Racehorse Project

I'm still quite a long way from finishing the horse racing acrylic painting I started working on at the start of January. Last time I posted about it, it looked like this: -

This was after about 5 hours of work - 2 in the Artists' Group and 3 at home. Well, I decided that I'm going to take my time and not rush this one. As it was I had the sketchcrawl last Saturday, but then today I made a conscious decision not to work on it today. So since then I've spent 4 hours on it during two Artists' Group sessions. Here's where we are now: -

There's just a little bit of work to do on the two horses and jockeys on the far left. However, the crowd is going to take hours. Thankfully I got good experience of painting a crowd in my Frankel picture, so I know I can do it as long as I have the patience for it.

Saturday Sketchcrawl: Going Solo

Right, well, after I enjoyed my first group sketchcrawl so much last weekend, I was all raring to go again this morning. The group isn't due to meet up until next month, but what the hell, I picked a good indoor venue in nearby Swansea, and thought I'd go solo.

The Glynn Vivian is a fine Art Gallery in Swansea, and I was there just a minute or two before it opened at 10 today. With the weather being a constant and miserable drizzle, sketching indoors was very much the order of the day. So, working the way we did last week, I gave myself until 1pm to produce sketches of whatever took my fancy, either plain pen and ink, or line and wash.

I was hoping to sketch a couple of figures perusing pictures, but it just didn't happen. There was hardly anyone else in the gallery when I started, and by the time people started arriving I'd already picked my first sketch. This is the upper gallery, which should give you an idea of the rather fancy architecture of the older part of the building.

This one took me quite a bit longer than I planned, but I still had enough time to complete a pen and ink sketch of a statue of a youth sleeping. I walked all around it, but I couldn't find any car giving any details of who made it and when.

Fewer people stopped to have a look at the sketches and have a chat than did last week, but then there were fewer people around than last week, and fewer of them had kids with them, so I suppose that's only to be expected.

Bottom line - I enjoyed the sketching, but missed the post mortem session over coffee which we had last week.

Urban Sketching South Wales : January Sketchcrawl

I've just participated in my first sketchcrawl, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Last year I joined my local Urban Sketchers group through Facebook. It's called the South Wales Urban Sketchers group, although it's very much centred on Cardiff. There hasn't been an event that I've been aware of for several months now, and they always coincided with prior engagements. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

So, what's a sketchcrawl? Well, basically you all meet in a designated place - in this case the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff ( probably the best free show in town - it's worth going just for the French Impressionist paintings in the gallery). You all agree a tie to meet up again, and then you go off, pick what you want to sketch, and go for it.

I'm not very good at the lightning sketching thing, so I only ended up making two. By and large I'm happy with the way that  can sketch, especially in pen and ink, but I still feel I struggle when it comes to applying watercolour washes. So I forced myself to make at one of my sketches today a line and wash sketch. Here it is.

As the inscription says, this is a statue of Perseus by Frederic Pomeroy, and for once I think it actually looks better than it did before I started applying colour.

I spent so long on my sketches that I only had enough time to make one other. This is a pen and ink sketch of a stuffed buzzard

This was in a case in a very busy part of the museum, I have no problem with people walking in front of me while I'm sketching, and the good thing about telling people so was that many of them stopped for a look, and I had several lovely conversations.

When we met back up to show our efforts to each other, I mentioned how much I'd enjoyed the interaction with people while I was sketching the buzzard, one of the other sketchers said that this was something she felt I only enjoyed because I'm confident. I don't know so much about that. I think it's just because I'm only really sketching for fun, it isn't a competition, and I can take it if people don't like the sketch, or they don't pass comment. when they do like it, though, it's wonderful. The fact that I had an enquiry about doing a commission as well was a bonus.

New Project: Racehorse

You may remember that I painted a couple of racehorses last year, which led to me being commissioned to make a painting of Frankel. Well, I sold both of those paintings last week.

Now, we began back at the Afan Nedd Artists' Group on Wednesday evening. I didn't have a project to work on, and so I decided it might be worthwhile starting another horse picture, and why not another racehorse? So I sketched out the horse and jockey for this one, and I'd painted in the jockey by the end of the evening. I spent a couple more hours on it today, and this is the state of play as it stands: -

I'm no unhappy with the way it's going so far. My previous favourite was my Frankel painting, but even with that painting I did think that the jockey could have stood out a little more. I'm very happy with the jockey on this one.

Couldn't resist another Steam Engine

This time it's an LNER A2 pacific in King's Cross station.

Paddington was the closest terminus to the part of London I grew up in, and my local stations were all on the Western region - the former Great Western Railway, but I always had a thing for Kings Cross, the former LNER and its locomotive.

Another choo choo

Yes, another YouTube video below of me making this sketch: -

It's a British Rail tank engine in a station - stop me if I'm getting a bit technical. Here's the video: -

I also completed this sketch below - a 1960s Triumph Herald: -

Now, if you saw my last post, you might remember this sketch of a Duchess Class LMS Stanier Pacific: -

Now, if I'm brutally honest I don't really think that it's the best sketch I've ever made. For all that, though, in a spirit of what the heck I put it on ebay, and it sold. Emboldened by this success, I've put both the tank engine and the Herald on ebay as well, and also this sketch of a Swansea bus side by side with a Mumbles tram, which I made earlier today: -