Craft Fair

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.

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.

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

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

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

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"

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

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.