I began my blog as part of my search to synthesise and integrate my art and calligraphy. I feel that the images below are part of the way there. I’ve been working from a model and hope to create a slim anthology in collaboration with a poet. Certainly I could never have done this sort of painting without my calligraphic experience.
Dance and Poised are both almost 70cm in height plus frame, while the one below, Meditation is 45cm high. This one has a brown edge on the mount and a warm oak frame.
My two cat portraits show a great loosening up in watercolours – its hard to use line when Misty is actually a Paynes grey cat!
This is all preparation towards Artweeks in May. I’ve learnt that it’s best to “frame as you go!”
I feel quite excited about this new expression of mine and I wonder where it will take me. each time I do one I feel such a huge amount of tension about putting the loaded brush down onto the paper. The new ones are painted on Zerkall Wavy paper and I’m painting them then stretching them afterwards as that way at least its not as scary. It’s just a piece of paper I may waste as opposed to “a stretched piece of paper”
Beautiful drawings!
These are simply beautiful Lin! Love them.
Hi Lin, putting calligraphy with watercolour/artwork is something I have been working on for a while. My latest pieces are acrylic ‘feelings’ of the moors with gestural calligraphy along 2 sides – you might have seen a couple of pieces in the CPS Edge. My others are watercolours of anything from still life flowers in a jug to buildings to boats where I usually make up my own words to fit in with the art work.
My biggest challenges, as I am not confident or competent with Photoshop, is to know (a) what script to use (b) where to put the calligraphy so it neither artwork nor lettering overpowers the other. Do you tend to use the same lettering eg the script you devised, or would you choose something else? x
Meg, this has been one of my ongoing quests.There are lots of ‘rights’ and lots of things that work less well. I saw your pieces and I thought that they worked well. To me, your lettering has a sort of 3-dimensionality and added a decorative edge to your painting. The fluidity of lettering looked right with the movement in the piece. These life drawings of mine will be an illustration on one page with text on the other, so it has to work in a different way. It may even call for type rather than calligraphy and much as I adore calligraphy I’ll go with what looks the most harmonious.