Interesting times.

Looking back at the last couple of months I see . . . well . . . not much; here on my blog. I do, however, have an excuse. I've reached a crossroads; at long last I've made the decision that at some level I know I've needed to make for a while, to bin my printing and embroidery business (my primary source of employment and income). It's not a sensible choice but an inevitable one, under my managment the business was doomed to failure, once you find it impossible to motivate yourself to do more than 'just enough', and sometimes not even that, then it's time to roll the dice, to get out while the goings good, so that is what I'm doing. In the next few months I'll be busy with assisting the transition of the ongoing business to the new owner/operator but after that . . . well, there should be a bit more activity to be seen on the art front. The relief I feel at this is surprising, I'll be poor but able to take up opportunities that with a regular job would be impossible, interesting times indeed.

Anyway, in spite of that I have been doing more art than just farting around with sketching and my new pens, here's a couple of painting commissions I've completed in the last month or so:

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






Ruby, soft pastels on 35 X 50cm grey pastelmat.

Pens and pencils

Last week I got some new toys, a set of Copic multiliners. Drawing with pens is something I've been meaning to tackle for a while now, now I can have a crack at it with some decent pens rather than any old biro which has been the limit of my ink drawing equipment up till now.

Here's a few birds drawn with these, I'm rather enjoying drawing in ink, an interesting discipline.











In the last few days I've also made a start on doing some work based on my Antarctic trip, I'm planning quite a body of work on this subject so these graphite drawings are going to be the first of many.

Same subject, different media.

This is something I've been been meaning to do for a while, take one subject and paint/draw it in different media. The subject is a single Pale Maiden (that's the flower by the way, not an actual maiden). One version in graphite (as in my last post), one in inktense pencils and graphite and one in soft pastels.

'Twas interesting doing this, the pencil and inktense drawings were satisfying but I still find the constraint of pencil media frustrating to work with, power to the pastels!

Graphite on cartridge paper:




Inktense & graphite on cartridge paper:

Soft pastels on white pastelmat:

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: