Christmas festivities

Firstly, I would like to thank my thursday group for clubbing together to buy my festive dinner at the Red lion in Granchester, it was a smashing dinner, and brilliant to be out socialising with you lot.

And I'd like to thank Mel and Maureen for bringing the mince pies and mulled wine to the Wednesday class, topped off by Vanessa bringing her brand new grandchild into class at the end, it was like the adoration of the magi!

I'd also like to thank those who came to my end of term party, especially as we are so far out in the sticks, and few couldn't have a proper drink for driving, thanks also for the cards and presents! I wasn't expecting that! although I should know by now what a lovely bunch you are!

I was so busy enjoying myself that I only managed a few blurred photo's.

So seasons meetings to you all, and I'll see you in the new year! : )

Stunning pool photo's

Just look at these stunning pool photo's I took yesterday!

I owe a massive thank you to one of my Sawston watercolour group members for organising this photo shoot.

those of you who know me will know how difficult it is for me to find models and a pool together, this is why I have had to resort to using myself as a model in the past, but on hearing this, Uwe,

( pronounced Oover ) volunteered himself and his kids to pose, arranged permission from the pool owner, ( no mean feat in itself ) and arranged for us to meet in the pool at a time of day when he knew we would get natural sunlight in the pool area, which I had asked for, but not dreamt of getting! An hey presto! All came together!

Not only that but Ewe and kids were a delight to watch playing in the water, they did all the poses I asked for, but I think you'll agree, the most stunning one, is the pose they chose themselves, the one  below, I  couldn't have asked for more!

Thank you Ewe and kids! I now have a stock of pool shots to keep me going for years! : )

G XX

SAWSTON SPLASHING PAINT AROUND

For the past few weeks we have been doing portraits across the board in my watercolour classes.

Sawston evening  class, like my other classes have been drawing and painting faces with subtle colour mixing, and hard & soft edges.

The primary focus of these exercises, apart from the drawing proportions, was to learn how to mix colours on the paper, without hard edges, and enough, so they were slightly neutral, with a hint of intense.

The portrait below illustrates this point, with hints of blue and green on the skin tones, which added interest without leaving the subject in the portrait looking bruised.

Then the Sawston class moved on to creating portraits with strong intense colours.

The object of this exercise was to lay the pigment down and leave it alone, this can be harder than you think!

This involved mixing colours on the paper allowing the colours to do their own mixing across a very fluid surface, with little manipulation from us, therefore avoiding neutral mixes.

I was aware from experience that some learners would love the way the paint did it's own thing, whilst the lack of control made others nervous,

However, it is important to explore all the possibilities and  potential watercolour painting holds, no matter what style of painting you prefer, it allows you to thoroughly explore the medium.

These portraits were not finished, but to my mind, had phenomenal potential to be stunners!

As we did the background wash last week, and we were already practised at adding features, I felt it best that we finished our portraits off at home, and move on to a 3rd colour mixing exercise.

I set up a still life of clear, see through glass objects of analogous colours with 1 complimentary, the Dahlia,  oranges being on the opposite side of the colour wheel, and therefore complimentary.

The object of this exercise, apart from understanding a little colour theory, was to build up washes in glazes, which involves waiting for 1 wash to dry, before painting over it wet on dry with another translucent colour wash.

However, again  from experience of Learners being impatient to wait for a wash to dry properly, I asked them to paint at least 4 sections of the still life, so that work could be carried on whilst other parts were drying.

However, even this did not deter the most impatient of us, and there was a struggle to wait, resulting in soft edges where the paint had not dried sufficiently.

However, where there were successful glazes laid down the results were lovely and revealing.

More of this in spring you Sawston lot! You'll sit there and wait for it to dry even if it takes all night! And you'll go to bed without supper! ; )

This was the last class before the Christmas holidays, see you all in the spring term!

G x

Describing the form in drawing

The past 2 classes have been about describing the form with directional linework, that means giving the viewer information about the contours of the object you are drawing, as opposed to simply outlining it, or blocking it in with shading.

