Last painting of 2016 - Horse race

Stretch yourself. If there's one thing I've learned in 2016, then it's that if you stretch yourself, and try something different, sometimes it will work out and you'll surprise yourself. Other times, mind you, it might turn out to be total pigswill, but then that's all part of the learning process. This time three days ago a horse painting was not on my agenda at all. Still, after Mary suggested it a couple of days ago, I was so pleased with the horse that I painted yesterday that I thought I'd stretch myself and have a go at painting a horse racing scene. So here it is:-

Horse race

Mary's Horse

 My wife watched me doing the tutorial with the hummingbird a couple of days ago. She asked about it, and I explained that the idea was that I'd go through the process of painting the hummingbird, and then try to use a similar technique to paint my own birds - hence the green woodpecker I posted yesterday. She thought for a moment and then made this observation : - "So you're painting birds now are you? All well and good if you like that sort of thing. But why don't you paint horses - I like horses."

Well, there's no other answer to that than - "I'll give it a bash." is there? So here it is: -

Mary's horse - watercolour on paper

This one falls into the category of paintings which occasionally make me think I'm getting somewhere.Pretty much everything I tried with it came off.

Watercolour Kingfisher

Kingfisher - watercolour on paper

It's funny just how quickly you can paint one of these wee birds once you have a method for doing it. This one took perhaps 30 minutes in total - 5 minutes - if that - to drawn the outline sketch and pain in the background last night - maybe 25 minutes to paint it this morning. I like this one more than the woodpecker.

My own work inspired by the tutorial

I wanted to try to put some of what I'd learned doing the hummingbird tutorial to use, and this is what I came up with: -

Green Woodpecker

This is a green woodpecker.

Ruby Throated Hummingbird - Watercolour

When I posted my parrot yesterday I think that I might have mentioned that I've been following some YouTube tutorials. The parrot itself is original - I used some techniques from the tutorials, but I wasn't copying anyone else's work - it was based on a photograph. However, I really liked one of the birds I saw on a tutorial, and I couldn't resist following along. The result was this one. It's not bad considering that my painting room does not have the internet, so I was having to watch for a couple of minutes, but basically pause every time the artist changed colours.

Ruby Throated Humingbird

Not too bad, is it? If you fancy having a go for yourself, here's the link to the tutorial.
Peter Seeler - Ruby Throated Hummingbird tutorial
It's one of several tutorials posted by a terrific artist called Peter Seeler - there's some beautiful line and wash pictures as well. I wish I had talent like that.

New Medium - Watercolour pencils - Parrot

My middle daughter bought me a lovely set of watercolour pencils for Christmas, and I've been fighting shy of using them for a couple of days, while I found some online tutorials on YouTube. You can do a lot worse than watching some of these yourself if you're every thinking of having a go. Basically, type in the medium you want to use, and the sort of thing you'd like to paint, then tutorial, and chances are you'll be able to find something to meet your needs.

In this picture I synthesized what I picked up from three or four different tutorials: -

Parrot - watercolour pencils on A4 paper

On reflection I'm thinking that although I like the background, in which I used a red, an orange and a purple, I can't help thinking that it might have made more effective if I'd used some blues and greens.

Watercolour- water effects - river reflection

Elvet Bridge - Durham

There are a number of bridges still standing in Britain that have buildings and structures on them, and this one, the Elvet Bridge in Durham is one of them. Obviously I wanted to paint the bridge, which I love, as well as I could, but what I was most interested in was getting the reflections in the water, and on this score at least I'm quite happy with what I achieved. This was a one session painting. I dampened the whole piece of paper, then quickly applied the sky - mostly cerulean blue - then the river - a mixture of cerulean and cobalt, just to make it slightly deeper in colour than the sky. While the river blue was still wet I started applying grey, brown and green reflections, and I'm pleased with the way they diffused into the water, although I did apply some more reflections when it had dried.

Watercolour and water effects

Well, I say water effect, but that goes for sky effects as well. I've been reading up and watching tutorials in the last couple of days, and I've tried to put what I think I've picked up into effect with this painting of a lighthouse: -

I can't lie, I'm quite pleased with this. The sky is even a little more subtle than it appears on this scan, and I'm pleased with the way that the sea has come out, and with the dolour combinations. It's almost completely just water colour, but I've use just a little white gouache in places.

