Studio sketches in ink

Yesterday whilst I was out buying supplies for an upcoming workshop I had a sudden inspiration to buy a bottle of ink. Back last October during my Artist In Residence week I had tried a couple of sketches/drawings using an old bottle of sepia ink I had found buried in one of my art drawers at home. I want to create a few simple ink drawings for the exhibition I am currently working towards. The first attempts I had weren't coming out as I wanted, so I left it to have a rethink on my approach, and just haven't got back to it til now.

So whilst out yesterday I thought... 'get a new bottle and try again'. So I went through the drawing inks at a local art shop and ended up with a bottle of Burnt Sienna Liquitex professional acrylic ink. I had gone through the 'specs' to find one that was as lightfast as I could find there and these Liquitex seemed to fit the bill. I even got the shop keeper on the internet to check.

So today after a little practice playing with a pen and brush, I chose to go with a small brush; a round no.2. 


This sketch of Paseka, one of the Abu Herd elephants, was the first one I did and I drew it three times before was I happy with the result. I am not pre-drawing these first, I'm going straight in with the brush to try and get a feel of spontaneity in them.

This elephant was also done three times before I got a result I was happy with.

My next attempt at a warthog portrait did not go so well, so I have binned that one and tried a banded mongoose instead, which turned out ok on the first attempt.

I shall be doing more of these I think... I like the feel and look of them.

Planning my next big piece

I have been excitedly planning my next big painting today. I've been mulling the notion of a painting over in my head for some time; gradually piecing, forming and building on the idea of it to a more solid visualisation; but the original inspiration was back in March 2011 on my field trip to Botswana.

Near to the present airstrip used by the camp I stayed at, is the old airstrip. Its position in the area was not ideal in that it was often severely affected as the flood waters rose, so a new site was found, one on slightly higher ground which remained dry throughout the flood season. The old site was left alone and the wildlife and vegetation soon reclaimed it. Each time I was taken to the old airstrip, there would be many animals gathered there, for some reason it was greatly favoured them; perhaps because it was open and they could gather, with good vision around them having a clear line of sight for danger. There were dips and small lagoons of shallow water and higher dry ground for standing on.

On my last day as we were waiting for the planes to arrive to take me and some other staff out of the Delta, back to Maun; we drove, to wait at the old airstrip, where we could catch the last glimpse of Delta wildlife before we left.  The plane was delayed so we enjoyed the time to just sit and watch. I got lots of lovely references of the animals as I watched their comings and goings, but also, as I sat there and looked at the vista I thought it would make an interesting backdrop to a painting. With that in mind, I took a series of photos spanning about 180 degrees of my field of vision that would piece together and form a panorama of the area. Wildlife wise - there were various waders and ducks, red lechwe, zebra, tsessebe, a lone wildebeeste, an elephant half hidden in the distant tree line, an eagle soaring over head; the sun was high and lighting the whole scene beautifully. The zebra milled around for sometime in several groups, some with juveniles, others just of adults. At one point some zebra started galloping from the dry land of the airstrip into the water to one side and charging through the shallows emerged onto higher drier ground before disappearing into the treeline. I don't know if they were spooked (no other animal reacted) or whether there was some specific reason for their hasty departure... but it started me thinking on a landscape painting, a long 'postbox' shaped one with the running zebra the focus. I wanted to get so much of what I had seen in, without cramming it. How was I to do that?

Over many years I had seen diptych's or triptych's approached in different ways by many artists. Not long after I returned from Botswana I saw a painting made up of four different sized canvases set together in an asymmetrical way, but it was of just one tree at sundown spread across the expanse of all the canvases together; and it was that particular painting which triggered me to think of my old airstrip idea again. Rather than using one canvas... maybe I could use three or four and have them different sizes.... each one forming a painting in its own right but put together they make a whole landscape.

So I toyed with the idea in my head from then on and did several roughs over time playing with composition of canvases and sizes. I'm quite a conventional person so being too radical with all different sizes didn't sit well for me to actually produce a painting on... so I gradually came to three, set in a symmetrical way. I settled on a formation of canvases and rough sizes of canvas proportionally that I could imagine my scene to be played out on.

I drew a rough of the landscape's composition, putting in notes about the animals I was going to portray and how they were placed and acting in the scene. I split it across the rough proportions I wanted and then went to investigate canvases.  No good getting too set if I couldn't get the canvases or they didn't look right as a set. Best way I could determine that was to physically hold the canvases together in front of me. In a local art shop I checked out the canvases they had and tried out different size combination along the proportions I had envisaged. Typically one canvas wasn't the exact size I had in mind, but I figured I could jiggle my composition to sit comfortably on it, but just in case I also asked a friend of mine, who does framing, how easy or difficult it would be if I bought a canvas and had the long sides made shorter and the canvas restretched over it. After a little discussion, I decided to look again at the shop sizes and see if I could accommodate my composition on that, it would be less hassle and if the composition was fine on the shop dimensions then, no problem. Happy with that I then turned to my computer to 'visualise it'.

