paintings prints and stuff

A3 Khadi paper, watercolour, charcoal and ink, variations on a theme I've done a series of variations on this theme from the same original objects. Using sketches done from life I've then simplified, moved things around on the paper, played with patterns and in different media, rather like the way musicians plays with a theme, creating variations and counterpoint. I'm exploring the ways that still life can interest me as I don't find doing conventional set ups do. This one started with tinted watercolour washes, in a variety of greys that I mixed, developed with charcoal and white and paynes grey acrylic inks, with a little white oil pastel.  It's fun to work within a limited colour range like this. The Khadi paper is interesting to work on.  It's pure rag, heavy and quite absorbent so the paint doesn't sit on the surface as with some papers.  The paper is curling in the photo as it was still damp but it is actually square straight edged.   A...

Experimenting with still life - jazz in paint.  Watercolour and oil pastel I meet up with a group of friends, fellow painters, once a month and we critique each others work, talk about art, exhibitions. artists etc and put on exhibitions ourselves.  We all work very differently.   We decided to challenge ourselves to tackle a subject we rarely do - still life - and each find an angle on it that makes it interesting to us.  We've talked about doing a project on it for some time and decided to stop talking and start doing : >).  We all have to take an A3 painting to the next meeting.  This is mine so far. As usual, the photograph doesn't bring out some of the subtle colour changes : >( This is based on sketches I did a year or two ago- you can see some of them here , here , here and here . This one was done with watercolour on Khadi rag paper (A3) with some gold, copper,  orange and irridescent pale blue Sennelier oil pastel scri...

Alnmouth beach, a rainy morning, mixed media in S&B Delta A4 sketchbook Passing showers meant that I worked sitting in the car, from a car park with great views of the sweep of the beach and the gorgeous clouds. Again mixed media, with a lot of watercolour involved.  Because it was autumn, we were travelling to the north and weather was likely to be changeable, I made a decision on this trip to leave my oils at home,  They just aren't practical if it's necessary to work in the car.  I had some non-slip matting that meant my water pot, balanced on the dashboard,  didn't land on me - useful stuff though I don't know what it's called. I absolutely loved Northumberland, beaches, castles, hills .... so much drama.

A sketch done looking across at the Farne Islands from the far end of the beach at Bamburgh, mixed media Another from the Norhumbria sketchbook.   A blue windy day.

My well used, watercolour box - the hinge is broken on one side and the lid is held on by gaffer tape and it needs a bit of a clean up! When I did the post on my oil painting plein air kit, I said I'd do a follow up on what I take if I'm going to work plein air with watercolour and mixed media.   You really don't need to buy special kits and they will never be quite 'right' for what you want to take. Here it is  .............. The Paintbox : I hesitate to show this grubby specimen!   but this is the true state of it so I'll be honest!    :>)   I bought this at an art materials fair years and years ago. I don 't use a small travel size watercolour box because I like a wider variety of colours to choose from  - and quite honestly the size/weight difference isn't huge - the weight comes from the bottle of water not the paints.  It's a White Nights set of full pans in a box that held 24, see above.   The central s...

Gnarled trees branch, mixed media, 15 x20 inches, Vivien Blackburn This one is a mixed media study of a gnarled tree branch in acrylic, ink, a little charcoal and oil pastel. It's fairly textured with the paint quite thick in places. Done on a heavy watercolour paper. I've asked my students to bring me any interesting branches they find - I hope they do. I'd like to do some more. One has promised to keep her eye open for a skull as she often sees animal skulls when walking her dog - fingers crossed for this :>) I wanted to work larger and freer than the last one I did , which was also mixed media but much more restrained and smaller. What do you think?

Imaginary seascape from twisted tree root, watercolour, gouache, ink, oil pastel, coloured pencil This is the seascape I did from the previous tree root sketch. The curves of it suggested one of those arches of rock carved out by the sea. I started out with free lines in ink, using a piece of thin wood as a pen. Then I just kept working into it, trying to keep some of the lines of the sketch. It's about 14x10 inches. I could certainly work further from it but it's staying as an experiment rather than a finished piece I think. I'd swirl the lines a bit more in doing it again to regain the dynamic shapes of the wood, which have got a little lost here? Later a small sketch that made a landscape from a flint stone .... click here to see original post on the source drawing

Sketch of a water feature in the pool at the University Botanical Gardens, 10 ins approx Today I was sketching with my class at the University Botanical Gardens - I don't normally 'do' gardens/manicured/tidy so decided to just look at texture and reflections. This isn't a finished painting - just a study, a practice piece, so the composition isn't great. The subject wasn't one I'd want to do a 'finished' work of, I couldn't see a composition that really appealed to me. The water was very murky and the fish (koi carp) had to swim near the surface to be seen! Depending on the light - which changed by the minute from sunlit and warm to overcast and chilly and back - the water was deep khaki/peaty brown or amber. detail of painting above The surface of the bronze bell interested me as it contained so many subtle nuances of colour and texture - at the bottom (due to an unseen patterned structure underneath?) the water trickled at regular interva...

