And the second vase painting! It is so weird to be painting when you sort-of visualise the outcome, but can't really. It's very engrossing and makes me extremely tense when every brushstroke seems to be relevant. Huge thanks to Sophie Ploeg for giving me a way to start lace painting...Luckily I had to take a break when my daughters both popped over to wish me Happy Mother's Day. It's always a good thing to step back from a painting. So far, only the bit of the vase below the water-level is … [Read more...]
Lace painting in oils
Today I drove to Bristol to go on a lace-painting workshop with Sophie Ploeg. There were five of us around the kitchen table, and Sophie explained the broad principles and started us off with pencil on paper, copying black lace on a white ground. This meant we could draw the lace in pencil on white paper, rather than shade the background to reveal the lace. In oil painting, it's easier to draw the large shapes directly onto a blank dark canvas with a bristle brush, then slowly modify them with a … [Read more...]
Daily drawing. So where is the calligraphy?
Good question. I still adore calligraphy, but when I felt desperate to do a piece of art without struggling to think of how to include text and what text to include, I knew it was time to revisit my fine arts roots. Do not despair - calligraphic followers; calligraphy and words and lettering finds its own way in - but for the moment I have been touring the arts to 'find myself'. It started out as a five year plan in 2012. As a "child of the 70's Abstract Expressionism" I had never painted from … [Read more...]