time in a way that nothing else can, an artist can thaw that moment and bring it back to life."

"Paint fast, draw fast, don't hang around, someone somewhere's catching up."

"Inspiration has no respect for your convenience, always keep a notebook to hand."

"One doesn't have to be an insane absinthe drinking recluse living in poverty in some poxy garrat to be an artist. ...I prefer malt whisky"

"The night is never truly dark, there is always light and shadows, True darkness only exists in the mind....and on the bottom of my kettle."

"Seeing clearly isn't a just matter of opening your eyes, you need to open your mind and heart as well."

"I love really crazy dreams, they make the world appear to be sane"

"Close your eyes to convention, embrace the possibility of what exists inside you rather than what you believe the world expects you to be. Step into the void, your art will catch you. If it does not then no matter what you tell yourself you didn't yet take that step over the precipice."

"Talent is a flame, solitude pours petrol on it."

"Eyes're imprortant in portraits, with dog portraits...essential, if you don't get the expression in a dogs eyes you just have a load of fur."

"If you believe that to produce great art you need to suffer then stick a pencil in your leg."

"Art, it's a three letter word. When it's a necessity to tack another word in front of it we know that we're no longer talking about art."

"Conceptual art has it's uses, it provides art critics with some purpose in their lives. Rather like rotten meat does for flies."

"To think you can choose what your art is to be is to think you have control over what you are, if you believe that you're kidding youself."

"Colour tone is nothing, you can get away with anything with tone. Colour value is everything, get it wrong and you've got nothing."

"Inspiration is a spark in your mind, the mind of an artist is a powderkeg. The art that results is as inevitable as an explosion."

"Should I be worried? I still have both my ears at the moment."

There you have it, the 'Ben's words of wisdom to date' compilation. :-)

Choices, choices...

2011-08-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

A crossroads...what a nice, simple concept. You’re on a journey along a road and get to a place where you need to choose whether you this way or that way, black or white, yes or no. It’s such a convenient analogy and at times to be sure it’s appropriate. Art is a journey and sometimes you do reach a crossroads that is a clear choice, so often though we are not travelling as on a road but are adrift on the open sea, we have a course but are influenced by forces beyond our control and can end up drifting off in an unexpected and unwelcome direction.

It’s so easy to drift into bad habits, I’ve recently caught myself taking my art for granted, I’ve been pushing myself hard to produce work for my coming exhibition and have found I’ve developed a ‘that’ll do, next!’ attitude to my paintings. Where the hell did that come from?...and how will ‘that do’ exactly? Will it do because it’s saleable? because it’s up to a certain standard that I’ve come to expect my art to adhere to? Sounds a lot like a feeling of complacency to me, something an artist has no business experiencing.

Just this morning I read a post on t’internet from a gallery owner about being spammed by aspiring artists who tell him that their art will be just the thing for his gallery, he went on to say, quite rightly of course, that a gallery cannot simply display anything that any artist thinks is worthy , the business doesn’t work like that and on the whole aspiring artists need a bit of business acumen. There is of course a large element of truth in that, if you want a gallery to display your work then you’ll need to conform to the gallery’s standards, they know their market after all. If you want your art to sell then you need to produce work that appeals enough to buyers that they buy it. I can’t help though to feel a bit uncomfortable about this though, of course we have to compromise ourselves to some extent. If we accept a commission we are probably working with a subject that is not one we would have chosen, sometimes it’s necessary to ‘brute force’ such work to get it done.

This is one of those areas where there is no definite choice but a subtle shift in direction. We don’t decide to never paint what we want and how we want to but to cynically turn out work that conforms to a sensible model that is appropriate, saleable, complements the galleries wall decor etc, where we decide that inspiration, wonder, experimentation all get thrown out in favour of grinding out pretty pictures. What happens is that it’s easy to get lazy, to slowly slide into a way of painting that ‘ticks the boxes’ without even realising it’s happening until one day you look at the work you’re doing and say ‘what the hell’s all this stuff?’.

What’s to be done though to prevent this slide into conformity, even into mediocrity? You have to pay your way. How far are we prepared to let ourselves slip, to slowly compromise our work to gain a modicum of critical & financial success as an artist? Once we’ve developed enough skill to consistently turn out crowd pleasing work then it’s very tempting to do so at the expense of what you could become if you stuck to your guns, didn’t give an inch and painted what and how you were inspired to paint.

At some level we all know that that’s how you become great, not by knowing which arses to kiss and pickling cows and such but by being absolutely honest and 100% dedicated to our vision, our ideas in art.

Wildlife paintings.

2011-08-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

Been busy working on stuff to out in my exhibition in October, just recently focusing on wildlife. These two are my contributions for the annual Falklands Conservation Ball which is in late September so probably won't be in the exhibition. Both are soft pastels on pale grey pastelmat, the former 24 X 30cm, the latter 30 X 40cm.

Dark-faced Ground Tyrant:

Elephant seal pup:

As at last years ball these along with other donated paintings will be auctioned off to raise money for the organisation. Hope they sell for plenty.

The voices in my head

2011-08-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

As an artist your voice is your style of painting, many aspiring artists are still experimenting to find their own particular voice, for some it takes years of practice, for it comes almost immediately. I recently read an article about finding one’s artistic voice. How to Find Your Own Artistic Voice. The gist of it was that if you want to achieve greatness and fame as an artist then you need to strive to find your own, original voice that'll make your work so distinctive that you'll blow away the derivative competition.

On the surface this made sense, of course you shouldn't slavishly emulate a particular artist's style, how could it be your voice if your work was indistinguishable from the artist you're inspired by? As it went on though I began to have my doubts, ideas such as policing ones work for any hint of being influenced to other artists for instance. Again this seemed to make sense but as I thought more about it I realised what a frustrating course that could be. As far as I can see the question is whether we have control over defining what our voice is, can we force ourselves to adopt or reject particular styles or elements of our art? Also is achieving a completely original style at any cost the only way to raise ourselves from the derivative morass that is the majority of contemporary art?

I believe that to the former the answer is no, you are what you are as an artist, if you forces yourself to work in a way that is deliberately unlike anything that anyone else does or has done then you're not finding your voice, you're denying it. Your voice is inherent to you and practice will hone that voice into the best it can be.

