I did make a video while I was sketching it - but accidentally stopped it rather than paused it, so it's in two parts.
All images and artwork in this blog are copyright. Unauthorised use is forbidden. If you would like to use my work, then email me at londinius@yahoo.co.uk
Saturday, 23 December 2017
Youtube Demo - Steam locomotive sketch
Yes, I didn't need to make any more Christmas Cards now, so instead I made this sketch of a William Stanier Duchess class steam locomotive: -
I did make a video while I was sketching it - but accidentally stopped it rather than paused it, so it's in two parts.
I did make a video while I was sketching it - but accidentally stopped it rather than paused it, so it's in two parts.
Saturday, 16 December 2017
Christmas Card - Youtube Demos
Once I'd got my eye back in, and refreshed my memory about how to actually edit these videos, then I made another one, based on a Father Christmas ( not Santa Claus) from the Illustrated London News of the 1840s. Here's the video:-
Monday, 11 December 2017
Latest Christmas Cards
Here are some of my latest additions to my Christmas cards for this year: -
I eased up a bit with Thomas Nast, partly because I've already copied most of my favourites.
I'm very interested in the traditional English Father Christmas, who was a figure quite distinct from Santa Claus. This old dipso was pictured in the Illustrated London News in the 1840s, and as you can see, this one is not for the kiddies.
Three more John Tenniels now. The first two are both very similar. In both originals there is a starving and seemingly homeless child, but I left these out from mine, as I had to make some concessions to the fact that these are meant to be Christmas cards. This is Father Christmas, bringing good cheer even to the meanest of dwellings.
As for this one, well, this is where we see Father Christmas, with his steaming wassail boil, bringing joy to people of all nations, and the crowned heads of Europe.
Copy of a Thomas Nast original |
I'm very interested in the traditional English Father Christmas, who was a figure quite distinct from Santa Claus. This old dipso was pictured in the Illustrated London News in the 1840s, and as you can see, this one is not for the kiddies.
Three more John Tenniels now. The first two are both very similar. In both originals there is a starving and seemingly homeless child, but I left these out from mine, as I had to make some concessions to the fact that these are meant to be Christmas cards. This is Father Christmas, bringing good cheer even to the meanest of dwellings.
As for this one, well, this is where we see Father Christmas, with his steaming wassail boil, bringing joy to people of all nations, and the crowned heads of Europe.
Sunday, 3 December 2017
Pre 1850 English Father Christmas - Robert Seymour c. 1830
In my last post I commented on the Father
Christmas figure portrayed by John Tenniel. This latest card probably
illustrates the English and European tradition he was drawing on. The sketch on
this card is a copy of an original by Robert Seymour, from the 1830s.
Look at it, and you can’t help
noticing the figure’s pagan characteristics. He’s riding a goat, for one thing. For another, he's wearing a crown of holly –
which we can also see retained in Nast’s and Tenniel’s versions. But then to my
mind there’s also a hint of figures from Roman and Greek Mythology. The
traditional figure of Old Father Time is ultimately derived from the Greek Cronus,
whose Roman name was Saturn. The Roman festival of Saturnalia, dedicated to
Saturn, was an end of year time of jollity and excess. Sound familiar? Maybe
there’s also a hint of Dionysus, god of Wine, what with the steaming wassail
bowl and the bottle in the basket. The Wassail bowl was a very common feature
in portrayals of Father Christmas right up until the middle of the nineteenth
century. The word wassail derives ultimately from the Old English phrase – Waes
Þu hal - Waes = be, Þu = you, hal = well, as in HALE and hearty. So essentially, ‘good
health’ which is a traditional salutation over a glass of ale, which is
appropriate considering that the traditional wassail bowl would contain a drink
of mulled beer, curdled cream, apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar.
Mmm!
I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure
of the significance of the baby cradled in his arm, although it may well be a
representation of the coming New Year. Personally, I think that the most well
known pictorial representation of this truly ‘traditional’ Father Christmas
figure is John Leech’s illustration of the Ghost of Christmas Present in the
first edition of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” - and while it’s never stated that this is
actually Father Christmas, the illustration clearly draws on the same
traditions as Seymour’s illustration here.
Poor Robert Seymour. Although a
draughtsman of skill, and a certain reputation in his day, if he’s remembered
at all it is for the circumstances of his death. Seymour, probably at the
height of his fame and success in 1835 came up with a proposition for a series
of illustrations of “The Nimrod Club”, a group of hapless sportsmen. His
publisher’s, Chapman and Hall agreed, and the decision was taken to accompany the
illustrations with short written text sketches, but a young writer nicknamed
Boz who had recently had his first success with his “Sketches by Boz”. Boz was
the young Charles Dickens. Before the publication of the second instalment, Seymour
took a shotgun and killed himself. Many people have speculated what might have
led Seymour to take his life, but as in many cases, nobody can really be
certain.
