paintings prints and stuff

St Ives from Gwithian Towans. sketch in S&B Delta sketchbook, watercolour, mixed media Another plein air sketch from the recent trip down to Cornwall.   Moody days are so much more interesting to paint sometimes than blue skies. Done in the S&B sketchbook with watercolours and Derwent tinted charcoal pencil, which is water soluble. I wish I was there now!  There is a grass that grows on the clifftops that goes the most beautiful scarlet at this time of year, I'd so like to be sketching there. More to follow ......

St Ives.  An illustrational one as a workout for a commission. I need to do a large one of this beach for my daughter - a very overdue Christmas present! Keeping track of those buildings and trying to distort it a little to make it wrap around was not the simplest!  The big version won't be identical as it will evolve a life of its own though it will be similar - but she wants the family on the beach 'recognisable and flattering of all of them', while showing all the buildings etc .....!!!  No pressure then. This is small, in the S&B Delta sketchbook, A5.  On this latest trip to Cornwall I used watercolours, pencil, coloured pencils, oil paint, ink, conte, gouache and more on various pages.   It works with them all :>)

The tip of the headland with St Ives, from Gwithian Towans, watercolour and mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook A cloudy day, looking across the estuary. That's the tip of St Ives just showing across the bay. Done mainly in watercolour with a touch of white gouache and some Derwent tinted charcoal pencils. Sometimes not-such-good-weather is more interesting to paint.

Bosworlas farm from the valley.  Watercolour and mixed media. Just a quick post to prove that I have been working!   Life has been a bit hectic. The Cornish farmhouse where we stayed one year, on the edge of the moor, above a rushing stream that tumbles down to the sea a little further down at Porth Nanven, below, one of my favourite places.  This painting of the farm  is currently on show at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery on New Walk. Porth Nanven, the Brisons and Cot Valley Now to finish a painting I need done  urgently ......

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

Bamburgh Castle from the dunes.   Watercolour and mixed media in Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook Another sketch from the break in Northumbria.   The view of Bamburgh castle from the dunes is great - it is huge , looming silhouetted on its headland above the sweeping beach. The textures of the marram grass, thistles and other plants interested me equally.  Working fast was essential  as we only had limited time up there.  To get the textures, the luminosity of the sea and sky and the looming power of the castle, I ended up using watercolours, a little grey ink, a little gouache, conte pencil, white acrylic ink and some coloured pencil. The first (very quick) sketch was from lower down and further back in the dunes, done where I parked the car, and done using grey ink and charcoal.  I used twigs to draw with the ink - it gives a lovely range of marks that are freer and looser than pens.  And they are free : >) Bamburgh cas...

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...

  Across the bay, blue afternoon, coloured pencil in moleskine sketchbook pale pearly dawn across the bay, coloured pencil in moleskine sketchbook  Two more colour/light studies of the view across the bay.   A vivid blue afternoon and a pale pale morning (which was almost impossible to scan because it really is very pale).

Another in the series that looks at the changing colours and light across the bay at different times. This one is very early in the morning looking north west ish.   At that time the sun is slightly to the right and the cliffs are silhouetted, colours pearly pale, clouds burning off in the risen sun and the promise of another lovely day.

A linoprinting update: Experimenting I've been experimenting with oil paint painted onto to the lino. It has an interesting texture from the brush marks and I think this is something I'll experiment further with, On the left I worked into the print - done with pthalo blue oil paint - wetting the brush with turps to spread thinner paler areas of tone in some places such as the sky. I scumbled coloured pencils over the cliffs to get the effect of the vegetation in shadow and the sand to get the grainy texture. It's made up of several colours overlaid loosely. There is a little more variation of colour than shows here - some slightly greener areas of sea and those stylised clouds are a little paler. This is all purely experimental, seeing what I can do with the lino, changing it, combining other media. I don't think the stylised clouds look so good with the more painterly stuff elsewhere - I want to do some stylised prints and then I may cut the clouds out and cut so...

Sennen Cove, Rainy Day, mixed media painting, 19.5 x 7.5 inches, Vivien Blackburn For some reason I don't enjoy working on panoramas in this format - turn it to vertical and I love working on a long thin canvas or paper - horizontal? - no :>( So I may well crop it to something like this and maybe get a further small painting cut out from the right hand side. What do you think? to crop or not to crop, that is the question. possible crop? detail of foreground rocks detail of the sea The photograph of the whole piece loses detail and texture so these are close ups of sections of the painting. It's a gloomy rainy day now and it was photographed with flash - never a very good idea, natural light is so much better. other potential crops? so ........ to crop or not to crop?

Midnight, High Tide. 11-12 ins square, acrylic and coloured pencil painting. Vivien Blackburn So far all the paintings I've done of this subject have been daytime or evening - I wanted to catch a nightime view and also do a painting with the tide high. I underpainted in a mix of ultramarine and raw umber and white. Ultramarine or indigo and burnt umber are what Paynes Gray is made up with - so that's a colour you really don't need to buy. If you mix your own you can tip it slightly bluer or slightly browner and have a little variety, which I think is more interesting than a flat colour. I then added touches of colour on the cliffs, in the clouds and the sea in purple, blues, green, ochre and brown coloured pencils. The underlying acrylics create a unity of colour and help with the night time feeling. The long thin drawing I did earlier I decided I wasn't happy with - I've cropped a square out of the middle. which I like better: Evening beach: charcoal and c...