The example I did below, describes the form of a jug with lines curving around the form.

But we wanted to explore cross hatching to develop tonal differences in light and shade, so we did the exercise below of doing lines with hard pressure and closer together for the darks, then lighter and further apart for a gradual gradation from dark to light.

We did these lines over the top of each other and in different directions, to create a dense darkness of tone.

Here are some of the results of this exercise, drawing from a still life in class, set up to have tonal differences in the local value of each object, for example, the onion was lighter than the jug, but still had it's own range of darks and lights

Here the plum was darker than the mug, but still had it's own range of lights and darks.

All the items had areas darker than others, but had to be built up with a succession of of directional  lines, following the contours of the object.

The thing we need more practice on, was gauging the tonal differences in relation to the whole, as opposed to the tone next to it.

All these drawings were very competent, but we will be exploring tonal relationships after the Christmas break in spring term.

DRAWING AND PAINTING PORTRAITS WED NIGHT AND THURS MORNING CLASSES

My wednesday night, and thursday morning class did portraits this week, for my thursday class as a follow on from doing the group portrait photographs, they needed  some idea of how to proceed with faces, but most of the faces on the group photographs were at odd angles, so I decided it was best to remind my improvers alongside introducing my beginners to drawing proportions correctly form straight on, before tackling odd angles, the principle and practice is the same, but applied differently.

Unlike my drawing class, thursdays aren't used to using proportional dividers, so we worked

 out the proportion of the head by first boxing it in one the photocopy, and scaling it up on the watercolour paper.

After we had drawn a rectangle around the face on the photocopy, we stuck it down to our watercolour paper, and extended the bottom horizontal, and left vertical lines beyond the copy onto the watercolour paper, and did the same to the diagonal from bottom left to top right, and choosing a point on the diagonal line beyond the photocopy, determined how big the picture would be, so the further away meant a bigger picture.

Then we gauged that the eyes were half way down the paper, and drew reference lines to indicate the distance between the features, see below.

It helped to find a center point by joining up all 4 corners to find the middle.

once the position of the features were established by roughing them in very lightly, we could begin to get their shape right.

It is at this stage that common mistakes occur, making the eyes too big is a usual one, because that is what we look at most, and therefore attach more importance to them, however if one part of the features are wrong, then the rest will follow suit, if it doesn't look right, adjust it, or get teacher to see what's wrong. : )

The painting below was my demonstration on how to put a very simple first wash down, because I think a lot of the fear in approaching faces is down to A. Getting the drawing right, and 

B. panicking about what colours to put where, which is why I showed my thurs class my painting in progress, above, so they could see that I put many, many layers down at different intervals, and in some cases I only put a tiny amount down in 1 wash, so that time and consideration was involved between each wash.

The hope was, to take the fear out of the 1st wash, which can be a simple as the one below, or, in time, a little more involved like the 1 below that, which is 2 washes on the  face.

This is what we were aiming for in my wed night beginners class, which is 3 washes, , face into left hair, shadow into left hair, then right hair.

My wed nighters accomplished this with ease, to the point where I felt I was holding them back!

SO, wed nighters, have a go at home if you get time and do another one, and take it as far as you can go, in 1 go. And let's take it from there

One of my thursday learners, I'll call him Alistair Sims, did his own portrait as a detour from the rest, It's bloomin' good eh! One wash too!

I AM NOW TAKING BOOKINGS FOR THE FLATFORD MILL 2013 PAINTING HOLIDAY

DEAR ALL, 

I KNOW IT'S A LONG WAY OFF, AND YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING NEXT SUMMER, BUT I HAVE HAD TO BOOK FLATFORD MILL SO EARLY TO GET IN AT ALL FOR 2013.