...and to the latter? Well...that could well be true but then is it worth it? This is about finding YOUR voice remember, an awful lot of art has come before you so how likely is it that you can find this original style without ending up doing things like pickling cows, piling up soup tins or dragging your bed into the gallery. You may achieve the success and fame you desire but is that your voice? I doubt it.

To deliberately and mechanically copy a style is clearly dishonest and it'll show, but also to turn your back on your instinctive inclination, to be original at any price is also dishonest. Keep practicing, allow your creativity free rein, be true to yourself and your art become what it has to be. We cannot all be great and famous artists but we can be honest with our art.

Mollymawks

2011-08-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

Ugh, pretty birds...still, customer's always right. Actually I enjoyed doing these two black browed albatross paintings. As ever soft pastels on 30 X 40 pastelmat.

Mollymawk 1. Looking beautiful on the nest, I liked the shapes that came out of this.

Mollymawk 2. This was a tougher proposition, an albatross doing something other than sitting on its nest looking noble. In flight wasn't really an option, I can't stand the appearance of albatross in gliding flight, they're just a bloody great black and white cross floating around in the painting, In my opinion they look a lot more interesting in the transition between flying and landing/taking off. So I assembled this montage of several references and a good dollop of imagination:

Van who?

2011-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

On showing people my work I often get the response "very Van Gogh" or "you can see the Van Gogh influence", I find this is interesting because I have never attempted to paint in a particular style or studied the work of other artists with a view to finding my 'voice'. To be fair if I look at my work objectively it is in a similar style to the way Van Gogh used to paint but as far as I can tell this is a coincidence.

So what is it that defines the way we paint? the most straightforward possibility is that we do consciously mould our painting style into something we admire and wish to emulate, that we choose the direction our art develops. In my first few months of painting I believed this to be true...now I know, in my case at least, that it is bollocks, I aspired to photorealistic landscape and architecture painting and I've ended up going in a totally different direction. I now believe that if we are honest with ourselves we have no choice at all when it comes to the style we paint in, one can force ourselves to a certain discipline but for as long as one does that the results will never reflect ones own voice.

Another possibility is that we are subconsciously influenced by the work of other artists, something fundamental appeals about their work or the artist themselves and we unconsciously emulate their style. Of course there's no way of knowing if this is the case, although I've never made a particular study of the post-impressionists I can't say I'm unfamiliar with their work or the ideas behind it so there is the possibility that such an influence is there.

So what do we do about this? do we strive to bend our creativity into something that, as far as we know, is entirely original, sternly denying any impulse to do something in a way that has been 'done' before? I don't believe this is healthy, ones artistic voice is what it is, if it's similar to the way one of the great artists painted...so what? at least it's honest, it's not like we're copying the work is it?

I won't deny that my work does look like it's painted in the style of Van Gogh but I would argue that this is merely a coincidence, it's just that we happen to paint the same way. I would like to think that if I had demonstrably never heard of or seen any of the work of ol' mad Vincent I would still paint exactly as I do, of course there is no way of knowing....

The spare bedroom is dead...long live the studio!

2011-07-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

Actually our spare bedroom is not dead, I've settled quite comfortably into it, one of the beds is stowed under the other (which in turn is used for storing large format card and pastelmat on....as well as being a dumping ground for drawing pads, rolls of paper, jumpers, finsished paintings, empty beer bottles etc). Most of the space this creates is taken up by an enormous worksurface (cut out of a sheet of plywood and stood on a pair of trestles) and an easel made out of a modular stepladder.

All this stuff is easily dismantled and the room can be returned to being a nice twin bedroom in the blink of an eye, 4 or 5 hours of lumping things around, untangling cables and scrubbing pastel dust out of the floorboards and it's as if I've never been there. Seriously though, it's great having my own studio space, I'm so pleased with it I treated myself to a nice chair.

My worktop:

My easel:

My view:

Finished experiment.

2011-07-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

It was interesting doing this. I think it's finished...anyway it was just an experiment. Lessons learnt?...possibly not to do everything with directional strokes, some of the fine detail was hard to achieve, particularly with the hair...maybe I should shave my head...

Definitely going to explore this idea further, possibly using more complex shapes that compliment the primary image more...or contrast it more, could be very interesting.

Experimental self portrait.

2011-07-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Self portrait on 30 X 40 yellow pastelmat. Decided to try out an idea I've been toying with to use the direction of pastel strokes to suggest other shapes than depicted by colour tone and value, as this is the first time I've kept it simple, just concentric circles centred on my right eye.

I ususlly use the pastel strokes as quite a strong element in painting so it's interesting to have that elememt shifed to another dimension...and difficult. We'll see where this goes. Still a lot to do on this.

Ref:

Sketch and start of detail in face:

Colour filled in:

Exhibition time

2011-07-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've finally plucked up the courage to have an exhibition, I've got a venue, I've got our rather good local company Sealed PR on the case to do all the hard work...and I've got 10 weeks to get my act together (and my art together) for it....ulp.

Actually I am really looking forward to this, nervous of course but not too bad. Also gives me the chance to do that element of my gainful employment that I love doing...messing around in Draw designing posters, catalogue, cards, invites etc. Got a business cards done and the first draft of a catalogue:

I'm planning to exhibit about 50 paintings of which perhaps half will be for sale, should be happening at the start of October....quite a lot to do before then as nearly half of the paintings I'd like to exhibit aren't even painted yet, still just ideas, I'd better knuckle down.

Double Portrait

2011-07-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

Finished my double portrait today. As is so often the case these didn't come out as I expected, I'm reasonably pleased with them though. ( A couple more paintings to show in my exhibition that's coming up in 10 weeks....gulp).

Stormy sky & sand dunes.

2011-07-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

The North Arm of Fox Bay, Mt Sulivan in the background, this is a photo that I've been meaning to use as a painting reference for ages. Finally got round to it, soft pastels on 14" by 19" grey pastelmat, took two half days to paint and sold it the day after it was finished.

Reference.

Day 1, roughed in.

Day 2, finished.