Bus Project

Nothing ventured nothing gained. I wasn't happy with where I'd got to with the bus yesterday, so today I used layers of ordinary watercolour paint to darken it. Here's the finished version:-

I'm pleased with this. The colour of the bus in the foreground, especially the darker areas in the front are much better now, and draw the eye in the way that I hoped they would. I guess that this is now a mixed media painting since I've used watercolour on top of the gouache in some areas. There was a little more work to do on the background, and also the windows of the bus. It's maybe worth comparing this with where I was with it yesterday.

Bus Painting Project- Gouache

Old bus in East Grinstead

This is the painting I'm working on at the moment. I'm using gouache. Possible this may be a little bit ambitious since I've only just made my first few tentative steps with water colour as it is. Still, what the hell. I've still some work to do on the background on the right of the bus. as for the bus itself I quite like it, but I do think that the side panels are still too light, despite the fact that I've already applied two layers to them, and so may well have another go at darkening them.

Project Christmas Card: 2

Right, let's update you on what's been going on with my attempts to paint my own Christmas Cards.
Last week I painted this one: -

It's fair to say that I was very pleased. So, apparently, was my wife, who has demanded that we keep this one. So during the week I had another two goes: -

I like the head very much, but the antlers and the body - nah, not so much. SO I had another go: -

Again, there are bits about it I like, but I still hadn't got what I wanted in the way that I had in my first card, the one we're keeping. SO I had another go: -

Thia is much more what I wanted to do - I'm very pleased with this.

WIne Label/Menu design

One of my pen and ink daily sketches caught the eye of the Tambini family, who own the Express Café in Margam. They bought the sketch off me with a view to using it on their new menu and also on their wine label wine - and here's the wine label: -

Project Christmas Card

For the favoured few I decided to put my money where my mouth is and paint my own Christmas Cards. Here's a reindeer that I'm particularly pleased with.

The scanner failed to ick out the very lightly painted pink areas , but even so the scan gives you an idea of what it looks like.

This Week's Watercolour: - Tintern Abbey

Again, it's an improvement on the couple of watercolours I produced in 2015 - not sure that it's quite as nice as the Lincoln one, but not bad

Tintern Abbey - Watercolour

Nothing daunted

by the fact that last week's watercolour didn't really turn out as I would have liked, I had another go, with a different subject.

Lincoln Cathedral and city Walls

Though I say it as shouldn't I'm really pleased with this. It even looks better than it does in this scan, for the scanner has not managed to pick out the blue of the sky very well. I won't lie, I have been reading up just a little on watercolour technique. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Watercolour tram

Last Saturday I went back to charcoal after the best part of a year. Today I had a go at a watercolour for the first time in about 18 months. I think that it's an improvement on my previous watercolours, but see what you think: -

These two are from July 2015: -

Mumbles tram

Barry Island c. 1980

Here's the tram I painted this afternoon

Glasgow Tram 

It's moew subtle and muted than the previous two.

Latest Project: After Session 3

After Nov 9th

This is the laets - as you can see if you compare it to the previous picture of this painting I spent most of Wednesday's 2 hour session working on the building on the right, and I also painted in a couple of figures.

Daily Sketch - King George V

I haven't made a charcoal sketch for the best part of a year, and so got the charcoal out today. This is the result : -

King George V - charcoal on paper

I think I must have forgotten how much I like working with charcoal.

Latest Project - after 2nd session

This is the tram painting after another couple of hours: -

It doesn't look as if I've touched the tram this time, but I've done some more work on it. The most obvious work has been done in the foreground on the right, with the sign, lamp post and building being begun. However there has been work on the left as well, the signal gantry , more foliage, and the tracks in particular.

Latest Project

Yes, it's back to the trams, I'm afraid. This is the latest picture I'm working on - and it's taken me a couple of hours to get this far with it: -

There is something different about this one. Every painting I've done before I've sketched onto the canvas with an ordinary graphite pencil before I've applied any paint to the canvas. With this one, though, I decided to try to sketch with the brush as I went along. Maybe this is the reason why it seems to be taking so much longer than usual . The tram itself isn't finished by any stretch of the imagination, but there's things I really want to do with the background before I go back to it. The white area on the extreme right is going to be a building.

Hay on Wye sketches

Did these yesterday in Hay during a half term visit for a mooch around the bookshops

Daily Sketch

Everything I've read urges us to get out and sketch at every opportunity. I carried out this sketch with a biro on the back on an exam paper while invigilating an exam yesterday morning.