Moleskine Folio Books There are some new sizes of moleskine sketchbooks and watercolour books available - in much better sizes for creative images. They are now doing A4 and A3 in both the sketchbook and watercolour books. At the moment they are on a special introductory offer. They call them Folio books. acrylic ink over oil pastel in moleskine sketchbook I bought the A3 watercolour book . A3 for those unfamiliar with European paper sizes is equivalent to 2 sheets of computer letter paper side by side - about 15 inches across the landscape format page - so 30+ ins approx across a double page spread. A really nice size :>) A4 is computer letter paper sized at half A3. I like the elastic band closure and robust construction of my moleskine sketchbook, so, thought this was worth trying out. The previous small size of the 'large' watercolour moleskine meant I had never bought one. I believe the paper is the same. This book has the same format and pocket in t...

Lino monoprints, variations on a theme, Vivien Blackburn These aren't simply linoprints now as they are all unique - I've used monoprinting techniques with them, 'inking' them up with oil paint and working into them with coloured pencils and oil pastel. So I'm calling them lino monoprints as the best description I can come up with. I've included one straight, rolled lino print to show how it prints with lino ink applied with a roller in the traditional way. Monoprints are unique prints that contain a repeatable element - like the linocut in these - but with utterly different results due to colour and inking up differences and work done after printing. Monotypes are absolute one-offs with no repeatable element. Working with my lino prints this way suits my way of thinking better than the clean cut lino print that's included in the line up above. If anyone is interested in owning one, I'm going to put them in my Etsy shop I haven't sussed out ...

Misty morning, snow, Aylestone Meadows. Linoprint plus coloured pencil and oil pastel on brown paper. Vivien Blackburn First an apology - Ainesse left a really interesting and informative comment about linoprinting - and I somehow lost it :>( Ainesse could you possibly leave one again? and I'd love to read about the caustic soda process - and yes I have tried intaglio lino but wasn't very good at it! I don't have access to a printing press at the moment. Then - these are 2 of the 10 experiments worked into with coloured pencils and touches of oil pastel. The first print is an attempt to catch that thin mist, that often goes with snow, that softens and lightens colour, turning the world into gentle pastels. Evening, getting dark, snow, Aylestone Meadows, linoprint plus coloured pencils and oil pastel on black paper, Vivien Blackburn This one is an attempt to catch that cold bright light from the snow as the light goes. Are you fed up with this tree yet? :>D

Linoprints with coloured pencil in sketchbook. Vivien Blackburn I've been experimenting with those linoprints, The first one done on tracing paper glued to the left hand page, coloured on the reverse side (so the image is reversed and the print paler). The image was then continued on the other page of the sketchbook with the cp's. The paper is hand made with quite a rough texture and ragged edges, The second one was printed on white tissue paper and continued across the book in the same way, again with coloured pencils. The last one isn't a good photo - it looks better IRL, the oil pastel is shining in the light a bit and not showing the colours well. It's the monoprint roll up with the overprinted tree, worked into with coloured pencils and a little oil pastel. straight linoprint and sketch - a reminder of the source of these images I'm playing with digital versions as well -you are going to be sick of this willow!

Still life with chair, Vivien Blackburn. pastel I came across this old drawing when rooting through the plan chest, looking for something else and decided to show it. It's on red Ingres paper in a mix of pastels - mostly Unison. I love their velvety softness. It's fairly large - a full sheet of Ingres. This was done at a pastel weekend workshop - I think it was in the first year of my degree, during the holidays. The colours of the set up were wonderful and so I chose the red paper so it could flicker through the other colours. Still life isn't usually my 'thing' though once started I can get hooked. The battered velvet chair with the dent in the seat was fun to do and I played with the perspective, exagerating it slightly. I need to get my pastels out asap as there is a pastel society exhibition in March I must put work into. I may put this on Etsy as it's just sitting there in the drawer doing nothing. What do you think?

class website: Welland Park students, tutor: Vivien Blackburn This is a website I set up for the classes to show off their work - you'll see the wide range of subjects, media, styles and experience - the differentiation I talked about in my last post on teaching styles. website address: http://sitekreator.com/wellandpark it's worth a look - there are some talented students in my classes :>) previous posts on teaching in this series: http://vivienb.blogspot.com/search/label/teaching (2 posts) and http://vivienb.blogspot.com/search/label/teachers where I talk about the good teachers I've studied with . Core elements in painting and drawing Teaching I believe is being a catalyst. You are aiming to bring out and develop the talents and increase the understanding of students. Core elements for me are: encouraging an open minded exploratory attitude from the very beginning (a relaxed atmosphere as explained in the first post, enables students to do this without fear of...

