paintings prints and stuff

Vivien Blackburn's work in the Urban/Rural show We've just hung a group show at the The Eye Project, Urban/Rural show.  If you want to come and see it it's on for a month - well worth seeing, 11 lovely artists and some fabulous work. Those large canvasses are 40 inches square. There are rural landscapes, flowerscapes, intriguing textile work including a large knitted building, abstracts .... something for everyone. It's in the gallery below the cafe in the Adult Education Centre at the top of Wellington street, Leicester, opposite Fenwicks.  Meet the Arttists day is Saturday 1st April 10-2.  Come and have a chat with us?

2 studies from the clifftop between Hells Mouth and Portreath in different light, watercolour/mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook I do love the changing light and the different colours and moods.   I could paint along here again and again through the seasons and each image would be different.   Flowers, sea colour, skies always new. There was a massive cliff fall at Hells Mouth that I didn't know about until I got home - thankfully!   Video here - do watch, it gives an idea of the scale and drama.  I ended up mostly using my watercolours on this trip for some reason, though I had taken oils and used them  a little.  I made the decision early on to mainly work in the S&B sketchbook and fill it, which I did : >)  rather than try to complete larger works in changing light.   I can work from these sketches at home to produce the larger works, with time to consider format/medium etc at leisure. Already I'm ...

Godrevey Lighthouse , watercolour/mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook A chance to sketch fairly intensively on a trip to Cornwall.  Happy. I was feeling very rusty, particularly with oils as life has been hectic and I haven't had much time lately for plein air sketching. There was plenty of passing cloud and the day was windy, the sea intensely blue.  This is a corner of Cornwall I wasn't familiar with, so it was lovely to discover new places.  There were so many beautiful spots to paint within a very small distance from where we were staying. I was painting from the Towans Cornish for dunes - most of the coast has cliffs but being on an estuary (St Ives is across the bay), there is a large area of high, grassy, shrub and flower covered dunes. the highest in Europe apparently. More to follow ....

 Waves on the rocks, very quick sketch in S&B delta sketchbook A very quick sketch of the waves breaking on rocks a little way out.   I just love moving water.

Rocks and surf near Bamburgh and Howick, ink and charcoal in an A4 S&B Delta sketchbook There were lovely long stretches of sandy beach but the rocks here were so interesting to sketch.   You can read about the geology here , so different from the rocks I'm used to sketching in Cornwall . This was done in a cold cold wind with willow charcoal and grey ink, plus some white FW acrylic ink from Daler Rowney.  I love that white ink.   I like the Herbin Gris Nuage ink to draw with twigs as I was here - but it ruins fountain pens : >(.  It was sold as suitable for them too.    Ah well, a fountain pen wouldn't have given me the expressive lines that the twigs did : >) You can see a drawing done with the grey ink using twigs here . I've now got several projects to juggle.  One for an exhibition and others for Christmas .... more to comel

Rocks at Bamburgh, watercolour and mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook The geology on the coast of Northumbria is fascinating with parallel ridges of rocks that look almost as though they were constructed by man and sheets of flatter rock and sand between. This one is a study of the rocks to the north near Bamburgh.  It's basically watercolour but with bits of tinted charcoal and coloured pencil in there too. Again I was enjoying catching the very different colours and mood of the north east. More to follow .............

Bamburgh Castle, watercolour. pen and coloured pencil in S&B Delta sketchbook Bamburgh castle from the other side, this time well lit, not the dramatic silhouette of the previous write up.  Those sides are steep, it would be an incredibly difficult place for an attacking army to take.  It really is massive.  Do click on the link there and look at the aerial view, it's amazing. There were fascinating areas of rosy coloured stone amongst the greyer ones.  Not easy to keep track of all those windows and turrets and ins and outs :>)  It was sunny and beautiful but the wind was cold so this was done from the warmth of the car. Harry Potter was filmed here - this is Hogwarts. more to follow .....