Internet presence

2011-06-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

Been working on this a bit recently. I've been blogging for over a year now and had got to grips with my Blogger account and using google reader to keep track of blogs I am following, I do have a website which is still a work in progress so I'm not yet publicising it.

I can't even remember how I came across it now but I stumbled on this site: Lori McNee, fine art & tips, which has some excellent articles about using social networking to raise ones profile and increase traffic to your site. After reading through the advice on there I created my own artists facebook page and twitter account with links back to my blog. I then used RSS Graffiti to feed my blog posts to my Facebook page and twitterfeed to feed content from the FB page to Twitter.

Having done all this it did leave me wondering for a moment if I actually needed a website at all. The blog is a core element of my web presence, my development as an artist, achievements, thoughts are all recorded here in far more detail and in a more comprehensive layout than the website will be able to achieve. The Facebook page has up to date galleries of my art, my contact information is there on all three elements, blog, FB & Twitter....so what's the website actually going to do?....

After pondering it for a while I did realise that it still had a place in the scheme of things. This is the only place I can present a comprehensive, detailed gallery, the FB albums are OK but limited in what they can do in the way of searching and presenting information. There is also the credability of a stand alone website, It's strange to think of something as recent and hi tech as the internet as having respected, bricks & mortar type of entities but that's what websites really are, the fashionable and highly flexible areas of social networking are great but not everyone is comfortable with them, the website is a solid base for all these more intangible, changable applications.

Mind you my website isn't in the equation yet and still my internet presence seems to be doing OK...interesting.

Progress on the double portrait

2011-06-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

Tonights progress, more colour built up. I attempted to push these a little warmer but no good, I think these just are going to be cool toned paintings. It still surprises me how little control one has over the look of a painting once you're a into it. One of these days I'm goinf to do a completely crazy painting with no respect for colour tone at all, just using value and nothing else...could be fun.

Double portrait

2011-06-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday, today I can do whatever I want....within reason. So bearing that in mind I've made a start on a pair of portraits of my niece. These are based on two photographs taken on the same day, same lighting but showing two different moods. I'm actually painting these at the same time, each time I pick up a new stick of colour I use it on one, then the other before I use another colour. Interesting experiment so far. Both are on 35 X 40 cm grey pastelmat.

Reference photos:

Charcoal undersketch:

Filling colour with soft pastels:

So far so good.

Big project

2011-06-19T06:25:00.000-07:00

Took the first step today on what could turn out to be an impossible project. I'm attempting to turn out a series of paintings based on nothing but my memories (as a seven year old) of the Falklands War in 1982. My parents, elder brother and I were incarcerated in our house in Fox Bay East during the conflict. The settlement was garrisoned by Argentine troops and my memories of the time are of the impact of their presence and the air attacks by the British.

There were events during that time that I still recall as snapshots but filtered through the understanding and perspective of a seven year old (and the passing of 29 years as well of course). The first stage of this process has been to try to describe all of these images that remain to me, so I've jotted them down and drawn thumbnail sketches of how I recall them.

I've no idea if I'm going to be able to get anything to come out of this idea, still, should be interesting. On a lighter note here's a graphite drawing of a rather cute rough collie, This is the first time since I've started drawing again that I've used graphite for a finished drawing. I'm reasonably pleased but golly graphite is a slow, restrictive medium compared to charcoal.

Hawk & Rockhopper paintings

2011-06-10T02:42:00.000-07:00

Just browsing through our local paper and saw one of my paintings looking back at me from an advertisment:

My Young hawk and Rockhopper paintings are up for sale in Studio 52, fingers crossed!

Facebook Page

2011-06-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

I've always shared my paintings on my facebook profile and have had great feedback so thought I'd take the next step and publish my own facebook page, seems to me like a lot of people prefer to use FB for following such things rather than wrestling with stuff like google reader and such so I stuck a 'like; gadget on the bottom of my blog for those that prefer that option. There's a gallery of my paintings on there and an RSS feed from posts on here.

Now I just need to get my website finished....busy busy.

Shearing

2011-06-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

This is a subject I've been meaning to have a go at for a while...not to have a go at shearing myself I hasten to add but to paint the subject of shearing. During the last Sports Week I took the opportunity to take a load of pictures of the shearing competition to give me suitable references.

Eventually I would like to do a series of these but so far I've completed just one.

Reference:

Finished painting:

I'm pretty chuffed that on the day after finishing this painting I had an offer for it...result!. Whilst on the subject of selling I've also put my two bird close-ups up for sale in a shop/gallery in Stanley, here they are in Studio 52. Hope they sell.

The young hawk

2011-05-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

Just completed the second of my 'close up' paintings. This is a young red-backed hawk, whilst thinking about how this would work I got caught up with the idea of a flowing shape created from the lie of his feathers, the eye and is the focal point and the beak a hard element that breaks out of the softenss of the curve.

Reference photo:

Finished painting:

Feeling a bit chuffed with the 'flowing curve' idea when it occured to me that I'd seen this before...and I had, months ago in a doodle I'd done whilst talking to someone on the phone, funny how your mind works isn't it. I'd forgotten about this but the idea must have still been in there somewhere.

Doodle:

Extreme close up

2011-05-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning for a while to do a series of pastels extreme close up images, not necessarily very small things but just a close look, the lichen on an old, weathered gate post, a rusty iron hinge, the feathers on a birds wing....that sort of thing. Some references will be photos that have been cropped to death, some will be still life, some macro photographs.

So I had a crack at one this evening, this is based on a photo of a rockhopper penguin, cropped until there's nothing except his eye and part of his beak and brow (I know I said I wouldn't do penguins but I've weakened).

For this I used mostly my conte (softish) pastels, just finished off the highlights & shadows with schminke pastels to get a bit more intensity. Support is 24 X 30 pastelmat in my favourite colour, anthracite. On the whole I don't blend much and in this painting I did none at all, also (and unusually for me) I didn't fix at all during the painting, bit of a departure for me this is.

Foden the Huntaway

2011-05-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

This is a commissioned portrait of Foden, a favourite huntaway belonging to a friend of mine (named after his favourite truck!). This is the first time I've done a dog portrait that's not just a headshot, I'm reasonably pleased with it. Must try some of dogs running and such.