SO IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL TO CONFIRM AND I WILL ADD YOU TO THE LIST, IF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE IN THE MEANTIME, AND YOU CAN'T MAKE IT AFTER ALL, I WILL FORM A LIST OF RESERVE LEARNERS TO TAKE YOUR PLACE, DEPOSITS WILL BE RETURNED PROVIDING THERE IS A LEARNER TO TAKE YOUR PLACE.

NON PAINTING PARTNERS ARE WELCOME, AND THE ACCOMMODATION 2013 WILL BE AT WILLY LOTS COTTAGE, AND THE BUNGALOWS BETWEEN THERE AND THE CAR PARK, WHICH IS MUCH QUIETER THAN THE MILL.

I HAVE ADDED AN EXTRA DAY TO THE HOLIDAY, TO RUN FROM 12.00 FRIDAY 23RD AUGUST TO MONDAY AT 16.00, BUT IF YOU CAN ONLY MAKE IT FROM FRI TO SUN, PLEASE COME AND YOU WILL ONLY BE CHARGED FOR THE TIME YOU'LL BE THERE.

I HAVE CHOSEN FM AGAIN BECAUSE THERE IS SOM MUCH UNEXPLORED ABOUT THE AREA, GREAT BEACHES ETC PROVIDING THE TIDE IS IN.

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TO FLATFORD MILL BEFORE, AND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT, CHECK OUT THIS LINK TO THEIR WEBSITE......

http://www.field-studies-council.org/centres/flatfordmill.aspx

BELOW IS THE MESSAGE FROM FM, AND BELOW THAT ARE SOME PICTURES AND FEEDBACK FROM FM 2012, ( Very happy memories! ) G XXX

Dear Gilly

Edward has asked me to get back to you regarding your Centre Assisted Weekend, 23-26 August.

We will be very happy to see you all again. He has suggested arriving on Friday 23 at 1200 for a 1400 start and finishing on the Monday at 1600. This would give you 3 nights and 4 days painting over 10 sessions.

The fee would be £188 for a shared room and £218 for a room with sole occupancy.

Hopefully you will be able to share this information with your group and let me know if everything suits you! If all okay, I can then confirm in writing.

Kind regards

Carole

Hi Gilly

Thanks so much for including me in the group and for all your hard work.  I really count myself lucky to have got that last place!

I thought you did a great job.  The course was very well structured, with just the right mix of demonstration, tuition and practice.  You taught me a lot that I can apply to all my work, not just watercolour, and I definitely felt that I made progress in watercolour itself, which was the main purpose.

Thanks so much again, Gilly, and for the personal touches such as our welcome pack.  It was all lovely, 

helped by the beauty and atmosphere of Flatford itself.

Colinxx

Dear Gilly

what can I say, it was a lovely, lovely weekend: even though I was non-resident, I don't feel that caused me any disadvantage within the group. It was lovely to actually have time to paint and create: learning new things and consolidating old learnt things as well. It was so nice to see that many of the other people on the course, were the same as me! I see myself as enjoying painting, although I'm not very good, and although there were a couple of stars amongst the group, people seemed to be of similar opinions of their own abiltilites. I loved the way the group supported each other, expressing "like" of each others efforts and sharing similar diffculties when encounted. The feel of the weekend can only come from the leadershiop, which of course is your goodself, Gilly!  I also loved the way your were accesible , and learners could use you as much or as little as they required.

Once agian, thank you for a smashing weekend..very enjoyable, and has got me itching to go off explorer with my artist backpack on my back, so as to speak!

Sam

Hi Gilly

Would like to echo Phil's comments - a great weekend, with fun people and great balance between work and play - just wish I could improve a bit more!  I learnt a lot, especially about composition and the value of simple thumbnails, so I certainly think I can adopt these ideas when I next go into the countryside.

Keep up the good work!

Love Vanessa

Gilly

What a splendid week-end that was - and I'd like to echo your sentiment of what a fun bunch you are. I've come away with some rubbish art but some good memories. Willy certainly has a lott to answer for!

Regards to everyone , and I look forward to more in future.

Keep calm and carry on painting ..

Regards Phil