Geoff Pimlott stretched us in all sorts of ways in the SEAW‘s workshop on Abstracting the Landscape. I’ve taken part in my fair share of workshops over the last couple of years and they typically start with a demonstration done by the tutor, after which everyone gets to feel thoroughly inadequate as they try to master the techniques just demonstrated. By the end of the day, the ‘Aha’ moments have happened and the new techniques are on the way to being learned enough to practice to proficiency level at home.

It was clear this one was going to be different when Geoff walked in with just two completed paintings, two wall charts, and three books in his arms.  Once we got going, it became obvious why he chooses to work this way: Abstracting is about the thinking process.

Geoff emphasised how important it is to understand the history and the background to the development of abstract painting in the last century.  We looked at the extremes of abstract work from John Nash whose work is quite representational, who uses extensive planning of the image and the harmony of his palette in his abstraction, to Bridget Riley, renowned for her use of repetition and colour patterns.

Two other artists Geoff recommended  we research were Sir Matthew Smith, and Ivon Hitchens. We were told about Artcyclopedia: a marvellous resource for those interesting in exploring the history and background a little more. The website stores details of paintings from 8000 artists, searchable by name, style of painting, location and many other criteria. I’ve always found that searching for the artist on Google and then just using the Images tab is quite useful, but Artcyclopedia gives an added level of search sophistication.

Of course technique is always critical to the success of a painting. The process of painting: the layering of colour, the use of shape, and repetition in the composition are all important. But given that the possibilities are almost infinite when you’re working on an abstract, it’s the thinking that is critical to success.  Decisions need to be taken about so many aspects. The artist must ask themselves:

- what am trying to emphasise about this landscape?

- am I going to interpret the landscape, or simply paint my reaction to it?

- just how representational do I want to be? How far can I push this?

- what colours does this painting need to make it really pop?

…. and so it goes.

As a gallop through my painting process today, I’m sharing the stops along my journey, (good and bad).

We started with a sketch, or painting we’d done before that lent itself to abstracting. We were looking for good rythme, shapes and ideas in our preparatory work.

Retreat (watercolour 21 x 21 cm)

We started out by thinking about what we wanted to say about the landscape in our ultimate paintings, and continued on to creating colour studies in preparation for the main event after lunch, which we already knew would need to be presented to the group (no pressure then).

I wish I had photographs of the work done by other members. Every one had their own approach. The use of colour was diverse. Some people used a range of geometric shapes to create their composition, interpreting the landscape through their composition. Others were more organic and it was all about the colour – a way of working that is particularly suitable when the abstraction is a response to the landscape, instead of an interpretation. That distinction was one I’d not thought about before. There is a vast difference between a painting which seeks to interpret the landscape, and one that is responding to the landscape. The former is a more intellectual process, the latter, much more emotional.

Geoff pointed out that, at heart every painting is an abstract. It is a two dimensional representation of the image which uses a range of techniques to create the illusion of three dimensions. So, if we strip out the illusion of three dimensions and actually try to flatten out the image, we are able to focus on other aspects we might want the viewer to see in the image.

Abstracting colour study 1

Stripping the image right back to it’s basic shapes – perhaps a little too minimal, but I do like the palette.

Abstracting 2

Looking for a moodier sky and adding in some detail. I rather like the rhythm of the fence posts, but combined with the greens it made this study a bit too representational.

Abstracting 3

Still too ‘green’ but adding a bit more complexity to the shapes to bring in the distant hills just visible in the original painting

Abstracting 4

This palette appealed. The addition of red seemed to bring a better energy to the painting.

So now, to dive in to the final painting:

Abstracting the Landscape (watercolour 28 x 38 cm)

I reverted to my usual love of extreme colour and texture. My abstraction process is definitely a response to the image. It’s a journey that starts and then finds it’s own way to some extent, each step directed and informed by what has just happened on the paper. That’s what I love about watercolour. Every painting has it’s own little surprises in store.

If I were to do this painting again I might not add in the grass abstractions in the foreground – they feel a bit over-representational in relation to the rest of the painting, but overall, I love the process. Expect a few more abstract paintings in future.

Geoff left us with the reminder that we had all started on a journey to abstraction that would, if we worked at it, help us to see the world a little differently, and as a result, to painting it differently. Artists get to choose just how far they take a paintings before stopping. Sometimes we get that bit wrong and it’s too late to pull back, but even if we do go to far, it’s only a piece of paper – and we’ve learned so much along the way.

