… with no home to go to since I removed the other two pages of the Fellpainter site. These were previously on the gallery page. I’ve temporarily condensed the site down to just the blog page while I decide what to do with the rest of it.
another hill painting, oil on paper, 9x12
hill painting, oil on paper, 9x12
I’ve only been managing to do very quick sketches in the recent cold weather. It’s back to oils again, for now, but trying to be more adventurous with the colour.
Just trying to make notes in paint, really:
snow under red sky
odd little clouds
arrangement of snow shadows
The photos are a bit blurry due to the flash reflecting off wet paint.
It’s happened again and it’s much deeper snow this time than we had in February. For the first time it stopped me from climbing the hill as it was just too difficult wading in knee-deep drifts, and after a while squinting into the whiteness I couldn’t really see. My dog’s long coat turned into a collection of snowballs that became so large and heavy she couldn’t move. Then we saw a dog sled complete with huskies! On Sunday we saw skiers but I’m getting used to them now. The snow is amazingly powdery and sticky. You can build a snowman easily as each added handful clings magically to the main body of snow, in complete contrast to the snow I remember from childhood which was very wet and had to be constantly chivvied as it sagged and blobbed away from its designated position.
Here’s the snow magically clinging to a hedge.
snowy hedge
snowy lane
And the snow made its own sketch of Garsdale.
Garsdale snow
An atmospheric sky.
more snow on the way?
On Sunday it was one of those special days when the top of the hill is above the clouds. Up there it was a separate world of sunny blue skies and sparkling snow, and looking down the town was covered in cold swirling cloud. Last time that happened someone told me about it and I hurried out and tried to paint what I saw but failed miserably. This time no-one seemed to be aware. It was a real surprise when I reached the top of the hill and emerged from the gloom into sunlight and of course I had no paints and no camera. Next time!
More watercolour experiments … After a full month of rain, any light breaking though has been full of drama especially towards dusk. These still aren’t what I’d hoped they’d be but the process is encouraging me to be more daring with colour. I just haven’t been able to work solidly due to dayjob concerns getting in the way. Oh yes, and I foolishly decided to have a go at the NaNoWriMo ‘write a novel in a month’ thing and that distracted me from painting as well. I did manage to complete the challenge on time but now have a badly-written novel and a paucity of paintings (also, odd words like ‘paucity’ keep appearing in my mind).
Nolde actually seems to have invented many of his marvellous pictures while sitting in a darkened room. I have yet to try that, as I’ve been basing paintings on what’s going on in the landscape. Silly really, because at the moment there’s much more chance of sitting in darkened rooms for hours than there is of seeing anything outdoors!
Dregs of Sunset
In Hobdale
Continuing the ’something and something’ title theme …
Quite a lot of Cumbria is flooded at the moment. Thankfully, we have fared quite well, being on a hill and far enough from any rivers.
My watercolour experiments have become a bit more indoor in nature due to the lack of daylight caused by living inside an enormous cloud. And I’m not yet ready to share them, especially the demonic self-portrait and the one that looks like a huge meringue in the sky (I think the weather may be having psychological effects).
But I thought I would share two scribbly biro pictures, because there’s something very satisfying about being spontaneous and grabbing the nearest pen and scrap of notepaper to practise drawing.
So here are sleeping husband (with apologies) and sleeping dog (she doesn’t care).
Sleeping Husband In Biro
Sleeping Dog In Biro
Here is a progress post on the watercolour happenings. I’m having fun with the colours but losing control of my clouds. If I keep the paper wet enough to create that lovely spreading effect Nolde achieved (yes I’m aping Nolde but learning loads) then the clouds I paint have a tendency to swell into barrage balloons. I really don’t know how he did it. Plus, the paper cockles with all that water swimming about, although I kind of like the effect (and Nolde’s paper cockled too apparently). Today I retreated a little and used less water, less of the mop brush, and managed to control the forms a bit more. Nolde’s pictures look so accidental and free – yet it’s fiendishly difficult trying to paint like that and still keep some sense of form, a composition that works and make the colours glow!
Cloud Stack
Clouds Take Over
Many Dark Lines
Very Large Red Cloud!
Fiery Orange Trees
All pictures are 9″x12″.
I think I will continue with the watercolour experiments for a bit longer and see if any can be successfully made into oils. It has been an exciting project. I’m really missing using my oils, but my passion for colour has been reawakened.
… painting experiments are proceeding, involving watercolour and paper.
Unfortunately, nothing has emerged so far that’s good enough to share. It’s a long time since I used any watercolour but slowly I’m remembering its ways. Using very thick paper the process isn’t so dissimilar from oils in that you can work on a piece for quite a long time, adding and removing paint – but I hope to become a bit more spontaneous (the difficult thing) as I improve.
The idea is that watercolour will be used for the initial painting, hopefully capturing the vivid colours I want. Then I can remake the piece in oils trying to capture the brightness and light of the watercolour. Well, that’s the idea … we shall see. So far, the watercolour version is capturing the muddy murk of my worst oils, but I shall persevere.
Apologies for the corny title – but Berlin was truly inspiring. I was lucky enough to see two Emil Nolde exhibitions.
One I had the highest hopes for was at the Berlin Extension of the Nolde Foundation.
This was the Unpainted Pictures – a series of small glowing watercolours completed during a time when Nolde was forbidden to paint by the Nazis.
However, the exhibition I enjoyed more than this one was: Man – Nature – Myth at the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings). There were some lovely mournful etchings of harbour scenes and beautiful bright watercolours from Nolde’s South Seas expedition.
I discovered that Nolde’s oils were sometimes painted from smaller watercolour or oil pastel pictures and that gave me an idea to try making some plein airs in watercolour for a change, maybe transferring the more successful ones into oils. I haven’t used watercolour since my illustration days when I spent ages carefully stretching unyielding swathes of Arches HP paper and furrowing my brow over a size 4 brush. So I thought it might be fun to buy a simple block of paper, forget the stretching, and get a couple of large brushes to paint in a bold and free manner!
Then hopefully the results will feed back into the oil paintings – either directly by making an oil version or indirectly by learning something from trying a different technique.
Anyway, I’m very excited about all the possibilities!
Just looking through some older work while I tidy up the studio a bit and found this oil so thought I’d post a (slightly out of focus) pic. Is more expressive/less realistic colour the way to go?
I’ve just returned from Skye again – my third visit in six months. I’m visiting a lot more than usual because my sister is very ill and I want to see as much of her as I can while she’s still here. I have some photos to post of Staffin beach, a recently finished larger painting and some drawing exercises that I’ve been doing lately, but I’m too tired to do all that tonight so will finish this tomorrow. I do feel very guilty that my blog is so neglected and admire those who post frequently and interestingly while I just ramble.
Off to Berlin next week so the blog will be even more neglected – oh well! I hope to come back with some sketches though. At the moment I’m keen to practise my drawing and really want to take the painting in a new direction – it’s not quite what I want it to be yet, if that makes sense. I wish I had the skills to paint what I can see in my head.
Here are the pictures:
Staffin beach first …
Staffin beach
a watery view
recently completed oil on canvas, A2
pencil still life, A1
Finally, some of the paintings are dry. All are 6×8 plein air oils carried out in quickly changing conditions!
a gnarled and twisted hill
ran out of time - crazy sky!
light breaking through
hurried sketch
hills and sky in turmoil
low cloud - after slight fettling at home