paintings prints and stuff

Trying out Derwent's inktense, watercolour pencils, Graphitint, Graphitone, Artbars and more on their new watercolour paper pads Derwent Watercolour Paper Derwent have brought out some new watercolour paper pads , perfect for their water soluble pencils and crayons.   It's 140lb which is heavy enough for the amount of water I'd normally use with these - I wouldn't normally have huge wet washes. I tried out sketches of items from my sketching roll and various coloured pencils and crayons.  All worked really well, the surface was a delight to work on with colour flowing freely, with the potential to lose or keep marks as I wanted. Products used here were  Derwent watercolour pencils Derwent Inktense Derwent Graphitint Derwent Graphitone Derwent Artbars Derwent Aquatone Derwent Charcoal Pencil Rotring Art Pen ....  with sketches of their electric eraser, sharpener for pastels and waterbrush, just some of the things from my pencil roll ...

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.

A quick doodle of the view from the car park on the seafront in Penzance, as I waited for himself to nip to the shops at the top of the steep hill going off to the right.   It relieved the boredom of the wait :>) I need to get the larger oil and charcoal sketches photographed.

seagull weighing up whether or not I had any food to offer, a quick sketch with a Rotring Art Pen and coloured pencils in a moleskine sketchbook Just the sound of gulls instantly takes me back to my childhood in Cornwall.   They seem the essence of freedom, gliding on the the wind, light shining through feathers.

The edge of Dartmoor, a stream tumbling down through a wooded valley, coloured pencil and Rotring Art Pen in Moleskine sketchbook We'd been exploring up on the bleak high moors, which I love, small herds of wild ponies and sheep, stunted trees and rocky crags, narrow roads and ancient stone bridges.   Now we were at the edge of the moor - lush wooded valleys, streams the colour of whisky tumbling over rocks on their way to the sea - equally lovely in a very very different way.   I stopped to catch the dappled sunlight on this old bridge and the warm amber glow of the peaty water. It was an incredible tangle of wildflowers and branches, great contrasts of light and dark and not at all easy!  so it maybe got a bit overworked.  This is the hotel we stayed at - just for a day on the way home - right on the borderline where the wild, bleak, high moor descends into lusher green fields and wooded valleys.  One side of the road is the high moor, the othe...

More quick sketches of moving people - moving far too much! These two were done with a Rotring art pen and a a little water to smudge and create areas of tone. They are in a moleskine sketchbook - hence the bubbly effect on the washes, which were rubbed into the paper - the waxy paper moleskines don't like water much! and the next 2 with a mechanical pencil with a B lead They were all absorbed in what they were doing and moving a LOT, not making life easy! but it was good practice even if the results aren't great :>)

pub terrace in Runswick Bay, watersoluble ink Sometimes, when sketching landscape, people catch my interest and in the midst of something else I'll draw them. These are a random selection from various sketchbooks. All very very fast attempts to catch people moving, absorbed in what they are doing. That interests me more than doing a posed portrait. At the National Gallery , biro and Lyra pencils I worked in biro watching the crowds and added the colour later at home, keeping to a limited palette of warm and cool browns. They were absorbed in looking at the paintings, some wearing the headphones with commentary, one little old lady in an obviously very expensive suit with incredibly wide padded shoulders from the '80s. Ros at Hartshill Hayes and passing dog walkers , pencil Ros sketching along the canal , Wolff carbon pencil Glen sketching , coloured pencil Sue and Pauline on the beach - evening, getting cold, windy , water soluble ink smudged with fingers Here 3 of ...

Quick sketch - artists demo , pen and pencil on handout leaflet I haven't done any more work on the project - work and life haven't left me the time - hopefully this weekend I'll be able to carry on with the paintings in progress. This is just a quick sketch done to alleviate boredom at a demo by a local artist - I had to borrow a pen from a friend and scribbled it on a handout. It was errrmmm ...... like ..... watching paint dry? It's the silhouette of the camera that shows the action on the large screen behind the head on the right, the projector is on the left. The light on the easel dissolved in blinding light so that you couldn't make it out clearly and it created a pool of light around the figure, everything else dissolving into the semi-darkness. I like the way things dissolve into each other in low light - Caravaggio like. I've decided to make sure I have my sketchbook always with me in future.

Frog Island Factories and Canal, Pitt pen and coloured pencil on brown wrapping paper, Vivien Blackburn (crop 1) I wanted to have another play with that brown wrapping paper sketchbook, so I worked from an old sketch that I'd done plein air. I'd decided to limit the colours to browns - using the lovely Lyra skintones selection, along with a brown Pitt pen. At the last minute I decided to add a little icy blue in the sky, canal and reflecting slightly on the corrugated roofs - the coldness works well against the warmer colours I feel. This is an area that is full of higgledy piggledy old factories and little overgrown branches off the canal to their old wharves - one is off under that cast iron bridge. Sadly it's ripe for development and further along there are new flats in place of the old mills. I don't suppose this quirky building has a long future. Frog Island Factories and Canal, Vivien Blackburn (crop 2) which crop works best do you think?

Sketching Trees in the Park. Rotring fountain pen in A4 sketchbook. Vivien Blackburn This is an old sketch done in a local park. I was trying to describe the different types of trees and their distinctive shapes, character and foliage with just pen lines. Looking back at it I like the positive/negative changes with light trunks against shadowed foliage and dark trunks against light, changing back and forth. That poor Rotring pen hasn't been used in a long time, maybe I should dig it out. I really prefer less scratchy media. I like trees - not quite as much as water but nearly! Trees can have very distinct character, rather like people and I really dislike the generic woolly trees in some 'how to' books. I've dug out some of the trees I've done over time - some, like this (done in '93) done some time ago and some more recent. They are in pen, pencil, charcoal, watercolour, oils, digital imagery, coloured pencil, ink, mixed media, acrylic, pastel, don...

