Portrait #2 is now WIP

After a week of madness, Work is now In Progress (WIP), on my second portrait attempt.

After taking two months to get here, the carpet fitters finally arrived, and, as they do, fitted carpets throughout. This took over 2 days, but the emptying the rooms of furniture and then putting the furniture back has taken all our time.

The light here is amazing. I had heard artists talk of 'the light' and knew that Cornwall was considered the place to be with its famous Newlyn School.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newlyn_School 

It was only when we moved here to West Wales,that I realised what was meant by 'the light'. The colours leap out at me. When it rains I can seen up to 10 rainbows during the course of a day. Because we are high up (the house is named Highview) I can see rainbows ending in the sea or in green valleys - amazing.

The skies, like the weather, are dramatic. The colours are almost unpaintable - who would believe them?

Here is a photograph taken by Ian Wright, which captures a typical Fishguard sky.

The Sky at Strumble Head, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales       by    Ian Wright
( https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3086/3094513231_7245f7fb39_b.jpg)

As blogland is so international, many will have see far more exotic sights ... but ... to a simple soul like me: this coast is a magical place to be. It's what I would call a Joan Sicignanos coast line (New England, US). Joan paints fantastic sea/coastscapes as you can see on this link to her blog....

Joan Sicignanos blog

FIRST EVER PORTRAIT

Well here it is, for what it's worth. Not brilliant but I feel I can move on from here. It's Acrylic on Canvas 9" x  6"

Zorn's Wife

My First Steps into Portraiture # 1

I started off by watching a few videos with my favourite, Will Kemp.

Colours used, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light, Mars Black, Raw Umbra and Titanium White.

I put down a wash of Neutral Gray (grey) on old damaged canvases 

From the Colours on my limited palette I produced colour strings by mixing the colours.

This gave me a feeling of the range the palette offered. Although they would be a bit 'bright' for the subject of my first portrait which, as you can see, has a very pale complexion.

I then sketched the model onto my canvas, at which point our visitors returned.

Tomorrow we are catching the Ferry to Ireland and return: Duty Free Christmas shopping trip. It's going to be Sunday before I can paint again!

Zorn's Limited Palette

Forgive me for stating the obvious when I speak of Zorn's limited palette. To me, the Newbie to painting, Anders Zorn is a recently discovered character, to you all he is probably common parlance.  

He was Swedish 1860 - 1920 (found fame in the US after painting the portrait of Presidents, Cleveland, Taft and Roosevelt)) and, from the look of his studio, seems like my sort of man.

What interests me, amongst other things, was his use of a limited palette. 

The fewer colours I use ... the fewer mistakes I can make! At least that's my theory :0)) So if I used a his limited palette for portraits I should stand a better chance of getting things a little less wrong than I otherwise might ... if you can understand that bit of back-to-front English.

Just to compound the task of portraiture I shall use Acrylics. I'm going to try Golden Heavy Body acrylics and maybe a W & N Burnt Sienna.

I think I may be forced out of my rigid attention to detail into a looser impressionist style to make it work. Who knows?

As we have friends staying until Saturday, I shan't be able to start until Sunday next. I shall record what I do for two reasons:

(i) It might give you a good laugh!

(ii) You may be able to point out the errors of my way.

Either way, I'm quite excited about it all ... should be great fun!! 

THIS IS IT Folks!! I'm Back ... ready or not!

After a very long time ... I'm back.

We have now moved into West Wales and are very happy to have found this fantastic and magical place!

I have had a very non-art year, which I'm not going to bore you with. The last stage was setting up a new studio ... and here it is.

The Drawing Office Part For Pen & Ink Mode.

The Writing Area for Author Mode

Another View of Drawing/Writing areas

The Painting and the  Library/Reading Areas

 So ... no more excuses for not working. Get the Coffee & Cookies ready, I'm on my way to yours shortly!!

Still Here!

I'm still around folk ... but only just!

We should move to West Wales in September, in the meantime I'm still hard at work, but no time for art until I'm established in Fishguard in the county of Pembrokeshire.

Nevertheless, some of the art I have produced since being on this blog is still doing its thing.

I'm still selling prints, and I have sold the original of the Lunardi Balloon to a gentleman in Oxfordshire, UK, which is unusual as most of my originals got to the US. My stuff seems to find favour (or should I say favor) rather well over there ... 

Every inch of my garden is now done, and I've only achieved that twice in 26 years.
The Main hedge was a monster - 15 bin liners of clippings.
Excellent company whilst doing it: butterflies, a few dragon flies, and millions of bees on the lavender bushes. At one end of the garden I have the thin robin for company whilst at the other is a fat one - never ever see them both at the same time. Not forgetting the grey squirrels who spend ages searching for - but never finding - their buried treasure.

No more wood pigeons or collar doves indicates the hawks are back nesting in the Castle.

The house and outbuildings are now all painted. The rooms that needed re-wallpapered are done.

The Outline Planning Permission (so much work and drawing of plans for that) for the side-land was received on Friday, and the land is up for auction on 28 Aug. 

We have a lovely couple who are hoping to buy the house.

All this effort has cost 2 stone (28 pounds 12kg) in weight and I feel fitter than I have in years ......... the reason for all this effort is in the video ... it's where we are going to live. 

You're all welcome to come and stay!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9PS-EOCQtk

Collage of Some of My Work

Hi Everyone.....!

Still around but little time for art at the moment.

Missing you all, but it will be a month or two before I get back to normal in the blogasphere.

I keep peeping to see what you're all up to and it makes me want to join in, but I'm so busy getting this old house ready for sale.

Here's a little collage to remind you who I .....was!

Have fun, here comes the sun ... butterflies & bees in my garden all ready, 2-3 months too early!