Foray into the land of graphite

Graphite? that's what's in pencils isn't it? If you're familiar with my work you'll have noticed that there's not much of this particular form of carbon to be seen. In the past I've preferred to work with the rougher, looser medium of charcoal.
Last weekend I took home a sketchpad and whatever graphite pencils I could find lurking in the studio with the hope of finally getting into working with this elusive medium. Oddly enough after perusing my reference archive I've ended up working in and entirely new subject for me as well, flowers.

These are Pale Maidens, the national flower of the Falkland Islands. Both on A4 cartridge paper.

Horses? Schmorses

Well....it was bound to happen one day, I've had an inquiry about doing a portrait of a horse. This is a subject I've shied away from in the past (fnar fnar) but I've been meaning to have a go at. This, of course, has given me the kick I needed to try it.

So I dug out a reference courtesy of the Artist Reference Photos facebook page and had a crack at my first ever horse painting.

   Horse 1, soft pastels on 30 X 40 cm yellow pastelmat.

Mini exhibition

The 14th of June is the 30th anniversary of the liberation of the Falkland Islands. This is always an important day here and this year there's a lot being laid on in the run up to the day for all the people travelling to the islands to mark the anniversary.

In Fox Bay there's a display on in our social club of what's happening out here in the camp and the organiser suggested that I might like to exhibit some of my paintings. Of course I jumped at the chance so here it is, my mini-exhibition. Twelve paintings, two days (12th and 13th of June).

Leicester Bridge, finished

Finished my Leicester Bridge painting. The composition worked and it's got the mood that I wanted so I'm quite pleased with it.

Must do more of this sort of thing.

Leicester Bridge

Months ago I composed the reference for this project, probably about time I started painting it. This is a ruined timber bridge out on a farm called Leicester Creek, the owner expressed an interest in my painting a picture of the bridge some time ago so I've been meaning to have a crack at the subject for a while.

A departure for me as this is the first time I've attempted a large, architectural subject like this. Got off to a good start but still cna't be sure how this's going to turn out.

Charcoal sketch, 50 X 35 cm grey pastelmat:

Filled in the highlights with white pastel:

 Some detail and colour filled in, the colour is quite washed out so was not sure whether to make this a greyscale painting or to use some colour, descision now made:

Inktense, Neocolour II and oil pastels

Still tinkering with watersoluble colours, Inktense pencils and Neocolour crayons. Struggling a bit with these mediums, I'm too used to the flexability of soft pastels, by comparison these are slow and limiting, you can't be as slapdash as you can with pastels as they don't layer, encroach on a highlight and it's terminal, no matter what you do you've lost that highlight. Still, nothing wrong with a bit of discipline for once.

I decided to have a serious bash at a portrait with these. A3 cartridge paper.






Quite pleased with how the eyes and skin worked, not at all happy with the hair (always difficult anyway I find) or the contrast. Being the impatient sort I then pretty much destroyed it with oil pastels (another medium I've done very little with).



An....interesting effect, can't say I'm convinced of it's application for portraits but interesting none the less. There's a very strong holographic effect from the areas of oil pastel that contrasts oddly with the areas done with inktense and neocolour. This could be useful in more abstract, loose applications. I'm not done with this stuff yet I reckon.

Tinkering with new mediums....

For a long time now I've been meaning to dig out my almost unused oil pastels and neocolour water-soluble crayons to have a play with. It's not that I'm wanting to get away from soft pastels, just want to try something a bit different.
Rummaging around in my supplies I also unearthed a treasure I'd forgotten about, a gift from my mother in law that I'd never got round to using, a brand new set of Derwent inktense watersoluble ink pencils. Bonus.

It's odd working with such mediums, very different to use than my soft pastels, very fast to use and very responsive when shaped with a wet brush...I still don't like not being able to layer light on dark though and it's simply impossible to get the intensity of colour of soft pastels, good fun though and a far more portable medium.

Here's a silvery grebe, A3 cartridge paper:

Last week I also finished my second large settlement commission.

Hill Cove, soft pastels, 50 X 70 cm grey pastelmat.

Barbed Wire, finished.

Worked all day on this and I think it's done...can't think of anything else to do to it anyway so that's time to stop. It's pretty much done what I wanted it to, from a distance it looks like a study of the long grass, close to all the barbs appear. From a distance it's conventional, close to it's abstract.

I'm quite pleased with it.