Saturday, 2 December 2017
Sir John Tenniel
In my last post I wrote about my
recent interest in American cartoonist and illustrator Thomas Nast. Nast was a
contemporary of the English illustrator and cartoonist John Tenniel, and you
can draw comparison between their works, and other illustrators of the same
period. Nast was certainly influenced by Tenniel.
Sir John Tenniel is probably best
known for illustrating the original editions of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” books,
and for a political cartoon called “Dropping the Pilot”. Yet actually there was
quite a bit more to the man than this. Sir John was the main political
cartoonist for Punch for 50 odd years, and it’s interesting to see just how
many of the most well known political cartoons of the Victorian era were
produced by him. In the early days of Punch William Thackeray, an early
contributor, upset the editor, Mark Lemon, by asking who would read the magazine
if it wasn’t for Tenniel’s cartoons.
A measure of the esteem in which he
was held at the time is shown by the fact that he was the first ever
illustrator or cartoonist to be knighted, in 1893, towards the end of his life.
The Alice books had quite a deep effect
on me from early days. It was one of a set of books which my mother owned which
had belonged to my grandfather, and even before I could read it I was drawn to
Tenniel’s illustrations, their strangeness, the grotesque exaggeration of the
features of the Duchess and the Queen of Hearts, the mad grin of the Cheshire cat,
and the nightmarish Jabberwocky.
I think you can see this same ability
to hint at darkness and the grotesque which you can see in some of Tenniel’s
depictions of Father Christmas, and it’s a thing that distinguishes his work
from Nast’s. In Thomas Nast’s brilliant cartoons, we see Santa Claus
essentially as the figure depicted in Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit
from St. Nicholas” – the one which begins “Twas the night before Christmas, and
all through the house etc.” Nast’s Santa is not quite the Coca Cola Santa yet;
he is a little unkempt, smokes a pipe, and has more of an air of
mischievousness about him, but he’s still a happy chap delivering presents and
generally doing what Santa should.
Compared with Nast’s Santa, Tenniel’s
cartoons often give us Father Christmas, most definitely not Santa Claus. In
some of his cartoons Father Christmas is almost like the personification of
Winter, and there’s nothing twinkly or mischievous about him. In other Punch
cartoons we see him facing pessimistically into a blizzard of whim as war,
amongst other things. In the cartoon I copied elements of for the card below,
we see him as Old Man Winter, sleeping in a frozen doorway, while the spirit of
Charity, accompanied by two urchins, tries to wake him with what appears to be
a sprig of mistletoe, to get him to distribute the toys in the box by his side.
Father Christmas being awoken by the spirit of Charity
Copied from Sir John Tenniel's engraving for Punch
1891 - a noticeably darker Father Christmas than Nast's
|
Pretty, quaint and twee it is not. I find this and other of his Father Christmas images almost compelling as I found his Alice illustrations when I first looked at them fifty years ago.
More on Thomas Nast
In my earlier post about making my
own hand sketched Christmas Cards, I mentioned how much I like the work of
Thomas Nast – the man often credited with creating our popular image of Father
Christmas as the jolly, bearded man in long red robes, beloved of children. I
thought I’d write a little more about him.
Reading about his life, I was struck
by the thought that you could probably make a great film or miniseries about
it. Nast was possibly the most important and influential cartoonist in American
history. He was a man who could legitimately claim to have ‘made’ presidents through
his championing of their causes, and to have pretty much singlehandedly brought
down the notoriously corrupt New York city administration of William “Boss”
Tweed and his Tammany Hall associates. His cartoons helped ensure the
re-election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, when his Democrat opponent, George B.
McLellan, looked likely to try to negotiate an end to the Civil War with the
southern states. Even Ulysses S. Grant attributed his successful bid for the
presidency in 1868 to Nast’s support.
I like the work. Nast’s cartoons and
illustrations have all of the intricacy that you’d expect of the period, with
liberal use of hatching and cross hatching to create shade and darkness. But I
do like his sense of humour as well, from the biting satire of his crusade
against Tweed, to the gentle humour of some of his Christmas work, like the
cartoon of the little boy crying outside a shop in the window of which there is
a notice saying ‘Christmas Comes But Once A Year’.
