Cotswold Chimney

As I explained in my last post, a couple of years ago I saw this chimney and it appealed greatly as a watercolour subject. Well, I've finally managed to paint it and it's proven to be an anti-climax. I imagine we're all the same with regards to getting satisfaction from our work - some pieces please us, and others we're not so sure about. For me, this is one of the others. I don't know why it is, but I didn't get an inordinate degree of pleasure from doing this one and I'm not very satisfied with the result. Could it be that the enjoyment of doing a piece has a bearing on how satisfying it is? It is quite remarkable to me that I found more satisfaction  from doing the 20-minute pen sketch, than this 3/4 hour painting. Oh well, 'tis done now ... onward and upward. ;-)

Love these quickie's

A couple of years ago I was in Chipping Cambden in the Cotswolds waiting for my wife and friend who had popped into a shop. Looking up I was taken by an interesting chimney stack and roof arrangement and just had to take a photo with a view to painting it one day. I still will, but I just came across it and decided it would be a great exercise with the pen. With the interesting perspective and many angles, to attack it without pencil guidelines was a great confidence booster. Taking just 20 minutes tops, it represents another satisfying 'quickie'.

First Sale

I'm just back from visiting our local "Art in the Park" exhibition in which I entered my "Steel Worker" painting. Guess what? It has sold!!!
This is a first for me and I have mixed feelings over it. I thought I'd feel hugely excited but I don't. I'm very pleased that someone liked it enough to pay real  money for it but I am going to miss having it hang on my wall. Still, I had a count up and there are 70 paintings in the exhibition, of which only 14 have sold, and I find that very flattering, especially since we are only 2 weeks into a 6 week run. It's a big confidence booster that's for sure. I must make a bigger effort to track down some other exhibitions. ;-)

Scratching the itch.

I had that desperate urge to throw out a painting but no time to dip my brushes in water. I scratched my itch with a very quick sketch using my favourite medium, non-permanent ink and a wet brush. My 'instrument of choice' is an Aquabrush. Since these contain their own water they are perfect for taking out into the field. I find these quick ink sketches to be excellent exercises ... not only do they help practice our drawing skills but they're great at building confidence. When you're sketching with a pen you have to just go for it!!!

Old Shed

Here's a drawing of an old broken down shed that I've been working on during odd idle moments over the past week or so. I'm estimating it's probably taken me about 5 hours in total. I didn't find the shed itself particularly difficult but it was interesting trying to vary the shading and tones to create a 'weathered' look. But the biggest problem I had with the drawing was the grass/weeds. I didn't know whether to go for the simple sparse, "suggestion of" approach, or whether to attempt a detailed approach. In the end, I attempted detail, got lost, and finished up filling in with generic scribbles. Surprisingly. it's worked quite well but drawing grass is certainly something I'm going to have to look into. Overall I'm very pleased with the result.

Glencoe

It seems like an age since I last did some drawing or painting, but a few days ago I had the opportunity to tackle a quick picture. Knowing how I get more and more embroiled in detail once I start messing with my pencils, I decided a quick excursion with my brushes would be more in order. I decided to have a go at this view of Glencoe in Scotland.

Discussing the location with my Scottish friend uncovered an interesting issue with the name. I had looked up some things online and found that the village of Glencoe was referred to as Glencoe, but the area of Glencoe was actually referred to as Glen Coe. Well, when I called it Glen Coe I almost got smacked. Thank goodness you can't send 'physical contact' by email. Anyway, I did some more checking and found sites like Wikipedia and organisations like Ordnance Survey using Glen Coe, but others like the Scottish Tourist Board using Glencoe. But as far as I'm concerned, if my friend says it's Glencoe, then it's Glencoe.

The painting is a very long way from being one of my best, or even good, but you know what .... it doesn't matter. I splashed on the paint, and even managed to get some on the paper, and had a thoroughly enjoyable hour or two. Whilst it's always nice to get a good result, the true enjoyment comes from the doing.

Stupid accidents!!!

I haven't been around for the past couple of weeks because my wife had a small accident at home that has literally knocked her off her feet. She tripped and tumbled awkwardly, twisting and straining her knee. She has serious torn ligaments and can only hobble around on crutches. Of course, this means yours truly gets to do all the housework, shopping, laundry, cooking, etc, etc. Even though I only work part time now, I've taken some extra time off work, but there's still no time for art, which is why my blog has stood still since the beginning of the month. After her fall, my wife said "I feel so stupid", to which I replied "aren't all accidents 'stupid'?".

Talking of stupid accidents reminds me of one my father had a couple of years ago. Though we shouldn't laugh at another's misfortune I have to confess to often laughing about this one. It began by my mother (86) getting out of the bath. As she stood up she felt a little dizzy so reached for the door handle to steady herself ... the door handle turned; the door came open; my mother fell backwards and landed in the bath. My father (93) came to the rescue; helped her to bed; and after a short rest she was fine.

You mean like this?

Now for the 'stupid' bit. Some time later, as my mother explained to my father what she'd 'stupidly' done, he couldn't believe that such an accident could have happened, so he said "Right, let's get this right ... you got out of the bath; reached for the door handle like this; and then ...." THUD!!. Yes, the door came open, my father fell back; and he landed in the bath ... quite heavily. He'd hurt his back sufficiently for him not to be able to get out of the bath and according to my mother, throughout his 'rescue' the paramedics were struggling to keep a straight face. When she finally laughed out loud, so did they ... and it took my father 2 weeks in bed and many more weeks discomfort to get over his 'stupid' re-enactment. I don't think he'll ever get over how stupid he felt.

Anyway, my apologies to my fellow bloggers that I'm not visiting your blogs as much as I'd like to. I'm not ignoring them and will catch up just as soon as I can.