Foden, soft pastels on 30 X 40cm pale grey pastelmat.

Apply a sky

2011-05-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

Been trawling though my photo archives looking for landscape references, I've found a few good photos that stand alone as a ref for a painting but many that worked in one way but not another. The Falkland Islands are a place that is dominated by the sky and in many of my photos that's the element that does not work. I photograph a particular scene that I like but so often the sky & clouds are uninteresting and this wrecks the feel of the image.

Recently I've taken to shooting images of 'good' skies with the object of using them to fix scenes, I have about 300 of these good sky images now, sunsets, sunrises, stormy, windy, broken cloud but all 'good' images. A suitable sky can be pasted onto a photo to jazz it up (I use Corel PhotoPaint for this but any decent photoeditor will do), Here's a few photos I've 'fixed' in this way, they don't stand up as a photo in themselves but it gives me a more inspiring reference for a painting (I hope).

This is a photograph taken by my mother of a scene looking south west from somewhere near the Black Hill in Chartres, I prefer to have more sky and I'm not entirely comfortable with the high contrast of the slab of rock in the foreground...so...here it is cropped and with a new, more dynamic sky applied:

Here's a couple more:

Hill Cove

Hill Cove, this wasn't bad at all but again I wanted just a bit more going on, the Sky overlay came from another photo taken on the same day but about an hour later:

Fox Bay

Fox Bay, this was taken from our car...as was the sky only about 5 minutes earlier but quite a difference:

Must crack on and see if I can get some decent paintings from these, I feel that this will prove to be a useful trick.

The Blue Hound

2011-04-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

I've been brute forcing a commissioned portrait so thought I'd take a break and do something a bit more fun....and here he is, the blue hound.
He was inspired by a dog I saw in the movie Gladiator. At the beginning when the Romans are fighting the Germans the Roman General Maximus has a large, Alsation type hound that tags along with him. He only appears for a few seconds but he's a nice looking dog, this is based on him.
soft pastels on 30 X 40cm cartridge paper.

Started with hard pastels:

...then soft pastels:

Finished:

This took a couple of hours. Must do more using this loose style, it's great fun.

Monty the cat

2011-04-22T01:10:00.000-07:00

My first ever cat portrait! This was my wifes birthday present back in February (the painting that is, not the cat). He's six years old and he's a git (but we love him). Charcoal & pastels on 30 X 40cm yellow pastelmat.

ref photo:

Charcoal sketch:

Some colour added:

Nearly done:

Finished:

This was one of these paintings that just rolled out quite nicely, got it done in one afternoon, happy days!.

Bruce

2011-04-21T05:22:00.000-07:00

This is a commission I had a few months ago, to start with I thought it was just another dog portrait but it turned out that the customer wanted other specific elements, foreground is a headshot of the Huntaway Bruce, fair enough but that had to be applied to a background of a location and a flock of sheep AND a shepherd (the owner of Bruce). This was something new as I'd never tried to combine elements like this before, in the end I had to omit the shepherd, it was just too much going on and I couldn't make it work. Here are the reference pics I had to work with:

Bruce

Sheep

Background (& shepherd on his quad bike)

Clearly this wasn't going to be just a portrait, it was a combination of portrait and landscape...and I don't much like doing landscapes, way too tricky. Anyway I messed around with a few compositions and in the end the most obvious worked the best:

Composition sketch:

On the strength of this rather crude drawing I got the go ahead. I opted for charcoal and soft pastels (surprise surprise) on 30 X 40 cartridge paper.

Charcoal sketch, Bruce's head:

Completed sketch:

Some colour thrown in:

Finished:

I found this to be quite a challenge and was quite pleased with the result. The client was delighted with it when she got it and then threw another idea at me, something much, much tougher altogether, watch this space.....

Haven't been here for a while

2011-04-21T04:38:00.000-07:00

Cor! Five months since I last posted, where does the time go?

Well for the last seven weeks I've had my arm in a sling after I managed to dislocate my shoulder (it had to be my right arm of course...doh!), happily it's healing well now and I've been (carefully) doing some drawing again. Here's a few pieces I'd got done before my injury:

First of all some commissions, there's a couple more but I'm going to post them individually:

Joey the lab, charcoal & pastels on 30 X 40 cartridge paper.

A set of two individual pastel portraits of a friends children, also one coloured pencil portrait of both together:

......and a couple I did as Christmas presents:

Tealeaf the lurcher, charcoal.

Ruby, my youngest niece, charcoal

Andi

2010-12-12T12:31:00.000-08:00

Just got a load of fine new materials courtesy of my sweepstake win, new paper, card, fixative, all sorts, also 3 sets of Unison pastels, landscape 72, portrait 72 and starter 72 so my palette is now pretty decent.

One of the paper types is ingres sheets in a selection of colours, did this this afternoon on A2 black ingres, Portrait of the Singer & Songwriter Andi Neate:

Bump!

2010-11-30T10:48:00.000-08:00

Still here, Had a bit of a dry spell but recently been working on some commissions and such. What's good is that I'm getting paid for them, what's bad is they're all gifts, so I can't show any of them yet.

Still all dry media of course, charcoal and pastels. Here's an idea I'm playing with: Boom the dog backlit on wet sand, just liked the look of the reflections:

ref photo

Sketch, Charcoal & pastel

Made the local paper!

2010-09-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

Very gratifying that my picture was used in the article.
:)

Craft Fair

2010-09-07T02:59:00.000-07:00

For the first time in many years I've entered a few paintings in the annual craft fair in Stanley, shame I won't be able to get in to town see the fair myself.....the price of living out in the sticks eh.

Here's the ones I've entered:

Fingers crossed!

Landscapes finished.

2010-08-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

Finished my two large, Kraft paper landscapes today. Definately going to do more on this stuff, as other artist have found before it's quite a rewarding surface to use pastels on....in a crude sort of way anyhow.

Finished them.

2010-08-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

Finished my 'fighting johnnyrooks' painting, here it is with the 'angry johnnyrook':

Not being much of a photographer both of these are composed from multiple reference photos, recently I got some decent shots of a johnnyrook on the wing which I'd not managed before. Might do a third picture in this set based on this photo:

Could be fun.