Despite the fact that my brain feels stretched in so many directions with the new ideas that keep swimming around in my skull, I found the process and the end results both visually exciting and thought provoking.

Just for those who’d like to see the original and abstract juxtaposed – here they are again without the steps in between:

Retreat (watercolour 21 x 21 cm)

Abstracting the Landscape (watercolour 28 x 38 cm)

Spring Bramble leaf watercolour sketch

Taking a break on a walk through Hatfield Forest, I noticed the rich dark red rims on the edges of the bramble leaves. It struck me that there’s a significant difference in tone between the bright reds of autumn, and the dark red rims and veins in emerging growth of springtime. Autumn colours seem to blaze with resistance to the passing of the warm weather.  Red tones in spring are dark and deep, showing the intensity of the growing period just started.

The first little study of three leaves was done in my sketchbook.

Spring Brambles 2 (watercolour sketch)

New shoots burst forth, bright green from last year’s darker growth, speeding upwards towards the sunlight with the vigour and energy of spring.  My second sketch depicted the the strength, speed and flexibility of the newly sprouted branch, running obliquely from old-established sections of the plant.

There is such promise in the fields and hedgerows at this time of year.

Mist clearing (watercolour 40cm x 28cm)

So often, it strikes me that there is a parallel between my current painting and something else I’m working on at the time.

For a while I’ve been thinking about the various online profiles we have and been aware that it’s all too easy for social media to give a skewed perception of who we are and what we do.  LinkedIn provides a reasonably comprehensive view of my working life, while Facebook and this website focus mainly on my painting. If you read any one of the three, you’ll get a very specific picture of who I am and what I do – but it’s only a think slice of the whole.

Last week I set up an About.Me page to pull all aspects into one single page. It took a few attempts to get the balance right between all aspects, and a good number of runs at getting the text right. I’ve written before about how difficult I find it to write about myself, and I’m sure I’m not alone in finding it a challenge. I got some extremely helpful feedback from friends along the way which helped enormously to refine my thinking about balance and tone for the content.  In time I’ll probably add some information about my work life to this website so the balance follows through here, but my blogging on this site will still be about sharing my painting.

On which subject – I’ve been thinking about doing some work in mixed media, something I’ve only touched upon once or twice in the past. I find the variety of marks created by different media can give a painting a different type of depth and interest so today, I had a go using watercolour, gouache and gesso in a painting.  If I were to start over from scratch I would probably tweak the composition in one or two ways, but overall, I quite like the atmosphere of this painting and I’ll keep on using multimedia in future. Maybe not for every painting, but certainly for a fair few.

Putting the garden to bed (watercolour sketch)

I’ve been quiet for the past few weeks and that may last a while as I’ve got a lot to get through at work right now. But I will be back to my old pace of blogging some time and in the meantime I’ll try to post whenever I can manage it.

A couple of weeks ago we went across to West Point Military Academy to watch Nic compete in the Sandhurst Military Skills Competition as part of the team sent over by RMA Sandhurst. I know. It’s confusing having a Sandhurst team competing at West Point in a US hosted competition named after Sandhurst – but that’s just history. It all came about in 1967 when Sandhurst gifted West Point an officers sword which became the top prize in their competition.  This year 58 teams competed from 10 countries in what is considered the toughest military skills competition in the world. And it was fantastic to be there and to be able to watch them all in action.  Our photos of the day are in this drop box file.  We were hugely proud, when Sandhurst Blue Team came in first place.

This post has a military theme overall as that’s been quite high on our activity list recently. I wrote a while ago about supporting charities.  I have always chosen to support charities that I feel connected to in some way, if not personally, then because they are important to someone I value.

For almost a decade now, I have been a supporter of Starfish Greatheart Foundation (more about them in another post some time). And a little while ago I mentioned the fact that I support Care for Casualties because Nic is now in Rifles Regiment – so it’s a very personal choice for me.  When I delivered a commission last week and Marc sold some of his greeting cards, it was great to be able to put the first £70 into the charity page.  I’m now in the process of adding more paintings to my Red Bubble page as all the profits from any of my Red Bubble sales will go to my Care for Casualties page. Unfortunately, Red Bubble doesn’t have a way of making a payment directly to Just Giving, so I’ll need to make the transfers when I receive payment from them. It’s a bit of a clunky process, but worth it for the cause and a nice way of supporting a charity I think is important.

So if you know anyone who is in the market for a red shoe iPhone cover, or some greeting cards – please point them at my Red Bubble page.  And I hope you will forgive me if I post about my chosen causes from time to time.

