Previous features on my work

Just thought I'd add these along with my recent one in the Cambridge Journal june 2012..............

The Cambridge journal have a Feature on my painting.

Cambridge Market by Gilly Marklew

When Cambridge appears in Gilly Marklew's paintings, the city's iconic architecture plays second fiddle to its people. She captures them having coffee in the Grand Arcade; stopping to admire the famous Corpus clock; walking across the Market Square just as the sun begins to fall. All are perfectly ordinary scenes: immortalised in Gilly's luminous watercolours, they become captivating.

"The people of Cambridge do seem a particularly attractive lot," smiles Gilly, "and they're interesting to paint. I'm inspired by group scenes in particular and Cambridge is absolutely brilliant for that - providing some terrific backdrops, of course.

"I'm a bit naughty: several of my paintings are from photographs I have sneakily taken of unsuspecting Cambridge folk. I sometimes wonder if they have ever seen themselves."
Gilly is also fascinated with light and shadows: her painting of the Market Square, pictured, displays a natural wonder known as 'halation' - lit from behind, the scene takes on an almost other-worldly glow.

Gilly's artistic abilities were first spotted at nursery school: "My teacher asked me to draw her portrait, which I did: her beehived head, pearls, tweed two-piece - that dates me..."
Gilly, who lives in Bassingbourn with her author/illustrator husband, has been a professional artist in some form all her life; among other things, she's illustrated magazines, children's books and adverts. Nowadays she combines teaching with painting.

"I'd describe my work as definitely figurative and representational, but I don't want to get stuck in a box," adds Gilly. "I'm always wanting to explore and experiment."

Words: Alice Ryan
Picture: Cambridge Market With A Low Winter Sun by Gilly Marklew (detail). Watercolour on paper, it is available to buy priced £350 - visit Gilly's website for details

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See a show
Gilly is exhibiting with the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists at the Edmund Gallery, Bury St Edmunds, from July 20th to 26th.
To find out more about her work - and her day and evening classes in watercolour and drawing - go tohttp://www.goodworks.myzen.co.uk/GillyMarklew/Site/Home.html  or simply google Gilly Marklew.
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Linton drawing and painting group work

This is an arctic fox painted by Lucy, as yet unfinished, but demonstrates skill in representing areas of low definition wet in wet, both in the positive and negative spaces.

It was also the object of this exercise to maintain a tonal and colour balance throughout, whether that be in a high or low tone, and to avoid any 1 colour or tone dominating the scene too much.

Well done lucy! the outcome looks suitably soft and luminous. : )

Also well done to Jean! who is a beginner, this was her 1st attempt ever at dry brushstroke! used as a vehicle for representing tree foliage, competently taught by Don! : )

Some of my learners work this week

This week, we've been finishing off work we didn't complete before, because we went outdoor painting to take advantage of the weather.

This is a lovely wash by Mel, Thursday watercolour.

It's not completed yet, but I think the wash to the left of the picture was beautiful in it's freshness, and wasn't too mixed on the surface of the paper, therefore retaining some of its intensity, whilst bleeding quite freely with other colours to create further neutrals.

The object of this exercise was to represent selected areas of high and low, to no, definition, which has been beautifully achieved here.

This one below is from Phil, Thursday watercolour, and was an easter challenge I set a few learners, to depict a large area of complexity, unified by a first single wash.

We all felt Phil shouldn't do too much more to the background which was beautifully suggestive of a hot hazy day with some definition of rooftops kept white with masking fluid.

Phils next challenge was to put foreground detail in, whilst keeping an eye on the overall picture balance in terms of tonal and colour value.

I feel he has achieved this beautifully with his foreground trees and rocks........can't wait to see it finished!

Louise did this estuary in the mist painting entirely wet in wet, which takes some doing, and she has managed this with skill avoiding unintended brushmarks.

Another one from Mel, this is the result of our trip to the botanical gardens, I really love the  colours Mel has used in the background to compliment her Iris's, these undefined colours are suggestive of other flowers, real or contrived, to give a sense of the garden along with the flowers  she was painting, which are themselves not overworked, retain their velvety texture, and combine variation on purple.

There were other pieces of work I wanted to include in this section, but i could kick myself for not taking my camera to class.

More on other learners work at a later date. : )

My latest painting

Thursday evening drawing and watercolour class

It was such a beautiful warm sunny day painting with my thursday morning class at the botanical gardens, and the evening was lovely and warm too, so I took my thursday evening class out of the college, and into Linton village to do some direct observation drawing and painting.

We sat at the entrance of the churchyard and decided to draw the tudor house, which involved establishing 2 points of perspective converging on 2 vanishing points beyond each end of the front and side gable

Once we had created a basic structure of correct diagonals to vanishing points, and measured the proportions, the fun bit could commence, by putting in all the lovely details in, with the sure knowledge  that it would look accurate no matter how rickety the house or details were.

 We were able to stay till 9.30 p.m. as the light lasted this long, and start a little of the first washes, photographs were then taken to email to learners so they could finish them at home if they didn't wish to return to the subject in person.

My drawing class

This week my drawing class went to the American war memorial, which is a very moving and beautiful place to be, and it is also an excellent place for studying 1 point perspective.

We have studied 1 point perspective in class before, but it's worth putting it into practice on location

I gave my learners 2 bamboo sticks to locate the vanishing point on the memorial building at the end of the canal

 When we had established where it was, we drew the building at the top of our page, dotted in the V P,  then we measured the proportions of the canal and pathways both horizontally and vertically in relation to the building, and then radiated lines out from the vanishing point to create the edges of the canal and pathways.

After that we blocked in the tonal values, which we measured in relation to the white of our paper==i.e. that which was not absolute white in the scene must be toned down, as opposed to representing lighter areas of the canal for example, by leaving it white, whereas in comparison to the sky, it was actually a mid tone.

A handout of a project studied earlier in class as a reminder of the principle of 1 point perspective.