Fighting Johnnyrooks

2010-08-21T05:32:00.000-07:00

This is (I hope) going to be a piece that compliments my angry johnnyrook picture, if it works both of these are to be donated for an auction at an annual social event called the Conservation Ball, this is held to raise money for the local environmental charity Falklands Conservation. Here's a link to their website if you're interested

This is a subject composed using many shots of Johhnyrooks doing their stuff, they do fight quite a lot but they're so quick moving that I've never managed to get one good shot of the action I wanted to portray. Soft pastels on 30 X 40 yellow pastelmat.

Initail work showing the sketch and my (I think, rather nifty) monitor setup.

First stage, blocking out of basic shapes.

Some depth of colour added

More colour, movment and detail, colours are very brash so still a long way to go.

Landscapes on Kraft paper

2010-08-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

Been trying this out recently, big bits of heavy kraft paper (50 X 70cm ish), intereresting stuff to work on but a bit frustrating compared to the ultra responsive (& sadly ultra expensive) pastelmat that is my favourite paper.

Leicester creek road in a really cold spell, sun just setting. This is nearly done, just a bit of detail in the foreground I think.

Apocryphal scene based on the hills in Port Stephens on an unsettled day, patchy light playing on the hills and the unsettled overcast sky. Still needs a lot doing to it, not sure if it'll work or not.

I'm back

2010-08-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

Well, my studio is set up (well....it's a spare bedroom that I've taken over), my home made easel works tolerably well so everythings going OK. Here's a couple of pastel pictures on 30 X 40 pastelmat that I've done in the last couple of days.
In doing these I took a bit of advice from Harley Brown in his book 'Eternal truths for every artist' that made a lot of sense to me "Show the paper who's the boss" meaning just break up the surface with big pastel strokes, no particular form or colour just mess up the surface. I found this gave me a much looser approach than my usual method of working on top of an accurate sketch, good fun.

Angry Johnnyrook, orange pastelmat.

..and Johnny cash....also looking quite angry, grey pastelmat.
Work in progress of this is on the 'on the easel' page

"Destiny has taken a hand"

2010-07-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

Charcoal sketch of Bogart in Casablanca:

I was inspired to draw this while musing on one of Bogarts lines in this scene "It seems that destiny has taken a hand". This musing was brought about by an incredible stroke of luck, just at a time when I'm wanting to take time away from my regular job to concentrate more on my art and the possibility of getting to a level where I can make some sort of living at it so more materials, the means to make prints, a website and all that stuff is needed. I've been wondering how I can afford this investment when wham! out here there is an annual sweepstake that was drawn last weekend with a top prize of £1500, It had even occured to me that to win that would be a real help, we Falkland Islanders are very keen on the Sweep so there's always a lot of tickets sold but this year I did win the top prize! a lump like that out of the blue is going to be a real help....pure luck of course but just when I needed it most, any other time I would have spent it on a holiday or something or just frittered it away, it's a funny old world.

Johnnyrook 2

2010-07-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

Well....things are moving on, been working on a couple of commissions now but they're a surprise gift so can't tell show 'em yet. Yet another bout of insomnia this morning so had another crack at that great character the straited caracara AKA johnnyrook. Charcoal, A3.

Ian McKellen

2010-07-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

Another sleepless night......still, allows me to get some drawing done. Ian McKellen, charcoal & Soft pastels on white pastel paper. After weeks of using fancy paper like pastelmat and velour it's interesting to go back to such a basic substrate, now that I have decent soft pastels I find this works quite well and it's not nearly as hungry as the more expensive, textured papers.

Luca the keen Collie

2010-07-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

Feeling a bit low so indulged myself by doing a pair of 'recently deceased' portraits. Luca was an 11 year old border collie who belonged to my brother and his wife, he had been suffering terribly with joint problems and was recently put down. A great character, destroyer of toys, escape artist, and all round entertainer.

Both are soft pastels on A3 pastel paper.

Rest in peace Luka.

Red Backed Hawk

2010-07-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Juvenile Red Backed Hawk, also called the Variable Hawk due to the many variations of plumage it can have. He was just landing in the ref for this. I rather liked the rich colours in this variation, on the ground he was a bit awkward but this shot caught him rather well. Soft Pastels on white 30 X 40 pastelmat.

I find birds difficult but was quite pleased with this one, must practice more.

Paul Verhoeven

2010-07-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Couldn't sleep last night so stuck on one of my favourite old movies, Robocop. In the DVD extras was a photo of the director Paul Verhoeven with his typical bad tempered, tempramental director look. So I had a crack at drawing him, charcoal on A3 pastel block.

Hoped some of tension of the filmmaking could show in this, Robocop was supposed to have been a complete nightmare for all involved. I recall someone on the documentary saying "working on Robocop was like being the victim of a violent crime, you try to blank it out" Grand film though.

Bill Porter

2010-07-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

Finished my portrait of Bill Porter, took a while and I found the WIP photos useful so posting this one as a complete work in progress. The finished pastel I'll give to the local social club which Bill chaired for many years.

Charcoal sketch

here's the first stage of the larger painting, graphite sketch on pale grey 30 X 40 pastelmat.

Filled in with charcoal, some colour next.

First blocking in of colour, conte soft pastels.

Bit more done, using my daler rowney pastel pencils on this, excellent pastel cores in them but the wood casings are terrible, grain all over the place so very hard to sharpen without breaking the core.

looking a bit flat, slapped some unison pastel on there, grand stuff.

Getting there.

Finished painting

Johnnyrook

2010-06-30T11:40:00.001-07:00

Also did this quick study of a johnnyrook (striated caracara) last night, he's a rare, very inquisitive raptor that is actually quite common here in the Falklands. They are pretty mad, jittery creatures so I wanted lots of movement to be apparent, didn't quite work as I wanted so may have another go at this idea. Pastels on 24X30 yellow pastelmat.

Hank

2010-06-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Country and Western singer Hank Wangford. Hank did a tour in the Falkland Islands back in 1999 and very good he was too. This is a pastel painting of him on grey velour, I actually printed tour T-shirts for him and his band the Lost Cowboys in 1999 that used the same image drawn in marker pen.