In the InDesign software on my Mac, I created three documents each to the size of one of the canvases. I set these documents side by side on my desktop so I could work with all three open and viewable at the same time; this enables me to see the whole effect at once. I enlarged and superimposed selected photo's that I took in my 180 degree panorama and matching up them across the three canvases I tried successive series of views until I got something that would 'sit' with the composition I had in my head. As this painting will be of an actual place I need to get the scene more or less correct although there will be a bit of artistic tweeking, moving a tree slightly this way or that, to improve the composition. I also had to make sure that each canvas would work well on an individual basis as although I shall paint it as one piece, and hope therefore to sell it as such, I may not find a buyer to take all three, so if they worked individually, or as two, I wouldn't be left with something that didn't work if only one section sold.

Happily the composition works well on the shop dimensions and may actually be better, so I placed all three documents side by side and did a screen shot, which I then opened and saved in Photoshop. I cropped and cleaned the image up so that I was left with the three canvas sizes sat together forming an impression of something like the finished painting will look like. I then enlarged one canvas up to full size to see the scale of the landscape from a painting perspective, just to give me an idea of what level of detail I may, or may not, do with it.

I have yet to plan the actual animals... their exact positions, groupings and pose. I have an idea of the 'story' I want to tell with it and where roughly the groupings will be, and what I want the animals to be doing, but my next step now will be to start drawing the individual animals and compose their groupings more definitely on paper... this will be the hardest part and will take time. I want to get this right and not to rush it, so now is the perfect time to start on this as I don't actually plan to paint this piece until I have my two months off from the zoo in September and October. I am waiting until then as time-wise I can really knuckle down then and concentrate on it without all the stops and starts my painting life has when I am working part-time at the zoo. But I want to be able to crack on with it straight away when September comes, so if I can get all the planning and composing done and ready over the next few months I shall be ready to splosh away at that time.

This is going to be a challenging piece for me, but I am really excited about the prospect of this one, so I am looking forward to starting it.

Studio sketches

This morning I was in my studio (my brother's bedroom) to do a bit more to the lion portrait that I got on the go for the demo's I have coming up. I worked on it for the Thornbury workshop I did on Thursday and today I did a bit more in preparation for the next demo coming up.
I finished around midday, made some lunch and then as it was such a gorgeous day.. hot and sunny (probably the hottest day of the year so far) I decided not to go back into the studio to work. Instead I decided to do some studio sketches outside in the sun. Gathering my references, paper, pencil and glasses I sat on the garden bench by the pond and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon in the sun as I worked for a change.

I used Fabriano Hot Press paper onto which I had put a very pale warm wash. Using a 2b pencil I drew these two sketches...

Banded mongoose

Crested barbet

Thornbury demo morning

Thursday morning I was booked to give a demonstration in oils to a local art group in Thornbury, near Bristol. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the journey there was fairly pleasant (I avoided the motorway mayhem by going on the B roads), despite a slight deviation in route through the town centre.  The meeting was in a lovely hall and I had about 16 people come to watch. There were apologies that many of the group were on holiday and so their numbers were a little low.

I took a partially painted piece of a male lion portrait as I was showing how I painted fur with oils and a male lion is perfect for a long and short fur demo. After a brief introduction I got on with painting and I was assisted by a pre-school group singing and playing in the room next door. The singing didn't bother me, it was quite amusing and I found myself several times starting to react with a little bop in my chair!

I started with the long fur showing how I paint wet into wet with liquin and a rigger brush. Then we had a short tea break and after I did some short fur, showing the slight difference in how I apply the paint with a less thin mix of liquin and different brush and brush strokes.

They were a friendly group and thankfully were happy to ask questions as I painted, which makes it more interesting, I am sure for them as it certainly makes it more interesting for me as I never know what the next question might be.

We finished about midday and I left glowing from the positive feedback and general friendly atmosphere of the group.

I had some paintings that I needed to deliver to Nature In Art that day also so I left Thornbury and headed north up the A38 to wards Gloucester. I stopped at Slimbridge WWT on the way as I wanted to see the exhibition that is currently on there. A fellow wildlife artist that I know, Paul Apps, is one of the artists exhibiting and it is a long time since I have seen his work, so it seemed a great opportunity to pop in and view it. It was lovely to wander round and see all his paintings, I especially liked two pieces one called 'Two Guineas' and the other 'Tufted Duck - Wake'. But I couldn't linger long as I had to have a spot of lunch before heading on up to Twigworth just north of Gloucester to the Nature In Art Museum and Art Gallery.