A snippet about the image on this page – I’ve started a monthly sketch diary in my lovely watercolour paper book. It’s running a bit behind (what a surprise) but I will catch up in time. This little winter grass sketch is from the January page – we were very late putting the garden to bed this year and were still cutting things back in the freezing cold weather so we would have less to do in spring. I have vowed to do it on time next year.  It’s just gone up on Red Bubble and is available as a greeting card or print.

Weapons of Mass Attraction

High heeled shoes have been a girl’s best friend ever since they were first invented.

We love them. Men love them. There’s something very special about them.

My first shoe painting was a little sketch of the back of a single stiletto shoe on a mini card. That first little sketch has evolved into a series of paintings of shoes with attitude.

That little sketch evolved into the she collection: Girls’ Best Friends, at twice life size, seemed to have a personality all of their own. They couldn’t be ignored. Other shoe personalities started to join the group. Cinderella and Debutant are fairy tale shoes. They are a young woman’s dream shoes – impossible to walk in, but oh, so so flirty and girly. But whereas Cinderella is still a bit unsophisticated and naive, debutant is confident and assured: she’s ready to take on the world.

My Best Friends

Pick me and Little Show Off came to life when I thought about the purpose of the red soles on my reference shoe photograph. They really do say, Hello world. Look at me!”

The last two of my red shoe series are Weapons of Mass Attraction and Weapons of Mass Distraction. There’a one more painting in the pipeline and once that’s done, the shoe series will be done for now.

One of the most satisfying aspects of this series is the reactions it evokes. I’ve always wanted to capture a mood or an idea in my paintings. I want them to make people think, or feel something different as a result of seeing them. Reactions to the shoe paintings have included phrases like, ‘sexy’, ‘powerful’, ‘confident’, ‘she’s not wearing them, so where is she?’

For me, they represent the enigma that is womanhood. The shoes have gentle curves and sharp lines, just like women who are flexible and at the same time, focused. When seen from behind, they represent women taking the lead and knowing where they are going. They most certainly are powerful and sexy – just like the women who would wear them. For me they are a celebration of the best aspects of femininity.

If you want to see the whole collection together, take a look at the Shoe Collection gallery.

New paints to play with

I’ve been reading reviews of Daniel Smith paints for about a year now and the temptation to try some has been increasing. A couple of weeks ago I needed to get a few replacement tubes of paint for colours that were running low so I chose the Daniel Smith version to give them a try and threw in a couple of new colours I fancy just for fun. And true to what I’ve read, they are vibrant and juicy. I couldn’t resist grabbing a few more this week and there they were waiting for me when I got into the studio today, along with a new hake from Rosemary and Co. When I put a photo on Facebook and tweeted about the new colours I got some questions back from fellow artists so quickly painted up a few swatches to share here.

Cobalt Violet

I’ve recently discovered the joys of Cobalt Violet. It’s a colour favoured by Roger Jones. We were splashing it around liberally with blues and yellows to make interesting greens in our workshop with him. I have still got some of the Winsor and Newton paint so painted a swatch of each for comparison. Cobalt Violet is a granulating colour with excellent light fastness ratings in both ranges.  The difference in the two is that Winsor and Newton rate this colour as semi-transparent, while Daniel Smith’s version is transparent.  I did find the Daniel Smith to be the more transparent of the two and I can see why this is an excellent colour for glazing. Daniel Smith’s website has a good amount of information the paints and video clips to show some of their colours in action. Here’s the video clip on their Cobalt Violet.

Daniel Smith Watercolours – Green Gold

Green Gold is a colour I didn’t have before but having seen it used to beautiful effect by Ann Blockley, it’s been on my ‘I really want one’ list for some time.  Both swatches in this photograph are the Daniel Smith paint just painted with different pigment to water ratios.  These days I pay close attention to the light fastness of the paints I use as I want my paintings to stand the test of time. Green Gold also has a high light fastness rating,  (and it is transparent, and it doesn’t granulate).

Daniel Smith Watercolours – Perylene Green

Another new colour for my palette (I could be a colour junkie, you know. Just can’t resist them).  Perylene Green is a wonderful dark grey green. It’s so dark is almost looks black until you add the extra water and then the glorious semi-transparent green floats across the page.  I have generally tended to mix my greens on the paper rather then using greens from the tube – but I think these two have to be exceptions.  Once again, good light fastness and no granulation. in this colour. Here is the Ken Bromley video clip of Perylene Green in action.