More about Hank on his website: http://www.hankwangford.co.uk/hanks_page.html

soft pastels on 30 X 40 grey velour.

Tour T-shirt design, marker pen & digital.

Blasted

2010-06-28T02:31:00.000-07:00

Windy place the Falklands, This is a particularly good example of what the prevailing wind does to such trees as there are down here. Charcoal on 30 X 40 white paper.

Nervous as hell.....

2010-06-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Nervous now, got a couple of commissions to do. One pair of child portraits and one single child portrait, just waiting of the reference photos to turn up.

This is the first time I've been offered commissions and I've accepted both. ....If there's anyone up there watching out for over-ambitious portrait artists then keep your fingers crossed for me......

Self Portrait 2

2010-06-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

After having fun doing my 'Seal' portrait I thought I'd have a go at something a bit more disciplined, rather liked the 'Proximo' drawing I did last week so had a crack at doing myself in charcoal. Pushed the contrast right up in this as I like to do, along with my drawing style this has aged me rather but I'm pretty pleased with it as a drawing exercise. Took about two and a half hours.

Ref Photos:

Drawing:

Seal

2010-06-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

Portrait of the singer 'Seal', soft pastels on black velour.

Last night I started 2 pictures and both came to nothing which was a bit dis-heartening but I'm pretty pleased with this one I did this evening.

Bro2

2010-06-20T05:32:00.001-07:00

My Younger brother Sam on a very windy day, actually the same day as the ref for the painting 'Wind' so it sort of goes with that one. Soft pastels on 24 X 30 yellow pastelmat.

Proximo

2010-06-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

Proximo, a grumpy old bastard from the movie Gladiator, wonderfully played by the late Oliver Reed.
15 min charcoal sketch, this was going to be another pastel portrait but I quite liked it just as a sketch so left it at that. Sometimes things just work (wish it was always that easy).

"Ultimately we're all dead men, sadly we connot choose when or how...but we can choose how we meet that end....so we are remembered as men"

Dad

2010-06-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

My father Richard Cockwell, soft pastels on 30 X 40 orange pastelmat. This is based on a rather poor quality photo of an old photo (it's a good original, just a bit faded and behind glass). Interesting to work from a reference like this, up till now I've used high resolution reference shots, surprising how little you actually need from it when you're painting a subject you know well.

Reference photo:

Finished painting, quite pleased with this.

With the exception of my 'toddler' portrait I have not really done much more than headshots up till now, doesn't look like much but incorporating a hand in the portrait was quite a step for me, I was considering leaving it out but I felt it was essential to the image.

Bro1

2010-06-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

Finished this yesterday, my elder brother Adam sitting out at a picnic last summer (must have been one of the better days). Soft pastels and pastel pencil on 24 X 30 beige pastelmat.

I'm entirely satisfied with this which concerns me a bit, not sure that complacency about ones work is very useful.

Busy day

2010-06-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Started three pictures today, a portrait of my brother Adam in soft pastels, still from the movie LA Confidential in soft pastels and a drawing of our other dog Jill in coloured pencils.
Finished Jill this evening along with another painting I'd started last week....Phew!

This is the painting I finished this evening, Giant petrels (local name: Stinkers) fighting over carrion in the water, soft pastels on 30X40 pastelmat. Not particularly pleased with this, it did what I wanted it to, just not that happy with the look of the birds...more practice.

Our black, short haired border collie Jill. This is her 'glum' look (just been shut into the pack of the pickup with Boom, she loves being out but hates travelling, especially with that barking oaf). Polychronos coloured pencils & black sketching pencil on A4 cartridge paper.

Unison

2010-06-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Well...after being treated to a set of Daler-Rowney pastels by my wife last week....look what arrived in the post today,

a rather nice set of Unison pastels. I was warned about these and the warnings were justified, they are soft, they are intense, once tried nothing else will do....all true, these are stonking pastels.

Knocked out a couple of quick hand sketches with them (that's sketches of hands by the way).

Hands: charcoal and pastels on white Ingres paper.

...and this one, Pastels on white Ingres (nice pastels Unison)

"I ain't like that no more"

2010-06-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

Based on a still from the Movie 'Unforgiven', a great western. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood it pays homage to the spaghetti westerns which made him a star of the western genre.
He plays William Munny, an ageing reformed gunslinger now a widowed and poverty stricken pig farmer. Munny reluctantly picks up his pistols to do one more job to help him support his 2 children. In the scene he sits in front of his campfire with his partner Ned Logan discussing the events of their wild past, Munny is trying to persuede himself that he will not fall back into his former wicked ways.

"I ain't like that no more. I ain't the same, Ned. Claudia, she straightened me up, cleared me of drinkin' whiskey and all. Just 'cause we're goin' on this killing, that don't mean I'm gonna go back to bein' the way I was. I just need the money, get a new start for them youngsters"

Soft Pastels (limited palete) on anthracite pastelmat, finished....probably.

To trace or not to trace?

2010-06-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Something that struck me whilst working on 'unforgiven' is the difference between my portraits where I have sketched the basic form freehand or where I have used a more scientific approach (grid or trace for me, I have no lightbox), what I notice is a much looser overall finish to the pieces that have been freehand throughout almost as if how the inital sketch of an image is executed colours the whole painting. I'm not aware of any conscious difference in how I continue a painting past that stage. Is this down the necessity of making small corrections to the form as the work progresses versus the fixed, accurate template that one works to if the initial sketch is known to be 100% correct? I have noticed a tendency in my work to elongate faces, particularly noticable in 'Mr Rochester', 'Goodbye Crow' and 'Unforgiven' (which is still in progress so it will be corrected to some extent). I can see the necessity of an accurate start with some media (I've learnt the hard way that with coloured pencils or crayons there's no room for major adjustment so they need to be dead right from the start), pastels however do give a great deal more freedom, discipline & accuracy vs freedom and creativity...interesting.

Pieces that were initially traced (or similar)

...and others that were done entirely freehand.

Hmm...perhaps there's nothing in it afterall in the results, just feel different somehow.