An update on the FPP sketchbook exchange - I now have Casey's book :>) as Glen finished her section in record time! ..... no pressure then :>0 Casey started her book - theme Local Colour - with some lovely colourful sketches of people and market fruits, a real flavour of France :>) There is a beautiful fresh fluidity and freedom in the way she catches these and it's great to have them here to see in real life. and Nina carried on with some beautiful observations of people in Stockholm, chatting, relaxing ... Again such a strong use of pen, so assured, and then lovely loose floods of watercolour. Lovely glimpses of local colour - and then this great landscape Glen followed on strongly with watersoluble pens and a sketch of the flower shop opposite her fish shop with busy shoppers and buckets of flowers. and I have to follow all this ! and Nina's book will be in the post to Ronell this week as I've virtually finished my pages :>) with a total change of pace fr...

mixed media sketch . Beacon Hill, Charnwood, Leicestershire. Vivien Blackburn This one is winging its way to the US to take part in an exhibition with friends - 2 English and 3 Americans. I had to stay with small images to fit in so decided on a series of work on trees from my plan chest (she says smugly ; >) - said plan chest still feeling shiny and new and lovely and I need to look in at it each time I pass the room! ). I don't often work small except for plein air sketches so it wasn't easy to find work to fit in 10x8 or 11x14 frames. Today I had to post the moley exchange book, the FPP exchange book, these sketches and 2 cards to the US - eeek!!! it added up to rather a lot! Keep your fingers crossed for sales so I don't get these back. .

watercolour, fragment of watercolour sketch - Vivien Blackburn I picked up Glen's book on Friday and have had fun (though it was intimidating after seeing the gorgeous images she'd created) adding to it. These are fragments of what will soon be flying on to Ronell in France :>) I've done 2 pages and just have to do the half page, where the next person - Ronell - can interact with my image. My book is on its way to Lindsay in America now with Ronell's work added - I'm dying for Lindsay to get it and show what Ronell has done with it :>) I know it's going to be gorgeous! Once Ronell receives this I will be able to show the whole of the images and the book so far .... and another fragment from the other page - any idea what it's done with? I'm thinking it might be good to produce a Blurb book of ALL the images from ALL the books when we've finished - what do you think? I shall be so sorry to say goodbye to the ones that won't return to...

Feathers. Sketches in pastel, pencil, brush pen and coloured pencils. Vivien Blackburn I'm back at work and feeling distinctly convalescent! not up to tackling a large canvas - but twitching to do something. so I sketched thisfeather, which was a present from this little tiger - who has eyes for the pigeons but isn't capable of catching one - so she brings any feathers she finds into the house to play with. Hence its rather raggedy state. I simply had a play with various materials, looking at the feather again and again in pastel pencil, 2B pencil, Pitt brush pen and coloured pencil. With the brush pens and coloured pencil I just decided on an equivalent tonal value of pen for the various greys and blacks of the original and substituted a warm amber/honey for the lightest parts and deeper umbers for the blacks with no attempt to use the original colours. I really like the texture of feathers to draw :>) .

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...

Pen and wash drawing copyright VivienBlackburn Still life is a subject I don't really do any more in the traditional sense - I'll sometimes do studies of something that interests me or just for practice but don't do 'finished' works any more. Landscape always was my first interest. This set up was in a class about 12 years ago and was full of lovely textures and shapes - the hairiness of the coil of rope, drapes of the material, the dark wood of the chair and the white flowers against a dark background, smooth jug, spiky teasel and delicate honesty were interesting to work with and work out a way of expressing each. It was done with a Rotring art pen and sepia ink with plain water to create the washes - the ink is water soluble. I came across this photo of it while I was looking for something else. My Rotring pen tends to languish largely unused as well - I often find pen too scratchy for me and like the painterliness and soft edges of charcoal or pencil better for...

I know some artists who don't use sketchbooks or make sketches - but most do. For me they are a really important facet of my work. Lots of the sketches will never be developed but serve to help me learn about a subject and get to know it well. Sometimes they'll come in useful years later as this one - it was done 10 years or so ago, when I did a small body of work on this industrial area of the canal, it interested me and I always felt I may do more one day - and now this area is part of my waterways project. This is somewhere I intend to sketch again at some point. It's just a few hundred yards from where I sketched the factories and weir recently. The building is an odd quirky shape, built to fit between the 2 diverging pathways. It wasn't totally finished - the white area on the left is the canal, I concentrated on the buildings and bridge and never finished the water surface. The shelves of sketchbooks are a really useful resource for now and the future but...

Today I went back to Union Wharf to look again at the tangle of boats, shining water and expensive loft apartments. This is a photograph of the sketchbook - the scanner (image below) didn't pick up quite all of the image but shows the colour, composition and marks better. The book was too small (11 inches square) to fit in the whole of the tangle of boats - there were lots just below that lamp that I couldn't fit in. I need to go back with more time and a larger sketchbook. There was a colder wind blowing today but I was sheltered from it and it was positively hot in the sun. I had thought it would be a nice place to live but after sitting there on a weekday with a car alarm going off, another car parking with a loud radio playing and children passing on a walk with their parents from time to time and shouting to each other ..... maybe not . At weekends I bet it can be pretty noisy. I like peace. I'd like to get out into the countryside now and look at the river with the fr...