Porth Nanven, evening, Derwent charcoal in Stillman and Birn A4 hardback sketchbook  Another from Cornwall.  Attempting to catch the silvery dazzle of light on water.  A little stream tumbles down the Cot Valley to the beach below - Porth Nanven. The new Derwent charcoal sticks are luscious to use and there is a little of their charcoal pencil in there too.  The photo makes the horizon slope - the drawing doesn't . S&B sketchbooks are now available from Jacksons in the UK.   The Beta  paper is lovely , heavy and really well primed so that it takes any medium I choose. Epsilon and Zeta are smooth and beautiful for pen and ink work.  They will take watercolour but if you want to use a lot of  media and layers, then the others are more for you. Has anyone tried the new Derwent charcoals and graphites?  or the S&B sketchbooks?

A sketch done from our holiday cottage in watercolour/mixed media in an A4 S&B sketchboo We had wonderful views from the house, right left and front .... and even the steep hillside/cliff at the back had primroses and bluebells. This is looking sideways when the tide is high, past a row of terraced cottages that climb up the steep track.  That's 'our' garden ..... for a week anyway! I used watercolour with some pen and a few touches of coloured pencil - oh and a little FW white acrylic ink, a new favourite medium, used with a bamboo pen or brush.  It is really opaque and a clear clean white. so useful for surf etc when you've lost the white of the paper in places,   I work fastish, the painting evolves and I don't always retain all the lights so use this or white gouache to regain them.  I like mixing media, choosing whatever will create the marks I want.  I'm trying to catch a spirit of place and have no interest at all in rules about 'pur...

Rocks and sea in Stillman and Birn Gamma sketchbook, with Derwent Artbars and Neocolor II I decided to try some collage in the Gamma sketchbook today while the class were working - tearing up old demo sketches,   The rocks in this one started life as undergrowth and tree trunks.   Marks in trees, rivulets in wet sand and the cracks in rocks can be so similar in pattern - turn them round and the subject changes.  :>) The grass, sea, far headland and a few strokes of vegetation were added with a mix of Derwent Artbars and Neocolor II. This book has the 100lb ivory paper, which held up to the washes extremely well.   I do rather like ivory or cream paper - it has character.   How about you?

Pale, pearly morning, Derwent Artbars, Vivien Blackburn This one was an experiment with Derwent's new Artbars to produce a pale, high key image rather than the vivid colours of some  works shown earlier .   They were equally capable of catching the subtle light of an early morning when colours were pearly pale and delicate. There is a lovely range of pale colours, plus of course the deeper colours which, applied lightly and then washed, will give further variations of soft pale colour.  Some of this was done using quite wet washes, some deliberately leaving marks, some dry crayon drawn through damp washes, some fragments dropped into wet washes, some at the end used dry and left dry.  Whatever was going to make the marks I wanted. Further episodes of the series on essentials in painting and drawing to follow - I've been up to my eyes in family matters lately!

  Wreck, sketch with Derwent Inktense block, tinted charcoal and white oil pastel This was a play to try out some new brushes (Christmas present from himself).   So, I thought I'd continue using the Derwent materials I was given, to test mixes of these as well. I used a photo of a wreck we found when cliff walking a few years ago.   From this side it looked whole - from the other side it looked as if someone had sliced it in half, almost totally hollow.   First I laid down a few areas of colour for cliffs and boat.   Once I knew where they would be, I laid down scribbles of surf with a white Sennelier oil pastel - no other brand works as well for a resist to water media as the Sennelier, they are lush.   I used Inktense blocks , partly drawing and partly for lifting colour from, to wash further colour in the sea, the cliffs and the boat..     I then drew into the dried painting with Derwents Tinted Charcoal to add furth...