Here I dropped off four pieces of work (three oil paintings and a batik) that were being collected the next day by the owner of Kunstgalerie Oog voor Natuur a wildlife art gallery in the Netherlands. They will exhibit these four paintings for a while.

I stopped to have a look around, as I don't get up to this wonderful place as often as I used to, and enjoyed a lovely mug of hot water with lemon and a generous chunk of delicious lemon drizzle cake in the coffee shop.

What a fab day that was... immersed in gorgeous weather and arty stuff for the day. If only they could all be like that, eh?

Featured Artist of the Day - Artists For Conservation

Each member of this society gets to be the Featured Artist of the Day on their homepage of the website. Today is my turn; as I have only recently become a member, this is especially exciting for me. I hope you will visit the site  and have a look, not just at my work but some of the other wonderful wildlife artists on there.
http://www.natureartists.com/

The two bulls are finished

Finally got the last lick of paint applied late Sunday afternoon last week. The vegetation took a while to think out and lay on, but I'm happy with it now. I really wanted to get those lovely little spindly spikes topped with delicate purple pink flowers. I don't know the name of this plant, but I like the offset of its delicacy with the strength and bulk of the two bulls.

After contacting Dr Kate Evans of Elephants For Africa, (the charity for whom I am doing all these Botswana paintings to show in an exhibition to raise funds and awareness for their work) she was able to positively identify the lighter coloured bull as 'Napolean'. She first met him in 2002 during her field research in the Okavango Delta and named him so, as part of his left tusk was then broken.  When we saw him in 2011 he sported two good tusks again. These two guys were strolling very regally through the low scrub alongside the airstrip near the camp I stayed at. We were on our way to an evening meal out in the bush and were transporting the food, so we could not stop and watch them for long. The light was very low, it was gone 6pm and the sun had already reached the horizon, just before the finality of sunset. My camera was set to the maximum to get as much light in as possible (1600 ISO) but even so the photos were poor, blurred and held no detail. This made them perfect reference for my attempt at a looser style of painting.. I could use them and not be drawn in by detail... It has taken me a while to get this one done, I think I started the initial slapping on of paint back in May last year, but it has been put to one side on more than one occasion, first when I could not paint for 4 months due to a frozen shoulder problem and several times since as I have got on with other smaller pieces. I'm not sure what to call this piece yet but I want to have Napolean as part of the title. I shall have a little think on this.

I have already planned my next two projects.. one a sunset with silhouetted ducks and the other a more challenging piece of a triptych of zebras and lechwe. But before them I need to do some work towards a demo evening I am doing at the beginning of May to an art group in Thornbury, near Bristol.

Two steps forward, one step back

Last weekend I worked on finalising the work on the elephants themselves, adding more texturing to the left hand bull and also correcting the trunk, fore legs, underbelly and painting in the left hand tusk on the right hand bull. I then started adding in the foliage in front of them.

I had several photographs of elephants in grassy areas where a delicate pinky purple flower on extended spikes also grew. I liked the idea of this delicate flower being with the elephants adding a contrast in colour and 'weight'. There was also a bush/shrub that grew, I think it is of the genus terminalia.. it has small clusters of grey green leaves and I wanted to include some of that with a few dead stumps of the bush.

So I spent a day painting this in, it all seemed to go well... I liked the way the texture of the plant was being created and I finished quite pleased.... until I stood back. Something was wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it.. so I walked away from the painting and cooked my evening meal. When I came back after eating the meal my first dismayed thought was ' oh no! They're stood behind a hedge!' I thought I had varied the height of the top twigs and branches but... no. At a distance they all looked uniform in height and the dark and light tones were also uniform! Disaster! What was I going to do.. scrape it all off to start again another day or wait for it to dry and adjust t next week?

I had no time that evening to do anything more to it so it would have to wait until next week. I packed up my temporary studio set-up and hung the painting on the landing wall. That evening I walked by that painting a number of times and each time my consternation with it grew... something else was wrong that I couldn't quite see yet. I got ready for bed about 10pm and as I sat in bed watching a bit of TV before I turned the lights off it suddenly struck me... the scale of the bush I had painted was too big for the elephants! I got up and went to look at the painting.. yup.. sure enough that was what was wrong. I stared at it for a few moments... there was only one course of action now... it had to come off before it dried. So out came the palette knife and some white spirit soaked tissues to remove the foliage from the painting. A day's work wasted.. that was because I had wanted to get it finished and wasn't concentrating on the scale aspect of what I was painting on!

So this weekend... I do that bit again.

This is a close up of the top of the trunk on the left hand bull - it shows my looser brush work. Normally I would paint this in with a great deal more detail but I quite like the softer looser feel (for me) to this particular painting.