Clearing the Decks

Right then. Back in the Autumn, after my last daughter still living with us moved out, I set about making her room into a studio. Her room was actually one of my favourite of the whole house. It’s on the first floor, and has a lovely bay window which looks out over the back, and is beautifully filled with natural light for most of the day.

Well, through a combination of circumstances, none of them at all bad, my eldest daughter and my grandson have moved back in with us. Well, I want them to be happy, and I know how much my daughter loves the room at the back of the house. It also means she will be right in the room next to my grandson’s bedroom, so it makes sense that she moves into the studio. So I’ve spent part of today just moving all my art stuff to other places in the house. It’s not ideal but hey, I’d rather we were all together.

Still, one of the results is me realising just what a lot of pictures I’ve accumulated over the last couple of years. I haven’t really been making any great effort to sell my stuff in that time, and basically just been relying on commissions for my ink work, and emails from people who’ve seen a picture of mine they like and wonder if it’s for sale. Mind you, these are double edged swords. I’ve had 3 emails in the last couple of months asking about watercolours or ink sketches I’ve made. None of them resulted in a sale. I don’t think that what I ask is excessive, but people tend to think that if you’re not a full time professional, then you sell stuff for car boot sale prices.

Case in point. I recently had an email asking about a line and wash painting I made a couple of years ago of a London tube station. I explained that I’d sold the original, but offered to do another of a similar subject for the same price as the one I’d already sold. Never heard from the potential buyer again.

Anyway, I’ve decided to start trying to clear some of my back catalogue, and so have listed my 4 monochrome blue paintings of Hollywood comedy icons on a popular auction sight. If you wanted to bid yourself, you’ll only find encouragement from me to do so. The 4 paintings are Chaplin, Groucho, Buster Keaton and Stan and Ollie.

Ta - daaa! CHallenge complete - Direct Watercolour 2019 Number 30 - Barn Owl

Direct Watercolour Challenge - 24 - 29

24) Michaelangelo's Dafydd

25) Harry Potter

26) Pirate Ship

27) Grasshopper

28) Menai Bridge

29) Zoltan Speaks

Watercolour Challenge: 21 - 23

21) Ginger Tom

22) High hurdler

23) World War I tank in monochrome blue

30x30 Watercolour Challenge - 13 - 20

13) Chanticleer

14) Summertime

15) What the Dickens

16) Salisbury Cathedral

17) Dance

18) Pint

19) Dog Walker

20) Lisbon

#30x30directwatercolor2019 - 10 - 12

Here's the next three direct watercolours for 2019:-

Number 10) Rhino Neal - I was thinking about doing another elephant, but in the end I settled for the next best thing, a rhinoceros.

Number 11) Goldfish. I'm quite pleased with this one, it was only about 15 minutes' work, and there's some nice blending of the different tones

Number 12) Dancer. I did a picture of flamenco dancers as one of my 30 last year, and this time I fancied going more down the ballet route.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2019 update

After 9 days I've finally caught up, having painted 9 pictures in 9 days - although several of those days I painted nothing, and one of them - today - I actually painted 3. You've seen the first, so here's the next 8:-

Being brutally honest, I like number 4, the horse racing picture, which took about 90 minutes in Artists' Group on Wednesday. I also think that the Peter Pan state is a nice bit of work. The D-Day painting in monochrome blue is fairly effective, and the Nadal picture does have a likeness to the man himself. The others - well, keep on trying basically.

From the sublime - 30x30 Watercolour Challenge 1) Rock Lobster

Right, well after a quartet of acrylic paintings, each of which took much more than 10 hours, this month we have a little light relief in the shape of the 30x30 watercolour challenge. I participated successfully last year - basically it involves producing 30 direct watercolour paintings during the month of June. Some people do try to do one each day, but it's not essential. If you wanted, you could paint all 30 on the 30th - you'd have to go like the clappers, but it's theoretically possible. So I never got my act together yesterday, but now, today, it took me about 30 to 40 minutes to make this wee rock lobster. A direct watercolour, to be precise, is one where you sketch with the paint itself - you don't make a preliminary pencil sketch, you just paint your design straight onto the paper. Here you go:-