Sold a drawing!

2010-06-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Happy days! last year I did a coloured pencil portrait of another member of Artforums.co.uk as part of a portrait challence that used to run on there....and she's just bought it from me! well, we arranged a swap, the drawing for some new art materials for me. Well chuffed!

She's Julie Broom, an artist in Scotland who's been very supportive to me in my attempt to get back into drawing & painting, Check out her blog: http://juliebroom.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/last-blast-at-the-make-room/

New pastels

2010-06-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

The missus came back from Stanley today and had a present for me, box of 16 daler-rowney soft pastels. Banged out a quick 10 minute sketch of some flames just to try them out on brown ingres paper (not my favourite paper for pastels but worked just fine with these, very nice, fat, soft pastels, I'll see how they compare to the Unisons that are on their way)

Goodbye Crow

2010-06-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

This is another first for me, working from a movie. This is intended to portray emotion of the moment although it turned out quite close in terms of form to the frame I was using as reference.

A quick explanation of what's going on: Based on a scene from the movie Minority Report. It depicts John Anderton, a drug addicted and mentally scarred cop who runs a police department called pre-crime who use psychics to predict & prevent murders, he is driven to help develop pre-crime by the unsolved murder of his son six years earlier.

In the scene he is about to avenge his son by killing Leo Crow, the man he believes abducted and murdered him. He knows this action has been predicted to happen by the psychics and if he suceeds in committing the murder he will destroy not only himself but everything he has worked for in Pre-crime. Holding Crow at gunpoint he struggles with himself, his wrath and desire for vengence against his duty as a dedicated cop.....Choices eh?

I used the still from the movie as a reference to get the basic form of this, but once that was done it was mostly down to trying to 'feel' the emotion of the moment which was tough, surprisingly tiring. "Goodbye Crow......BLAM"

Pablo

2010-06-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

Portrait of Pablo Picasso, soft pastels on 30X40cm yellow pastelmat.

I've noticed doing this and my last painting 'Wind' that I've not been blending at all and I've hardly touched my pastel pencils, everything is done with the big pastel strokes, again this is not intentional just seems to me the way I need to go.

Seem to be too many paintings going on in my head at the moment and I'm rushing a bit, just need to slow down a bit and take stock of where I've got to.

The Wind

2010-06-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment I wanted to try, representing strong wind in a portrait painting. It's based on a photo of my brothers girlfriend taken while they were visiting the Falklands last year, on a very windy day (50+ knots). Soft pastels on 30X40 beige pastelmat.

Rough sketch of the idea in neocolour crayon

Finished pastel painting.

I'm finding it interesting that as my painting develop I'm tending towards a post impressionist style, it's not intentional, just seems to be the way I 'need' to go.

Winter Sunrise

2010-05-31T02:28:00.000-07:00

Overlooking Hill Cove to Keppel Island (I think) from above the bottom settlement, soft pastels on Ingres paper. This is based on a photo I took facing into the sun a couple of hours after sunrise, the under exposure of most of the photo gave a sunrise feel to it so I worked it into a sunrise scene. Taken on an absolutely stonking winters day, take a look at this album: Mt Donald

Ref photo:

Painting:

Didn't rate the Ingres paper much, too soft, too textured and I found the tooth deteriorated quite fast, think I've been spoiled by using pastelmat. A poor photo of the painting too I find, maybe something about the texture of the paper messes up my camera...like black fur does.

General Jackson

2010-05-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

My Dads basset hound, polychronos coloured pencils on white cartridge pad.
Interesting going back to coloured pencils after working with pastels for a while, oddly reassuring in some way even though they impose far more limits than pastels. It's noticable how you cannot get the quick results with this medium compared to pastels as well, you've got to work at it with pencils. This little drawing took over 2 hours.

Unlike work I've done before this came out exactly as I imagined it would. Working on this has emphasised, for me, the value of short pencil strokes and patience when trying to achieve a nice 'fur' look.

Some old stuff

2010-05-27T06:21:00.001-07:00

A few old bits and pieces from when I started drawing again.

Glass of water, Graphite on white paper (a good exercise in observation is a glass of water, draw what you see not what you know is there), and flowerpot, pastels on white paper, just a quick doodle I did when I first dug out my old pastels.

This is a little pastel sketch of a photo I took in a building in Vienna, back when I took it I had it in mind that it would make a good subject for a painting so I had a crack at it.
Sketch of Boom as a pup, Conte on white cartridge pad.
....and Boom again, biro portrait (interesting using biro like that, no room for any correction at all)

Self Portrait

2010-05-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

Just did this last night, white & grey pastel and charcoal on black pastelmat. I've been meaning to try light on dark for a while, great fun. The reference was a photo my wife took one evening while we were in the Atacama, very strong, low sunlight.

I've found that on my last couple of portraits (this one & pedro) that I'm inclined to think less about what I'm doing, the painting just seems to happen somehow, rather enjoyable but don't know if this is a good thing or not as far as the results go...

Diamond Corner

2010-05-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at doing a landscape in pastels. 30 X 40cm grey pastelmat. Again found the discipline of lanscape painting a hard task after the portraits I'm more used to. Started out OK building up the basic colours in carres pastel:

When it came to putting in detail I found my Conte soft pastels a bit dissapointing, even on pastelmat & fixed they just would not lay down the pigment as I wanted. My old scraps of pastel I had left over from my school days are actually much better, fortunately there was enough of them to to finish this, might try some Unison pastels I reckon.

Don't really know what to make of this, I'm reasonably pleased with the result but don't know if it's really what I was after.

Ref photo:

Someone a bit older, Pedro

2010-05-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Finished this last night, carres pastels on yellow pastelmat. Peter Robertson (AKA Pedro) the owner of Port Stephens Farm down in the south of West Falkland. An old man of great character which, I think, comes across in the portrait quite well.

