wonderful workshops

First up was week one of 3 weekly workshops with Betsy Smith arranged by my local art society - Shropshire Art Society. Her work can be seen at www.twenty-twenty.co.uk.betsy-smith. Betsy is a lovely Shropshire artist who paints from the natural landscape with her feeling and emotion. The workshop theme is "The Inner Eye" - a phrase from Wordsworth poem "Daffodils".

Betsy gave us a still life set-up to look at for 10 mins just to look, not to draw, and then covered it and asked us to draw paint from our memory.  My initial painting was a very sketchy watercolour which I greatly enjoyed doing and featured on the large red parasol, a curvy vase, and butterfly and bird motifs from other items.


Imagining the flowers on the vase that I invented turning into butterflies and birds I painted them floating onto the parasol.


Then came a still life, using some of the same motifs but thinking ahead to a possible print.  Finally, Betsy altered the set-up - gave us another 10 mins. I was very taken with the Buddha' head  and the painting grew from that using colours, symbols that I dragged from my memory. I still remember the lovely peaceful feeling when painting this.

On Saturday came "inspirational Sketchbooks" with Sue Brown, organised by the Twenty Twenty Gallery in Much Wenlock. Sue is an artist/printmaker represented by the gallery - www.twenty-twenty.co.uk/Sue-Brown

Sue showed us a technique called gum arabic transfer and after experimenting with the technique, we spent some lovely time sploshing and splashing paint, texture and colour on to an A3 sheet of cartridge paper. Sue then showed us how to cut and fold it into a small sketchbook. I later glued and trimmed it and cut a stencil in the front page to show off colour from inside since I had been very heavy handed with the black ink and my book is quite dark.

I have made another book ready to be trimmed today for an upcoming trip to Edinburgh. In this second attempt I left a lot of white and pale painting space for new images to be added so I can use it as a real sketchbook and record some of my memories of the trip.  I have already identified some ideas for using the gum arabic transfer for printmaking projects and also the process of making the books as small personalised gifts.

Yesterday was week 2 with Betsy.  She had asked us to bring images/sketches with us to work with.  After showing us some of her original sketches - wonderful loose drawings with all the information she needed, and the paintings that were developed from them, we were given 10-15 mins to look at, not sketch, our chosen images. Because I had spent so much time concentrating on the cedars for Project 1 of my OCA course, I chose to feature the Cedars.  Now I love trees, can draw them - but always feel disappointed with any paintings I make incorporating trees - so this was going to be a challenge.

Betsy suggested colour sketches first especially if using watercolour.  So, after choosing my three colours - I always restrict my paintings to about 3 or 4 colours- this time, magenta, turquoise and cad yellow - perhaps a strange choice but I went with my instinct I completed two sketches.  I liked the magenta trees, so went with that colour way.  The result was quite interesting until after a break for lunch I over-worked it.

However I liked the colours, they made some lovely soft browns and greys and with only a short time to spare, Betsy suggested I have another go with a different colour way and perhaps looking at the number of trees and positioning.  In the final 10 - 15 mins I produced what I think is the best of the bunch.  I broke all the rules - continued working wet into wet, and glazing over wet paint but I quite like it.   Doing this has made me realise how valuable the preparatory and development work is.  I have always leaped in without enough experimenting and looking before, thinking perhaps that I hadn't got the time to do the sketches, the colour sketches, the working out - but the Cedars are a motif I will come back even though I have finally produced the last piece for the first project.


I am not completely happy with the print - it could have been inked a lot better and more evenly but since it is a dry point on plastic, there is a small finite number of images that can be taken.  I will take a final print to eventually send off, concentrating on producing a clean, clear print. However, I feel I am getting closer to producing an image of the Cedars that sums up how I feel about them.

Reflecting - its not rocket science

I have been reflecting on the course so far. At first I was disappointed. I seemed to have been working for a long time and to have achieved nothing or rather very little of any account. Mainly due to changes of mind and lack of focus on what I wanted to achieve.

However, have realised that I already have a good idea of what I want from the second project - the urban landscape - therefore my sketching and information retrieval visits will be more productive and provide more relevant material to inform the next piece of work. 

I also feel I would benefit from being more efficient. By thinking ahead to the next projects rather than exclusively focusing on the work in hand, I can make use of those small pockets of time that I have to draw, sketch and work up ideas and also better utilise the resources such as using the inks mixed for one printing to perhaps explore and develop ideas for the future.  Not rocket science but a light bulb moment for me. So the course has already informed my thinking.

I have been looking at dry-points again - a medium which I have always loved to do but also always seek out in exhibitions.  I found two artists that I hadn't come across before - Elizabeth Reed Smith - her dry points of trees are very beautiful especially "Arboreta 11" and as a result I have had yet another rethink about the medium for project 1. I have decided to use dry point - I love drawing trees and dry point is such a drawing medium that I should be able to convey my feelings towards the cedars with this medium where I have been struggling and dissatisfied with lino and woodcut.  Check out her work at www.elizabethsmithprints.com

Another artist I came across was Paul Niemic Jr.  He also uses dry point but in a different way - his image "Wingbeats" of Canada geese taking off is also very beautiful - you can hear the wings clap against the water. His work can be seen at. www.paulniemiec.com

I hesitate to talk about my dry points in the same post as the wonderful artists mentioned above, but  I have been working on a dry point using the portrait from my last post.   I have given the poor model after-eight shadow because I was too heavy with the shadow around her chin but am pleased with the marks in the hair following the form and as a first - a portrait in dry point - I am not too embarrassed to show it here. I have learnt a lot from attempting this so resolve to use the work from life drawing to do more prints - it is a good way of developing techniques in all the print medium without the pressure of thinking it is project work.