21/10/16

Sketches

Here's some of my latest daily sketches, which I haven't had time to post earlier: -

Frrydwyllt House, Port Talbot - former council offices

Nice Old building in Swansea - 22/0/16

Kash Superstore, Bailey St. Aberavon

Neath Indoor Market

Amelia

This is the second painting I've done of my granddaughter. She's older now, and lighter too.

Daily Sketches

Been hard to keep up this last week or so - still, here's the latest couple: - this first one is the Beulah Chapel in Margam. It's known as the round chapel, although it is in fact octagonal. It was one among a number of notable buildings in the village of Groes. The village was demolished to make room for the M4 motorway in 1974 - in the kind of act of cultural vandalism which gives the 1970s a bad name - justifiably so. Sadly the round chapel was the only building from the village to be rebuilt.




This is the Express café in Margam, just a few yards across the road from the round chapel. Cafes like this used to be a common site in any Welsh town, but they're a bit of a dying breed.

Commision: Roxy

Another dog commission this one. Pushed for time at the weekend, this is the product of three evening sessions.

Daily Sketch: Welsh Assembly Building, Cardiff

Daily Sketch: Puffing Billy Guest House Torrington

This is the back of the Puffing Billy Guest house. It's in the old Station Master's house, Torrington, Devon. Most of the track of this line has been torn up, but now it forms part of the beautiful Tarka Trail. This was where we spent the weekend of our Pearl Wedding.

This is the front, at 8am in the morning.

Daily Sketch: Station Road, Port Talbot

Daily Sketch: Plaza CInema

Plaza Cinema Port Talbot

Like the library, I have actually painted this building in the past.

Daily Sketch: Taibach Library

Taibach Library, Port Talbot

This is a subject I have actually painted in the past. It's a little bit of laziness on my part, since it's only a couple of hundred yards down the road from where I live. Like the church picture this one is done with a fineliner, and I'm pleased with both because they are closer to what I feel an urban sketch should be than anything else I've done.

English country church

English Country Church

If this only looks like part of the painting you're right. This is painted for a special occasion, but that's not important for now. What I really like about this is the trees. I am so pleased with both sets of trees, but especially with the foliage on the left hand side. This is immodest, but I think if you compared these with the trees in last year's painting of the little red corvette, or even the trees in the fairground engine painting there's no comparison. In fact I stopped working on the trees before I originally planned to simply because I was pretty happy, and was afraid that I'd end up overworking them if I carried on.

Daily Sketch: Baglan Church

I've not been happy with what I've done with pen and ink, so I bought a very fine fineliner pen today, and made this very simple and quick sketch of Baglan Church.

This a good step closer to what I'm trying to achieve - it's really starting to look like what I understand an urban sketch to be

Daily Sketches: Man of Steel and Train Station

This is another sculpture by Sebastien Boyesen.

It's called "Man of Steel" and it too is a tribute to the men who made the steel industry which made the town. I don't know if it comes across from my sketch, but what I do think about this statue is that it's quite reminiscent of Soviet Expressionist state art. This is  our square chinned proletarian hero, exhorting his workmates on to greater and greater efforts. Here is another sketch which incorporates the statue: -

The building on the right is Port Talbot's new train station. It isn't exactly ugly, but my God, there's nothing about it to lift the soul.

Daily Sketch: Mortal Coil Statue Port Talbot: Pen and Ink watercolour

This is a statue by Sebastien Boyesen in Port Talbot called Mortal Coil.

I really like it, and it says a lot about the relationship between Port Talbot as a town, and the steel industry. Due to the very muted nature of the watercolour I used on the last sketch, I gave it a bit more oomph with this one.

Daily Sketch: Pizza Hut Building Port Talbot

This is another stage in the development of my urban sketching. I've been reading up on urban sketching, and also looking at examples on line, and I've seen that many people use a watercolour wash - or several watercolour washes to add character and depth to the original pen and ink sketch. So this is what I've tried to do. The scanner does change the character of the colours a little bit  the sky, for example does have some blue in it on the original page, while there is a slight violet tinge to the road.

Daily Sketch: Hero the Cat

Hero the Cat

I actually made this one a couple of days ago, but didn't post it in the blog, only int eh diary. So you might not have seen this one yet. I don't know that I'm going to be able to make a sketch today, so I thought I'd put this one up just to keep things going.