Across the beach, late afternoon, cool day, charcoal and coloured pencil, 18 ins sq. Vivien Blackburn Another experiment with the charcoal and coloured pencil combination on grey paper - this time I did something I rarely do and included figures and a dog - it helps give the scale of those cliffs and rocks - the figures should actually be slightly smaller but the pencils wouldn't cooperate any smaller than this :>) Done using willow charcoal, polychromos and Lyra coloured pencils and a battery operated eraser on grey rough paper (which eats the pencils). The curve in the horizon is the paper not lying flat - not me tipping the sea up! detail enlarged - on the drawing this is less than half an inch high the figures are just very loosely suggested, with their dog playing in the water. detail from dark reflection - there are lots of hazy subtle colour changes in these that don't show up well onscreen :>( I ended up working all day and evening yesterday, covering for ano...

beach, charcoal and coloured pencil, 7 x 7.5 inches Vivien Blackburn Experiments. The scan isn't level - the horizon is :>) - a small version of the charcoal/cp beach trying out a cream cartridge paper as the background. The toothier paper worked much better, this is a little too smooth. I also like working larger better. And the landscape below was a mixed media demo of acrylics loosely applied to grey card (which shows through in places) with a palette knife and then worked on with pastels and a little coloured pencil. Winter Fields. mixed media. Vivien Blackburn 8.5 x 5.5 inches I'm hoping to push on with the canvasses tomorrow. .

Evening Light across the Beach. Vivien Blackburn. Charcoal and coloured pencil This is the charcoal drawing on grey paper that I showed you unfinished here: http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2008/02/seascapes-update-february.html (scan down past the painting to it) I said that I was mulling over whether to simply use white pastel for highlights and keep it monochrome or add colour - and if colour what medium??? I decided to try coloured pencils over the charcoal and see how they worked - they worked! I wanted to keep the colours very muted, this kind of evening light softens and dulls colours and the cliff was deeply shadowed and backlit. I worked in multiple glazes of colours to softly build white, blues, mauve, umber, sienna, peach, orange, ochres and a little green on the cliff top which doesn't show much onscreen as it's only a little. The peachy colours are a little less orangey and more peach than they appear here. The clouds have blues and browns in them. The light blues in ...

Tides Edge. mixed media on canvas 40 ins square. Vivien Blackburn I'm happy with how this one is going as it evokes to me what I wanted. I'm not sure whether I'll glaze a bit more blue and viridian over the purple sections of sea or not - what do you think? It's hanging over the sofa just now so that I can consider it. I love working this size. I wasn't trying to catch a frozen moment of time with the waves in realist detail - that isn't how you experience it. The waves come pounding in, funnelled by the shape of the beach, meeting each other in a crash of spray. It's all confusion. A horizon that isn't level, consisting of swells of water racing towards you, rearing up - power, colour and light and noise. I wanted to catch this feeling . I finally did what I'd advised my daughter to do - and what I always forgot to do myself and was reminded :>) in the comments section to do - put a piece of tissue over the flash to soften the light. MAGIC!!! t...

seascapes, work in progress, mixed media on canvas 30 in square. Vivien Blackburn This is at a stage where it looks a bit rough and ready! and the colours aren't showing well. I'm not happy with it at the moment. It's coming on slowly though and when it's finished I'll photograph it outside in better light. Below is a detail: detail of distant cliff, work in progress I'm still working on the clouds in particular, to try to get that effect of the rays of light and the light peachy sky against the dark clouds. Again it needs to dry before I can glaze and scumble more colour. work in progress, 30 inch square canvas. Vivien Blackburn This one has moved on just a little but I don't plan to do very much more. The colour is a bit too warm here, it's not quite so warm IRL, there are cools there as well. work in progress 40 inch square canvas. Vivien Blackburn Sorry it is on the slant but the paint was wet and caught the light otherwise. This is one that I start...

start of a new seascape 40 inch square canvas I've started on some new seascapes. They are based on the sketches I did in Cornwall and memories of the beach at all times of day with the waves crashing and the light and weather constantly changing. I'm abstracting from them - I want these paintings to be about how I feel about the spirit of the area and not simply a realistic interpretation of it. I now have to let these early marks dry before I can continue and as I'm still having to work extra hours it won't be a fast process :( start of a new beach painting 30 inch square canvas These are at a very very early stage and have a long way to go. Hopefully a lot of these marks will remain in the finished piece but there are many layers and adjustments to go - I don't have a clear pre-worked-out result in my head but simply an idea of the feeling of the particular weather and light and moment that I want to recapture. As the painting develops it may change dramatically...

Night beach, collage all images copyright Vivien Blackburn I'm showing paintings at an Art and Crafts fair in a few weeks and I thought I'd do some cards - most people can't afford the paintings but they can buy cards if they like. I'll do some with prints of my paintings but I thought it would be interesting to do some small abstract collages with fabric, hand made papers, gold tissue and painted papers. Then I scanned them and played a bit more :>) so some will be printed in their new coats. This is a variation in Photoshop on the collage above. This one looks better IRL because some of the fabrics have a metallic sheen, it didn't scan very well - none of the collages did :>( These were done from memories of the beach in recent paintings. This is collaged from fragments of an overworked painting - at least it was useful for something! and below is a variation on it in Photoshop. and another collage with fragments of the same painting. For the collaged card...

This is one of the recent ones in the Time and Tide series, a smallish one of just under 3ft tall. It's about those evenings where the clouds and colours are patterned and vivid, layers of different coloured clouds, delicate peach pinks, small fluffy clouds that are lower and the pool reflecting it all. The pattern element was important as it was that sort of evening. It makes me think of Fairisle knitting! It works well with the others in the series. What do you think? Daughter and new son are both doing well and she's so happy :)