Saturday 9 January 2010

Northampton Town - Market Square

Well, as those of you who have followed the progress of this drawing will know, it is finally finished. To help the off-white Cartridge paper look white I've used a cream mount, and to compliment the cold monochrome pen work I've chosen a silver-effect frame. The photo doesn't do it justice but the overall effect is very good. To say I'm pleased would be a gross understatement.

Since I have a dozen photo's taken at various stages of this drawing, I've also decided to make a Work-In-Progress web page for my art site. Though I'm no expert myself, hopefully the page will still be of interest to anyone considering having a go at Line Drawing.

Tuesday 29 December 2009

Northampton Town in Pen

Though very much an art novice, I have to confess to being extremely pleased with the way my Water Mill pen drawing turned out. So much so that I have decided I'd like to try something more ambitious. Even if it turns out quite poor I hope to learn a lot from the experience. I've also decided to show the drawing as work-in-progress so that any more experienced artists can toss in any words of advice as I go along. I am showing the main reference photo so we can all see what I'm aiming at however, I will be drawing the Market Stalls across the bottom right corner which is more in keeping with their present deployment. They also have more colourful striped canvases which will be easier to depict than the drab plain blue canvases in the photo. My basic plan is to draw a grid to help get the proportions and perspectives as accurate as possible and then lightly pencil in the main shapes and structures. Then I will ink over those and erase all pencil marks. I will then pass over the drawing adding in detail and finally review the picture for tonal values. I learned from the Water Mill drawing that a lot of detail involving a lot of lines creates dark tones naturally. I can't judge at the moment which parts of my drawing will need extra shading and which won't, so I'll leave that till last. I've chosen a Medium Surface Cartridge paper, 130 gsm and size A3. I've never used this paper with pen before but a small test on a scrap of the paper caused me to think it should be ok. I will be using a selection of fine point pens of different thicknesses. In my forum I'm running this as a Work-in-Progress and we started right back at choosing the reference photo to work from. I'm posting my thoughts at each step and the full process from beginning to end will be documented. However, in this blog I will simply leave it at this one post, but the picture will be updated at each stage so if you wish to see it developing pop back frequently and I'll try and have an updated picture for you to see. If you want to follow it more closely, you can see my forum thread here.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Rosie

This is a pencil portrait of 'Rosie', a German Shepherd owned by a friend of ours. I drew Rosie when she was a puppy but the only reference photo I had was of her looking into the bright sun with a very significant squint. I considered drawing her eyes open but they are so important that, without some reference, I was worried it wouldn't look like her.

Now she is a teenager. It's interesting drawing her without the fluffiness she had as a pup. Regrettably, the best photo of her had closed eyes again, but this time I had other photo's with eyes open that I could refer to.

I was in the process of scanning the image when my friend arrived. We were talking as the scanned image of Rosie scrolled down my monitor. My friends face was worth it's weight in gold because I could see for myself that she'd recognised Rosie straight off.

Monday 30 November 2009

Artist Showcase

Some time ago I decided to showcase some of the artists in my forum. The objective is to give some internet coverage to little known artists so that their work would be more widely seen. The plan, quite simply, is to showcase a different artist and their work each month. Having run successful showcases for three artists I have decided to put myself into the frame for the next showcase.

It was difficult choosing just 6 pieces to display but I decided to show some watercolour, pencil and pen pieces as they are my favourite media. I will probably do this again in the future and the next time I will concentrate on a single medium.

My showcase is now online at www.JWJonline.net/Showcase.php and a link on the main menu leads to previous showcases.

Monday 23 November 2009

Water Mill - Lower Slaughter

Lower Slaughter is a small village in the beautiful area of England known as The Cotswolds. The scene is of the mill and a couple of typical Cotswold Stone cottages This drawing was copied from a photograph submitted by one of my forum members for use as a painting project.

This is my first line drawing. I've often read of the theory of hatching but this is my first attempt at creating blocks of tone entirely from 'lines'. Though there are some area's I wish I'd done differently, I'm extremely pleased with the result and consider this to be one of my better creations. Now I need to do some research and read more on how I should have tackled the grass area's and some of the brickwork. It would be good to receive critiques from any artists conversant with this medium. (A larger version of the picture can be seen here.)

Friday 13 November 2009

Pateley Bridge

When on holiday in Yorkshire last year, I stopped briefly at Pateley Bridge. I was only there long enough to walk to one end of the High Street and back, but was totally captivated by the old Yorkshire Stone buildings and small shops.

This is a view of one small section of the High Street, looking up the hill. I found the perspective tricky and haven't fully captured the steepness of the incline, but I found this to be an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable painting.

Saturday 7 November 2009

Mushrooms

In my garden I have an annoying clump of mushrooms that grow each year near the base of one of the apple trees. I usually try and remove them as soon as I see them, and since they grow in my lawn, they are almost always hacked up by my mower. Because of the way mushrooms leave their fungal spores in the soil, I even tried replacing a square of grass so as to discard the infected area, but still they grow.

This year, due to my inability to deal with them at the appropriate time, they have been left to grow. Today, with the sun shining nicely and me having time on my hands, I wandered out there with my camera and have loaded the results to my web site .... www.JWJonline.net/Mushrooms/.

I've tried searching to identify the strain (? variety) of mushroom but have had no success so far. If anyone knows, please let me know. ;-)