Birches in the Snow - Vivien Blackburn - mixed media 8 -12 ins approx It's cold and though it isn't snowy like this it feels cold enough to be! Mixed media - watercolour, oil pastel, coloured pencil, conte pencil and tippex. Travelling to and from work through the countryside the best views are always where it's impossible to stop :( so I look hard and try to remember the light. We did have a dusting of snow one day - which was worrying as we never normally get snow until January. I hope we don't have a hard winter.

David Prentice a watercolour of the Malvern Hills Yesterday I had a wonderful day in the Cotswolds at the opening of the new John Davies gallery in Moreton in Marsh. I travelled down 60+ miles from the midlands and Katherine http://makingamark.blogspot.com/ travelled 80 miles up from London and we met for a coffee and a day of galleries, lunch and art-talk :>D http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.exactlywhatiwant.co.uk/uploads/1153740462.bmp&imgrefurl=http://www.exactlywhatiwant.co.uk/galleries-info.php%3Fid%3D657&h=334&w=495&sz=486&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=QUz9-jcnH-WVdM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=130&prev = the first image is from the Cowleigh Gallery in Malvern, where DP lives. It's a lovely friendly little gallery with some great work if anyone is in the area with a knowledgeable, friendly owner. David Prentice English Air - Black Cap Pastel http://www.johndaviesgallery.com/gallery-details.asp?catalogID=5&subCategoryID=&page=2 a lin...

Stormy Evening copyright Vivien Blackburn Looking through a sketch book I found these 2 unfinished works and finished them off - they are both mixed media (containing everything but the kitchen sink!). This one is earlier in the day, the clouds starting to build up. Those unfinished long seascapes on canvas are still sitting waiting to be finished off but I've been busy with other non-painting stuff :( .

This is a page of watercolour studies of pansies, not intended to be 'a painting', I did a while ago that I came across. It's a grey rainy day and the light isn't good to get on with the canvasses so I decided to try to pull it together as a composition. I used a bit more watercolour and coloured pencils and cropped it and added the soft blue green background to cool it down a little - the colours felt too hot. The deep dark pansies were really velvety and intense and maybe not the colour scheme I would have set out to use with the orange and pale yellows - but the background helps to knit them together. Bringing the soft mauves into the darker flowers also helped. I also took another look at a mixed media woodland that was unfinished and worked a little more on that. It has a little oil pastel in the early stages, watercolour and then coloured pencils.

Lindsay asked: Vivien, thanks so much for this detailed explaination. I like how you are discussing the back and forth part. I feel that with charcoal too but never thought about it with oil paint. Oil Pastels can't be worked this way because the lights look muddy on top of the darks. I can't wait to start in oils.You probably did answer something just like this earlier. I was still thinking more along the lines of drawing rather than painting. I am finding painting requires a much different way of thinking. So your information probably zoomed over my head.Few more questions? Are you using black or mixing your darks from complements. Its hard to tell in the winter scape.And are you using a flat brush or rounds or both?Again, many thanks for such an in depth,multi media answer. so .... here goes, I'm answering here because it follows on from the last entry .... I don't use black to darken colours - virtually never ever. I use complements like alizarin crimson with viri...

Trees are one of the recurring themes in my work, as part of a wider landscape and studies of individual trees. The sketches on the left were done in a local country park. The trees were absolutely covered in eyes and the more I looked the more there were. I'm not certain but looking at them I think it's where the deer or rabbits had nibbled a branch and they are the scar that was left. I wasn't interested in background or context, I was just fascinated by these recurring eyes and it's simply a sketch investigating them. This was done with Caran d'Ache neocolour II, watersoluble waxy crayons in an A4 sketchbook. The piece below was done some time later, playing with monoprinting on hand made paper, looking at this and other sketches of bark - I decided too many distinct eyes was offputting in a 'final' piece as it had quite an uncomfortable feeling :) so this was from imagination, based on a number of sources. It's about 8 inches tall. There are more of...