To me, Nast's Santa often has just a touch of the
twinkly old rogue about him, like this one showing
him having a crafty break for a smoke on a rooftop
|
I don't think Santa ever appeared quite as sinister to me as
he does in this copy of a Nast original. There's a touch of the
seedy old goblin about him here.
|
Sadly the later part of Nast’s life
was not so successful as the earlier. In 1886 he left Harper’s Weekly. After
Fletcher Harper died, the new editor did not see eye to eye with Nast, and
tension had simmered between them for some time. Two years earlier he had lost
much of his wealth through being swindled by a fraudulent banking and brokerage
firm. New publishing ventures failed. As Teddy Roosevelt became president in
the early years of the new century, Nast applied for work with the US State
Department, hoping for a diplomatic position in Europe. Roosevelt offered him
to become Consul General in Ecuador, where he succumbed to yellow fever and
died towards the end of 1902.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I don't think that this next one was original made by Nast - well, I'm sure it wasn't, but it's another 19th century depiction of Santa which I found on google, and I really like
Friday, 1 December 2017
Christmas Cards
Here we are, first of December, and
I’m already introducing the subject of Christmas. I make no apologies. The fact
is that I do like making my own Christmas cards, and if you’re going to do more
than a few it does require a certain amount of time and a certain amount of
preparation. Put it this way – by starting during this last week I’ve bought
myself plenty enough time to complete enough of a stock.
Last year I painted watercolour
Christmas Cards mostly for work colleagues. There was precious little planning
involved – basically the idea just occurred to me one Sunday morning. I did it by folding pages from my watercolour
pad in half and using them as cards, painting the design onto the ‘front’
cover. That was all well and good, but they did look like what they were –
sheets of paper folded in half.
This year I bought a set of 25 blank
cards with envelopes from a craft supplier, and then I started doing the same
thing as last year– looking out designs on google, picking what I liked,
editing out what I didn’t, so on and so forth. Thing is, this time out I wasn’t
at all so happy with the first four or five results. So I thought that perhaps
I could play to my strengths, and make pen and ink sketch designs rather than
painting. Once again, I looked on the internet to see what was what, and got
cracking.
I’m particularly fond of the work of
Thomas Nast. Originally born in Germany, when Thomas was a child his father
decided to move the family to the USA, and Thomas became the leading and most
influential American political cartoonist of the 19th century – and
possibly of all time. In addition to his satirical cartoons, though, Thomas
Nast probably did more to fix the traditional portrayal of Father
Christmas/Santa Claus in the public imagination than anyone else. For over 20
years he would create new cartoon images for Harper’s Weekly every Christmas,
and I’m enchanted by many of them. I’ve already copied a couple of his Santa designs
– and doubtless will do more before the 25th.
All three cards on this page have copies of details from drawings by Thomas Nast. It's drawings like the originals which really popularised the public conception of the jolly Santa. |
By way of an aside, I am actually
descended from two professional artists on my mother’s side, one of whom did
dabble in political cartoons, in the generation between Hogarth and James
Gillray. Philip Dawe was my 5x great grandfather. In all honesty we don’t know
a great deal about his personal life, but he certainly grew up and worked in
London, where he was an assistant to William Hogarth in the later part of that
great man’s career. Philip was an engraver as well, but he did produce some
political cartoons about the political situation in the lead up to the American
Revolution, showing sympathy towards the Americans. He had several children,
one of whom, Henry Edward Dawe, was my 4x great grandfather. Henry is best
known as an engraver, and was actually JMW Turner’s favoured engraver of prints
of his work. For a time though Henry worked as assistant for his elder brother
George Dawe, the real star artist of the family. George Dawe is pretty much
unknown in his own country now, but over 300 of his paintings hand in the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg. An extremely successful portrait painter in his day, George was commissioned by Tsar
Alexander I to paint portraits of over 300 victorious Russian Generals from the
Napoleonic Wars. He was in Russia through most of the 1820s, but returned home
to die in 1829.
It’s amazing to me that these two
ancestors of mine would have known and worked with two of the English artists I
most admire, Hogarth and Turner. Coming back to where we started, Hogarth was
pretty much the figure from which all of the great 18th and 19th
century cartoonists took their inspiration.
