Monthly Archives: July 2014

head of Venus

venus_statue_9559

The head of the Venus Callipyge outside the Pantheon in Stourhead, Wiltshire, painted in acrylics from a photo (most photos I take now are composed with a painting in mind).  The ever-forgiving acrylics allow for repeated alterations. Blending of a sort was possible with glazing medium and working quickly with wet paint, but tones could also be built up by a kind of scumbling as the paint dried. There was a surprising amount of colour in the grey stone.

speed

gurneycopy-900_9510

This is a copy of a painting by James Gurney which he made while waiting for his breakfast to arrive. He painted the man at the bar in about 10 minutes with the rest of the scene completed later.

It took me over an hour to do this pencil copy, sat on a sofa in the evening with the TV on in the background, enough time for half a dozen Gurney paintings. But I think I need to stop being so concerned about speed as I think that comes naturally with regular practice and knowledge of materials.

I do find myself falling back to pencil much of the time as it’s the only medium where I can quickly render large areas of tone together with areas of precision. If only it didn’t look like pencil! For a painting I still need (for now) a table, a couple of tubs of water with access to a tap for refills, kitchen roll, space for the paper, brushes and materials, and lots of time.

thumbnails

After reading Color and Light by James Gurney, I’ve been trying to track down a copy of The Artist’s Guide to Sketching, an earlier book he co-wrote with Thomas Kinkade. Unfortunately it is out of print and the second-hand prices have gone crazy. Then I remembered we still have public libraries in this country and reserved a copy for a humble pound.

One of the tips he gives is to spend some time drawing small thumbnail sketches of the scene instead of beginning the drawing right away. This gives the chance to try out different compositions and experiment with areas of focus. But for me the most useful result of making these thumbnails is that it creates enough time to look at the subject before committing to a drawing. Once I’ve decided on a subject, the urge to start sketching right away is near irresistible, with the result that the composition often suffers. Just looking at the scene without drawing anything I find very hard, so scribbling thumbnails satisfies the need to be making marks immediately. By creating a number of empty rectangles you’re forced to reassess the scene a number of times, giving the eye a chance to discover the important features while giving the impatient hand something to do.

In the sketch above, I was drawn to the shapes between the three trees in the foreground, but only after the time spent drawing thumbnails did I realise that the empty sunlit space in the middle distance to the left, with the path leading off through the avenue of trees, is what attracted me to the tree shapes to begin with.