A commission I finished a while ago – this is Jeremy Storr’s father learning to sail. He was the only one in the class, so he had all his lessons in the boat! I wanted to show his face – I had a photo where he had a lovely smile – but I thought it would be a shame if you didn’t see the whole boat, so he and his instructor are in the foreground, and at the same time sailing past in the background. Art is useful like that…
Digital drawing – “Learning to Sail”
The finished painting.
This is Sally, Wendy and Cecily (left to right), who often swim on a Wednesday morning at Vobster. I particularly like swimming with them when I get a chance: there is much mucking about, diving, somersaulting, comedy renditions of synchro swimming. Occasionally there is swimming too. It’s all very good material for art: Sally takes fabulous photos, I take snaps by the simple method of pointing the camera in the general direction of the subject while repeatedly pressing the shutter for as long as I can hold my breath, but they are exactly what I need for paintings afterwards.
This is watercolour with gold and palladium leaf, quite big: about 19 x 22 inches. I took photos of the work in progress and posted them as I did each stage on my facebook profile, a slightly unnerving experience as at the start I had a large number of comments that said ‘leave it as it is’ …no pressure not to mess it up then! Here is the full sequence.
I have prints of this painting in my Etsy shop: www.waterdrawnart.etsy.com, and at time of writing this painting is also for sale, though I’ve also earmarked it for an exhibition in Clevedon in October (more on that later…).
The photos
Sketches
Pencil outlines and underpainting in Prussian blue
…Prussian Blue….
…more Prussian Blue…
…you know what colour this is by now!
Lots of thin layers of very translucent yellow with a hint of red/magenta
A little more colour, and the highlights put back in by lifting off a little of the colour wash where light catches the skin and for the sunbeams through the water.
The finished painting. This is a scan and a more faithful representation of the colours than the previous photos.
Detail of tiny fragments of gold leaf
Close-up
Details…
The metal leaf fragments, catching the light.
I have recent drawings that I can’t show you yet, so here is a commission I did a few months back – this is Rachel Ray’s Dart 10K swim. The Finish! A nice change for once to be able to say I’ve done that swim, I don’t have to imagine what it’s like, I was there (though in fact not the same year, and I think we may not have had quite such a muddy finish…).
Digital drawing.
Rachel’s Dart 10K – The Finish!
Wednesday swimmers – pencil sketches
I like swimming on Wednesday at Vobster, though I hardly ever get to go. There is much mucking about in the water. Here is something I am working on from some photos I took on a Wesnesday recently. It started off with me liking something about the arrangement of the two figures in this one photo, though as an actual photo it’s not one of the best.
The sketch is actually three sketches, scanned and and arranged till I think they work together. Getting the underlying drawing right is absolutely the most important thing with most of what I do so there has been much thinking and faffing already. Don’t hold your breath with this one… I have other work I should be doing now….
Wednesday swimmers – photo