Quinacridone Gold

One of my all time favourite colours is Quinacridone Gold. Transparent and granulating, this paint has a fantastic tonal range from deep gold with a slightly orange tint, to delicate yellow when the water ratio is increased. My colour swatches are of the Winsor & Newton and the Daniel Smith versions. Both are beautiful and I’d be very happy to use either. The Daniel Smith seems to have a more orange tint, but, as it came out of a fresh tube, unlike the Winsor & Newton paint which has been on my palette for a while, I can’t guarantee that the freshness of the paint is not a contributing factor to the different. The Daniel Smith video clip is here

And finally, my little indulgence. Texture in watercolour is so seductive. It draws you into the paintings and grabs your attention. I just love it when the paint creates runs and rivulets down the page. I just had to try Lunar Blue (Semi-transparent, wonderful granulation).

What wonderful shadowy textures. This paint has lunar black granules in a Pthalo Blue base so you get the sublime combination of radiant blue and rich black speckle. The Daniel Smith Lunar Blue video clip shows much darker tones of the paint. I suspect I was just a bit light on pigment in my little test swatches

Daniel Smith Watercolours – Lunar Blue

And when you use it to overpaint a light wash of indigo for the background colour like I did on this little postcard – just look what happens:

Vincent’s Gang – Watercolour (postcard size)

Very juicy colours.

Affinity Trellis Scarf

I’ve always enjoyed the creative process. I think it’s the combination of the problem solving, and the pleasure of seeing something new appear. If you add the fact that (hopefully) people are enjoying looking at or using the item you’ve created, what’s not to love about creativity?   These days, the word creativity has come to have a business context as well. Although I think the principles remain the same, the process may be a little different.

A couple of years ago I created a knitting pattern for a spring weight scarf made from a cotton-based yarn. I put a link to it up on Ravelry – the knitters version of Facebook and it’s been downloaded over 400 times since then – and I’ve been thrilled at how much knitters have liked it. I’ve just moved the pdf of the pattern to the downloads page on this website and added it to the e-card images I put up last Christmas.

At the same time, I’ve set up a new charity donations page for Care for Casualties – the fundraising charity for the Rifles Regiment. This charity is dear to my heart as Nicholas has just joined Rifles and I know just how dedicated the men and women in the UK Military are.  I’ll be developing the e-card downloads on the page and will post whenever I add something new.  All of the downloads are free and only a voluntary donation is asked for my charity page if you’ve enjoyed the knitting pattern or the card images.

In the meantime, I’d be very grateful if you would pass this on to any of the knitters in your life who may want to download the pattern for a quick knit spring scarf.

There will be some non-Christmas e-cards loaded soon too.  I hope some of you will join me in supporting those who risk their lives to defend our freedom.

Wetlands (watercolour sketch)

Yesterday’s trees in three colours became a little vignette of a swampland.  I’ve been debating with myself about whether the colours on the right of the painting have gone a bit sludgy. But given the subject matter, I think that may be appropriate. I wanted to capture the mistiness of the humid environment.

I’m still working on commissions after my exhibition – last one is on the easel at the moment and then I need to work on upcoming exhibitions. But to make sure my work stays fresh and keeps developing, I’m working on small studies in between.  The learning in these little sketches is immensely valuable.

 Subscribe to this feed by RSS . Get updates by email

Trees in three colours (watercolour sketch)

Just to prove I was paying attention in Roger Jones’ workshop: a little sketch of trees done in three colours.

No green paint applied.

Subscribe to this feed by RSS . Get updates by email

Deep roots (watercolour sketch)

The RI exhibition’s theme for this year’s exhibition is Trees and Landscapes. The society chose this theme to cast a light on the plight of the UK’s shrinking woodlands and tree species under threat.

I had some studio time late last night and sat down to play with colour to get my painting  mojo starting flow before the weekend’s painting time. This little abstract emerged while I was thinking about trees. Somehow the concept of deep roots appeared on the page.  I’ll be putting this on the wall to remind me to explore the idea further later.

So many ideas – so few hours in every day.

On a different subject, yesterday David suggested he introduce me to Catherine de Ryck who is one of the organisers of the International Watercolour Biennial in Belgium. Unfortunately, time ran out and I had to leave to catch my train back to Cambridge. By coincidence I came across Catherine on Facebook today and we connected.  I had one of those big smile moment when she said in her comment, “I already know your blog”.  [Waves to Catherine]

 Subscribe to this feed by RSS . Get updates by email