Not based on a Nast cartoon this time, but another nice image, which I hope that the recipient will like |
Saturday, 18 November 2017
Saturday, 11 November 2017
Zara's Metro Station
To recap - a few weeks ago Zara asked me if I would paint the canopy and entrance of a Parisian Metro station. I started it, and got this far: -
Well. I did think I might finish it today - but no real chance of that. I'd rather take my time and make it as nice as I possibly can than rush it and spoil it for her. Here's where we are now: -
Well. I did think I might finish it today - but no real chance of that. I'd rather take my time and make it as nice as I possibly can than rush it and spoil it for her. Here's where we are now: -
Labels:
acrylic,
buildings,
street scene,
train,
transport
Saturday, 4 November 2017
Budapest Sketches
I have a daughter who works for Tui (Thomsons in old money) I love visiting cities that I've never been to before, and that means that whenever birthdays or Christmas comes around, my nearest and dearest have taken to getting her to book me a budget flight and budget hotel for half terms, Easter or Summer breaks from school. Great idea, which I love.
This last week has been the Autumn half term week from work, which meant I got to spend just a few days in Budapest. I made several sketches, which you can see underneath. I found the good people of Budapest less inquisitive than Prague or Berlin, for nobody stopped once to have a closer look or talk to me while I was sketching. Does this mean that they aren't very good? Not for me to say. Here they are.
This last week has been the Autumn half term week from work, which meant I got to spend just a few days in Budapest. I made several sketches, which you can see underneath. I found the good people of Budapest less inquisitive than Prague or Berlin, for nobody stopped once to have a closer look or talk to me while I was sketching. Does this mean that they aren't very good? Not for me to say. Here they are.
Saturday, 28 October 2017
Pastel - Amelia in the pool
This is based on a photograph of my granddaughter, taken in the hotel swimming pool on her recent holiday in Bulgaria. It's more vibrant than the previous two pastel pictures because I bought a better set of pastels, which stand out more than the rather cheap and cheerful set I was using last week.
Amelia in the pool |
Saturday, 21 October 2017
Pastels Demonstration
We held a special event in our Afan Nedd Artists’ Group last
night. Professional artist Sue McDonagh (as seen on Portrait Artist of the
Year) gave a demonstration on using chalk pastels. Sue is a brilliant artist,
who paints in both oils and pastels. I love her pastel paintings of children by
the seaside, and last night she gave us a demonstration of how she uses chalk
pastels to build up one of these.
The danger of watching a demonstration by a professional is,
of course, that you end up comparing what you see appearing in front of you to
your own work, and getting depressed because you know that it’s nowhere near as
good, and you think it will never be this good. Alright, so it’s a mental
hurdle to get over. But thankfully this doesn’t bother me too much since I know
that in real terms I’m still a beginner. I may never get to where I’d like to
be as an artist, but what the hell – I’m really enjoying the journey.
What a good evening we were treated to. The closest thing I
can compare to what I saw is magic. Sue prefers working from life, but for
obvious reasons she was working from a photograph in the demo. Sue was using
special pastel paper or card which has a surface like very finely grained
sandpaper, and which was a mid-brown colour.
She’d already sketched out the basic figures in charcoal. I wondered
whether the charcoal would muddy the pastels when they were applied on top. Not
at all. It was amazing to watch how with some seemingly very simple stokes of
the pastels the figures appeared on the page. There was no one moment when it
suddenly all zinged into focus, but after about 15 – 20 minutes you could see
the figures had really emerged from the dark outline and the dark background.
It was spell binding really, and it kept getting better, and better, and
better.
It’s inspired me to have a go with chalk pastels myself. A
couple of decades ago I tried to make a couple of pictures using oil pastels to
copy a couple of pictures by Monet. As they say – results were disappointing. I
have a set of oil pastels, but no chalk pastels. I have had a little windfall
this week, with a pan and ink commission, so I put the proceeds into ordering a
set of chalk pastels and some special paper. If they arrive by Wednesday, then
I’m going to have a bash. I have some photos of my grandchildren, Ollie and
Amelia on the beach.
Tips from Sue
·
If you’re using a white piece of paper, then
you’re fighting against the white all the time you make the painting. It can
give your pictures a children’s colouring book appearance – which is fine if
that’s what you want, but is something you need to think about when you’re
choosing the paper/card that you want to work on.
·
Sketch the figures in charcoal first. If you
sketch in normal/graphite pencil, then you’re fighting against the pencil
marks.
·
Think carefully about the colours you want to
use, and especially whether you need to use warm or cool shades of the same
colours.
·
Work from patches of dark colours to patches of
progressively lighter ones
·
There’s no need to use white, black or grey. You
can use other colours to make shade and shadows. A light magnolia colour can
have the same effect as white.
