Escape - oil on canvas

Here is the piece that I have been working on for the past few weeks that will be hung in the LIFE exhibition tomorrow morning. The exhibition opens on Tuesday night at the Bruce Mason Centre with an auction and 13 people are getting their heads shaved to raise money for the Leukemia and Blood Foundation. My painting is one of 35 in the associated exhibition which lasts for one month and 20% of sales go to the LBF.

It is oil on canvas, 1000 x 600 x 40mm, painted around the sides. I also thought that I would post the photo which started the inspiration for this painting. It was the light over the hill that struck me but I didn't think the composition would work so I played around a bit in my sketch book until I came up with the final version. In hindsight I think I made the fence posts too large, but I was trying to get the feel of being about to walk right through and 'escape' into the beauty of the landscape. I struggled with the perspective of the fence posts and ended up placing cereal boxes on a desk and trying to work out the viewpoint and how they would each look.

I have found it really hard to capture the true colours in the photo of the painting, as the golden part of the sky is more saturated in real life but is washing out in all the photos I have taken and this is the closest I can get.

Pastel portrait

After watching the session on pastels in this lot of DVD's, I decided to pull out the portrait box of Windsor and Newton pastels I had tucked away. I had originally started playing around with some skin tones on this piece back in December but never did anymore until last night.

I can see areas that are wrong today in the natural light but I won't go back and fix them, instead apply them to the next one I do. I also did this at night under normal lights which made the skin tones appear much warmer than they look today. I also need a wider range of colours as I just didn't have the right pastels for the blond hair and had to make do with the yellow toned ones which aren't right.

Overall though I am reasonably happy with it as a play around piece and I am keen to explore more pastel work. I did pull out my beloved colour pencils for the eyes and lips though. I couldn't get the detail I wanted in the eyes and I needed those colours for the lips.

I wouldn't mind exploring portraits using both pastels and coloured pencils though as it is so much quicker to get the skin done with pastels as that would equate to hours and hours with coloured pencils, but I love the detail you get with coloured pencils.

This is done on Art Spectrum colourfix paper, a bluey-green shade.

Horse drawing - charcoal and carbon pencil

This is done on A4 Bristol paper which I also used for the last one of Tayla. I find you can manipulate the charcoal on it, and move it around with a stump like you are almost painting with it. I do want to play around with Bristol paper some more, the smoothness is quite different even from the hot pressed Arches. I tossed up about putting a background in this and decided not to in the end. My trouble is once I draw the exciting bit (like the face in a portrait or in this case the horse itself) I just want to quickly finish the rest of it and have to force myself to spend time on it. Whereas when I am drawing the "exciting" part, I can spends hours and hours just enjoying the drawing of it and getting completely caught up in it.

Tayla - charcoal and carbon pencil

This is another drawing of Tayla but I used carbon pencil as well as charcoal pencil in this and I liked mixing them. You can keep a sharp thin point with the carbon pencil for the lines. I decided to be very very loose with the clothing and just did a few lines and smudges more for suggestion than anything else.

Tayla Drawing - charcoal pencil

This is a drawing of my lovely daughter Tayla done with charcoal pencil on A4 Arches HP paper. I used a chamois to help blend, especially around the skin. I have been reading J.D. Hillberry's "Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil" so have been trying out some of the techniques and tools he uses. I was really really happy about how this one came out. It ended up being framed and given away at Christmas.