  Clovelly Harbour, Misty Summer Day, coloured pencil and white gouache I was looking at this sketchbook with buff paper, thinking of working in it.  Instead I edited the 3 images in there.   I'd never been quite happy with them due to the whites being dull, making the whole image dull.   White pencils are very disappointing when used on coloured paper I find - I'd used 3 different brands in trying to get the whites brighter. I used a little white gouache, drybrushed where I wanted a gleam in the water, scrubbed a little into part of the wall of the house (but not all over) and used the small colour shaper tool that came in a set of Derwent tools to apply thin drawn lines of gouache for the edges of the waves. I'm much happier with it now.  This is also a better scan, bringing out the colours in the stone wall at the front and the water colour is more like the original.  Maybe it's having that white there to help it get the white balance to s...

Incoming Tide, Near Porthgwarra, mixed media, approx A4 Working from sketches done plein air and memories  - I felt in need of a virtual trip to the coast. Sketching and painting plein air really helps to fix colour, movement, the shadows of rocks  underwater, the swirling water around rocks where air bubbles turn it milky and the ripples of incoming waves as the tide comes in on a warm, still day  -  - I want to be there now. Working plein air is really important to me because of what I remember from  sitting studying a scene and working out how to catch movement, colour and mood.   I can then play in the studio with those sketches and memories, developing ideas from them.  If I simply looked but didn't sketch, then I wouldn't remember a fraction of the information that sketching fixes in the brain.

Phew it's all finished - well apart from putting things away.   This was the exhibition with a little group of friends - we meet up once a month to discuss work in progress, critique, sometimes arrange to visit exhibitions or sketch plein air and a couple of times a year put on these shows.   You'll probably recognise the work here. 3 intense days, lots of visitors, lots of nice things said, lots of interesting conversations. My browser - the portrait behind is the work of one of the friends. so ...... here are a few images from the show.

A quick glimpse of secret project - to prove I'm working!

The Crowns, Botallack, inktense and mixed media I wasn't happy with this and have worked on it a little more.   You can see the previous stage here .   I wanted to keep the sky as it sets the mood and adds scale and distance  - but for me the composition wasn't really working as it was.   One change was to darken the sky - it needed to be darker to balance the tone of the lower part of the painting.   I gave the horizon a slightly lost edge against the clouds on the right to get away from that hard horizon line.  I also wanted that sense of light coming through a gap in the clouds to light up the cliff tops and sea, with passing shadows so it was important to see the clouds.   I do love that sort of light. I lost the hard forward edges of the buildings where the ink lines were too heavy - watercolour mixed with white gouache helped me to lose them and allow edges to be softer and closer tonally to the sea in places. Then I warmed ...

The Crowns, Inktense blocks, ink and coloured pencil sketch, approx 9 x 6.5 inches I've been given a set of Inktense blocks and wanted to have a play, see how they behave and what they can do.  I've got about 6 of the Inktense pencils and like them, so I was interested to see how the blocks behaved.   I worked loosely from the charcoal sketch I did plein air and the ink sketch - using memory for the colours. I do like the way the Inktense colours layer and their translucency - in this one I used the blocks mainly as you would watercolour pans with very little drawing with them.   I think to draw with them (then use water to wash) I'd need to work A3 to have room for big gestural marks.   Something I may try next.   I used ink and coloured pencil (Polychromos and Lyra Rembrandt mostly) over the washes and scribbles of Inktense and the rough paper surfacew meant these flicker across, touching the high parts of the paper, missing the dips...

  detail of Rocks at Porthgwarra This painting was done with just the colours above - blue, red, yellow, black, brown plus white. The whole painting  done on A4 cartridge paper but with white paper round, so a bit smaller: and a further detail Sometimes a limited palette is a really good exercise to make you work to achieve the colours you want :>)

detail of the sketch below   A quick sketch on a very windy day with Rotring pen and watersoluble ink, with a little brush pen (waterproof ink) and a touch of gouache.  I do like watersoluble ink for those lovely washes.    The Crowns, Botallack, pen and ink sketch in Canson sketchbook.  Vivien Blackburn And turning 180 degrees this was the skyline, with another ruined mine engine house in the distance. This one was done in carbon pencil.