2022 30x30 Watercolour Challenge - 22 and 23

 I'm not very well at the moment, I'm sorry to say. I've got some kind of virus which has gone through everyone in my house in the last few days. We're all covid negative, but it gives you a bad chest, a sore throat and a head in a bucket. Still, a prompt on this month's Sketching Every Day is National selfie day. So here it is:-

This is so close to being god. That bloody left eye is just slightly too low. If it was just a millimetre or two higher up then I'd be delighted with this. So I decided to have another go at a portrait for number 23 - here it is:-

Yes, someone slightly more famous than me. Considering the fact that this is direct watercolour, I'm pretty pleased- I don't think you could mistake who it's meant to be. Also I really like the way the out of focus, shadowy guys in suits behind her have come out. 

Not the first time I've depicted Her Majesty the Queen, but the last time was an ink sketch: - 

Direct Watercolour Challenge - 24 - 29

24) Michaelangelo's Dafydd

25) Harry Potter

26) Pirate Ship

27) Grasshopper

28) Menai Bridge

29) Zoltan Speaks

Sorry it's been a while:-

- and I would hate you to think that I've given up painting and sketching. I most definitely haven't! For most of August I've been away - almost three weeks in Spain and then this last weekend I spent in Worthing visiting my parents. Much of that time I've been Urban Sketching, and then prior to that I was working with watercolour. Here's a selection of the bits and pieces I've been doing for the last few weeks: -

To date the last watercolour movie icon I painted. Big John was never an actor I really liked - he was the property of my Dad's generation as far as I was concerned - however, you can't argue with box office.

Direct watercolour painted in mighty Kidwelly castle. It was in Kidwelly that I made my first ever ink and wash sketch in 2017. I'd like to think that this is considerably better - oh, who am I kidding - it IS considerably better - mind you, that's not difficult. 

This was another monochrome blue experiment, and I have to say that I was pretty pleased. I made it in an evening at the Artists' group in our last meeting before September.

Then , as I said, I was in Spain. Here's a selection of some of the urban sketches I made in that time:-

In the last week of July I joined a Facebook group called Sketching Every Day. I thought that the daily prompts would help give me ideas for my challenge to make at leas one sketch every day. For more about this challenge you might like to visit my sister blog called South Wales Urban Sketcher - the link is in my links section on the right. I've made a number of ink sketches and watercolours for the site, and here's a few examples:-

Bringing everything bang up to date - I realised this morning that I haven't touched acrylics since my last train painting, and so I resolved to use acrylics for whatever prompt we had this morning. This is the response:-

The Fortune Teller

What I'm pleased about is the depth and richness of colour. Also, it's a wee bit looser than I've managed with acrylic before, which probably accounts for it only taking about 90 minutes from starting to make the sketch on the canvas. Speaking of which, here's a photograph of the sketch: - 

What  I tried to do with the sketch is keep it simple, and not overdo the detail.

The Power of Painting?

Okay, I've been an England football fan for long enough that I can't bear to watch them because they deliberately lose when I do. So, last Tuesday, when England were playing against Colombia in the last 16 of the World Cup, instead of watching I painted this picture: -

I had just enough time after finishing it to watch England win the penalty shoot out  - and that's a rare sentence to write without including the words - 'fail to'.

Fast forward to today, then and England were playing Sweden in the quarter final. I decided to see if I could work the same magic again, and this time painted another film icon, in Marilyn Monroe.

Well, blow me if it didn't work!

So the big decision then is - who do I need to paint on Wednesday in order to get England into the final?

30 x 30 Direct Watercolor 2018

I've been taking part in the 30x30 Direct Watercolor 2018 Challenge on Facebook. This is the brainchild of two of my favourite urban sketching bloggers - Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes. Aimed at encouraging participants to spend more time using watercolor, the challenge is for us to produce 30 direct watercolors during June. A direct watercolour is one where you sketch with the brush and the paint without using pencil or ink guidelines. There is no stipulation that it has to be just one painting per day, which is good since I've already made 7. However I will be running it alongside my own personal one sketch a day for a year challenge - which you can follow on my South Wales Urban Sketcher blog - link on the right. Here's the first pictures

June 1st - my spag bol triptych - 1) Ingredients - 2) Ready to Eat on the plate - 3) Leftovers ready for freezing still in the pan

June 2nd - 4) Stag in Margam Park - 5) Caerphilly Castle painted en plein air

June 3rd - 6) Sir Anthony Hopkins - and 7) Emma Thompson - from The Remains of the Day

Sir Anthony Hopkins Challenge

I've finished my 4 hours to work on the Hopkins portrait. Being realistic, with only one hour left there was no time left to work on face or hair. My big problem was what I was going to do with the bottom of the picture. I quickly decided to give Sir Anthony a large greatcoat, which would cover a lot of the space left. This is the finished version: -

If you compare it to the photo I took after three hours' work: -

it might give you some kind of idea just how much work I had to do in that hour. Actually I'm really rather leased with the way that the greatcoat came out.
How well it ranks against the other members of the group's paintings, well, that's a question I can't answer at this point. As far as I know only I and one of the other painters have actually had the full 4 hours yet. So time will tell on that.

Sir Anthony Hopkins Challenge

OK, so if you read my post last weekend, you'll know about the Art Group's challenge to make a portrait of Sir Anthony Hopkins in h hours. Over the 2 sessions I've spent 3 hours now, and this is the state of play at the moment: -

I did a little remedial work with the right eye, but other than that I didn't do any more work on the face. The big idea was to work on the background. I extended the sky to the edge of the canvas, but more importantly I juxtaposed the Port Talbot Steelworks over the left shoulder (our right) with Margam Castle on the left. What I have to do with the hour that I've got left is finish off the bottom of the canvas, which won't be easy since my original photograph of Sir Anthony cuts off before it goes that far down. I'm going to have to give some serious thought about how I am going to finish off his figure.

Urban Sketches : The Portrait Challenge

I know I haven't posted for a long time, but I haven't been doing nothing.

For one thing, there's been a lot of urban sketching. Here's a few : -

Then, last Wednesday we embarked upon a challenge in the Afan Nedd Artists' Group. Along the lines of Portrait Artist of the Year, we've given each other just 4 hours to paint a portrait of Sir Anthony Hopkins - any medium, any size. I've only ever really painted portraits of my onw family before, but I'm having a bash. This is after 90 mins work

Finally there's this gaudy watercolour I painted, since it's coming up for a year since my visit to Prague: -

Blast from the Past

Tidying up today I found these two coloured pencil sketches. These are the first pictures that I ever made in Afan Nedd Artists' Group. The little blonde chap is my grandson Ollie, and the little angel beneath is my granddaughter Amelia

Formula One Greats : Michael Schumacher

The sketch is now complete and I've inked in the Ferrari

Jim Clark Line and Wash

It was a bit of a terse post last time out, and I apologise. The last post was the first in a series based on the great Formula 1 drivers. Here's the second: -

Jim Clark and Lotus

The idea behind them is that I sold the first grand prix car line and wash painting from a few weeks ago in my Etsy shop. Putting the drivers with them just hopefully adds a little bit more of appeal.

If you'd like to own this one you can buy it at my Etsy shop

Dave Clark Port Talbot Etsy Shop