·
Don’t blend or mix colours.. This will make them
murky or muddy. You can apply a soft pastel directly on top of another colour
·
Don’t try to rub out or erase if you make a
mistake. Brush the area lightly with a soft brush, which has the effect of
diffusing the area, and will remind you that you want to change it before you
finish.
·
If you’re painting figures on a beach, for
example, then when you make reflections in water, reflected colours tend
towards integration – that is warm colours become cooler, and cool colours
become warmer.
·
Don’t be too obsessive about covering the whole
surface of the painting with colour. Small patches where the colour of the
paper can just be made out can be something which makes your painting seem
fresh and have life.
·
Know when to stop. You can lose the energy and
vitality of the painting by overworking it.
I've made 2 attempts since Wednesday. Here's the first - an original based on my own photo of my grandson: - Ollie |
- and this second is my copy of part of one of Sue's most popular originals: -
Copy of Sue McDonagh roriginal |
Saturday, 14 October 2017
Zara's Metro Station
So, having finished off the Evacuees painting, Zara, my daughter, has said she'd like a painting of a Paris Metro station. I began sketching it out on Wednesday evening, and then spent a couple of hours on it today. Here are the two photos I took at different stages: -
Friday, 13 October 2017
Wednesday, 4 October 2017
Evacuee Project
Another two hours further down the line tonight. Here's where we started this evening : -
- and here's where we finished this evening: -
Saturday, 30 September 2017
Evacuee Project
Taking a break now. Here's two photographs showing what I've done this morning: -
The Evacuees - Wednesday evening
Here's the latest photo of my Evacuees painting. I'm going to start work on it again a little later this morning, but this was taken after two hours work on Wednesday evening at the Artists Group
Saturday, 23 September 2017
Project - The Evacuees
Having finished the brewers dray I wanted to leave behind horses for a bit and go back to steam engines. I was researching, looking at photographs, and I found several taken in stations at the start of world war II when children were being evacuated from the big cities. I'm a Londoner originally myself - although unusually both my parents, born in the first few months of the war, stayed in London for the duration. So I do take an interest in London in this period. So I decided that my next painting would tell a story, something about the horrible experience of waiting to get on the train for God alone knew where, which these children had to undergo.
Last time out I used a light blue wash on the board before I started. This time I want to see what the effect will be of using a light red/pink wash.
Here's the photo I took after my first two hour session on Sunday last: -
This is an experimental painting which I'm making very much for my own amusement, and so I didn't sketch out the whole thing before starting, which is something that I'd normally do. Here's the 'star' of the painting if you like - a very apprehensive little schoolboy, waiting in a bustling Paddington Station.
I took this one after a two hour session on Wednesday Evening at the Artists' Group. Though I say it as shouldn't I'm really happy with the second figure, a slightly older boy, trying to affect a little nonchalance, not letting on that he's as scared as the other.
The figures aren't floating in space now, after a three hour session today. I've sketched in some background details, although still not everything. The gloominess of the greys and blacks is appropriate to the subject matter, I think.
Last time out I used a light blue wash on the board before I started. This time I want to see what the effect will be of using a light red/pink wash.
Here's the photo I took after my first two hour session on Sunday last: -
I took this one after a two hour session on Wednesday Evening at the Artists' Group. Though I say it as shouldn't I'm really happy with the second figure, a slightly older boy, trying to affect a little nonchalance, not letting on that he's as scared as the other.
The figures aren't floating in space now, after a three hour session today. I've sketched in some background details, although still not everything. The gloominess of the greys and blacks is appropriate to the subject matter, I think.
Saturday, 16 September 2017
Finished painting: Vintage Brewers Dray
2 hours' work on Wednesday evening, and another hour today saw the dray finally finished. Here it is - with the previous photo as a comparison: -
I haven't lightended the horses between the two photos - but used a flash for the second.
I haven't lightended the horses between the two photos - but used a flash for the second.
Saturday, 9 September 2017
Vintage Horse drawn brewers dray
Not finished yet but I reckon I've spent about 10 hours altogether so far in 4 sessions. Here's the photographs I've taken during the process
I originally planned to stop when I sketched this on the canvas last Saturday, and not start again until Wednesday evening with the art group. Couldn't stop myself. |
I carried on painting on the Sunday as well. I'm pleased with the effect of painting on top of the blue wash, and trying hard to stick to the plan of painting from the left to the right. However, I couldn't deny myself the pleasure of painting in the body of the dray. |
This is where I stopped on Wednesday evening. I've done a lot of wok on the horses, and started on the wheels of the dray. |
This after about half an hour's work today, painting in details of the horse's harnesses, more work on the dray body and wheels |
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