Gabba

2010-05-19T05:26:00.000-07:00

Finally my new art materials have arrived, conte soft pastels, carres pastels, pastel pencils, blending stumps, pastelmat...the works! Started this last night on pale grey pastelmat. This is my neice Abagail (calls herself 'Gabba' so now everyone does) age 8 months (ish), never used pastelmat before, amazing stuff. This is not quite finished yet I think.
The 'studio', with all my new goodies! very pleased with them although I am finding the soft conte pastels are surprisingly hard compared to the scraps I had left in my art box (no idea what they were but must have been something quite good I think).
Did a bit more work on Gabba last night, here's the finished version.

Really finished this time!

2010-05-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

Right...Confession time...this wasn't finished, having said it was I flipped it on my computer to have a fresh look at it and damn! face was out of balance (too fat on the lit side) so I just fined down the face and did a bit more work round the eyes a bit for a better likeness. It is now mounted, framed and presented now so it really is finished.

Finished!

2010-05-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

Finished my baby portrait last night...well...I'm not going to do any more to it anyway, when is a painting ever really finished? Quite pleased with this, my 6th effort at portraiture. I am enjoying doing them but really must have a go at other subjects.

Here is my 'studio' (aka: dining table) with the painting in progress, a little bird told me I'll be getting an easel for my birthday though.
:)

progress on the baby portrait

2010-05-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Getting there now I think, reshaped the nose & mouth and knocked back the contrast a little. A bit more work this evening should do it I reckon.

Baby portrait

2010-05-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

Portrait of my baby nephew, soft pastels (as ever). This is taken from a photo that my father has that caught my eye, dark fabric behind and lit strongly from the left. Not finished yet but getting there (I hope)

charcoal underpainting:

....and progress so far with the pastels, mouth and shadows of the right cheek are wrong I think, more work needed.

Mt Adam

2010-04-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

This is Mt Adam, biggest hill on West Falkland, as with many of the large hills on the west Mt Adam bears the scars of glaciation. The veiwpoint is from the end of the north ridge above the southern tarn 500 feet below and looking up to the twin summits, I like the way one can see the original rolling shape of the hill and the distinct boundary where the glacier has cut it away.

I've wanted to have a crack at drawing this veiw for a while and it's the first proper go I've had at a landscape since I took up art again. Interesting subject landscape is, I've found it to be very different from doing portraits like if've been stuck on so far, For me anyway what makes or breaks a portrait is to get the form correct, get that right and anything else goes (within reason). Accurate form seems less important in landscape than getting the sense of depth and colour right, if the hills are slightly the wrong shape it doesn't matter, I guess it's that landscape features like hills, rocks, rivers, lakes are variable in shape, a rock is a rock as long as it's texture & colour looks rocklike, a human form on the other hand is something where we can immediately see if it is right or wrong and if it's wrong it doesn't work. In this case I've dramatised it a bit, the ref photo had flattened the perspective (as photos do), the drawing is more how I remember the veiw from visiting the hill.

I used my neocolour II crayons and polychromos coloured pencils on grey canvas texture paper for this, I really do like my neocolour crayons. :)

Work in progress, toddler

2010-03-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

Just started this, Toddler sitting engrossed with....er something she's holding. Light is from a large window behind so very strongly backlit. Soft pastels (will be anyway) on A3 Pastel paper,
First stage is drawn with 2H pencil.

First blocking in of colour.

Fixed, and a some detail on the background, hat & face.

Struggling a bit with my current set of pastels. WH Smith 'soft' pastels but they're not that soft at all, small square profile sticks (look more like hard pastels to me) they don't layer up at all well and some have hard bits in them that do.....well..nothing except scratch on the paper.
Really looking forward to my set of conte soft pastels arriving.

Progress last night, more detail and deapth of colour built up, can't lay much pigment on with my current pastels so fixed again. Starting to shape up quite nicely I think, we'll see what this evening brings.

Starting to get the contrast from the strong backlight, not happy with the left hand.
Just about finished I think, Still not entirely happy with the left hand & arm....and the highlight on the cushion seems a bit too much.....Hmmm....continue or not?.....

Shanty Life

2010-03-13T16:34:00.000-08:00

This is inside Gun Hill Shanty, a wee place up in what was a farm called Little Chartres, now Philomel Farm. Andy is sitting reading on a low seat lit from his right but also backlit by the window behind, it was a nice photo that I have wanted to sketch for a while. Oil pastels on grey pastel paper.

Oil pastel doodle

2010-02-17T05:55:00.000-08:00

Well, had a visit from my ma Griz yesterday and she presented me with a selection of oil pastels (I'd mentioned I wanted to try them), got doodling with them an ended up with this:

Pretty mad eh?, Griz by the way is a skillful artist who also lives on West Falkland just up the road at Chartres, here is some of her recent work that she recently posted on Artforum.co.uk, location is Surf Bay near Stanley on East Falkland:
Clicky

Mr Rochester

2010-02-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

Did this as a bit of portrait practice, soft pastel & charcoal sketch of the tragic Jane Eyre character Mr Rochester played by Toby Stephens. I've been finding that my drawing is getting a bit pernickety so my intent was to loosen it up a bit and have a go at doing some long hair. I am quite pleased with it, not a particularly good likeness but I feel it captures something of the character.

Artforums.co.uk

2010-02-09T06:39:00.000-08:00

There's a monthly portrait challenge on the Artforums website that's been good fun and good practice.
Here's a link to one of them

I had a go at a few of them:

Great fun.

First 'proper' drawing

2010-02-09T05:04:00.001-08:00

Finished this portrait of my dog Boom yesterday, my first proper drawing. It's interesting to try to define what is 'proper', a certain discipline adhered to maybe, your first commissioned piece perhaps. In this case this is the first work I've completed with my new arsenal of materials, up until now anything I've done has been compromised (at least in my head anyway) by using improvised mediums 'oh that would have worked better if I had such & such a thing' and 'I just didn't try that hard because these pencils aren't up to it' and so on. Now I've nowhere to hide, this is the first time I've given it everything I've got.
Whilst working on this I was aware that at any point this was the best I can do at the moment, if it goes completely pear-shaped it's no fault of the materials or that I was not really trying, the weaknesses in the finished piece are the weaknesses in my technique and vision as an artist.
I learnt a lot from producing this modest piece of work, now it's done I feel I've taken a step forward, some uncertainties are how just behind me and the obstacles ahead are clearer and more challenging, onwards.