A return to watercolours

The last assignment of the course was, in fact, two finished landscape paintings. For my second one I took the leap from oils to watercolours, and indeed, in the beginning, it was painfully clear I had not used the techniques in a year. I quickly remembered, and from then on it was easier.
I chose for my subject a photo of my beloved island Gotland, the east coast, last winter, which was a very snowy one. The light in the sky was a true challenge to capture, and however well or else that I succeeded, it does not transfer at all to a digital photo and then a computer screen. This is true for most drawings and watercolours anyway, but it is worth mentioning every time.
I used watercolours and some white gouache, which at first looked far too bright but after some drybrushing (this may be the first time I have thanked myself for using paper with a pressed grain in it, I generally dislike it and prefer flat paper) worked out better than I had anticipated. I chose an A3 size of paper (oddly enough, watercolour pads generally come in the A*-sizes) that, I think, has been cold-pressed. The painting took a few days, with some pauses to allow the paint to dry, and was mostly painted with a round sable brush of fairly large size. I began by sketching the outlines of things with an HB or 2B pencil.
The clouds were by far the most fun to paint, and possibly the most difficult and least successful. I am not certain. The light source, that is, the sun, was behind the clouds, and the light didn't at all fall on the clouds like it normally does. Low hanging sun means a very different light. There are, in fact, no easter eggs or anything in this picture. It didn't need it.
All in all, returning to watercolours was pure joy, and I look forward to doing more in this medium.

Two more free assignments

Free in the sense that we were given a week to paint one or preferably two pictures, after our own design, ideas and style, as well as medium. I would have dearly loved to be able to sit every day and have another wonderful go at using oils, but alas, there was no time.
Here then, we have the two pictures I chose to make. One which, admittedly, I started on a bit earlier, after an idea came together in my head. The character is one of my own design; an eccentric noblewoman by the name of sir Vincent Ravenscroft (let's keep the gender-, sex- and so on, discussions, somewhere else, shall we - it is a female, she's happy about being a female, and she prefers to be called "her" and "sir" and dress in men's clothes), who is a hopeless romantic, a charming charmer and socialite, artistic, intellectual dandy. Here, we see a daring escape by a small airship - from the lady? From the man? After kissing the lady, thus upsetting her fiancé - or perhaps, after kissing the man, upsetting a lady romantically interested in him? In whichever case, there's of course a marvellous tale behind it all...
Well, you get the idea.
I worked in acrylics, on an F4 paper block again, starting out with a sketch and then painting from big areas and going into details later. The sky was originally going to be a darkening blue, but it didn't look quite right once I'd painted it, and painting it all in evening colours would have been weeks and weeks of work, if I had been able to pull it off at all. So it had to be by daylight, though I dare say one day I will paint another one, somewhat similar, to it, "by night" so to speak. I had the most trouble with the far background - the pink house and the forest, or park, or whatever it is. I chose to make sir Vincent herself the most detailed part of the painting, as she is the main subject. Overall, I'm not entirely happy with the picture. There is something about it that nags me to sit down and spend some more time on it. But some things I think I did well, even just keeping them very simple. A lot is killed off in transferring it to photo and screen, though not as much as with the next picture. In the end, I also had to revert to a few ready-blended colours from my dear Games Workshop box. They're acrylics of a sort, too, and they had just the shade I needed. I need some more paints for my acrylics collection, I lack a few shades that are simply necessary for painting properly - some kind of better blue, amongst others.
This one is a lot less complicated. It was a real relief painting it. I chose a theme of the season - cherry blossoms, or, as it is in Japanese, sakura さくら　桜. (In English and Swedish, the words are "cherry/körsbär" and "cherry blossoms/körsbärsblommor", implying that the fruit is the main association. In Japanese, however, it is the other way around - sakura, versus sakuranbo "cherries"). It was an easy thing finding a few pictures for inspiration and briefest reference, before the delightful act of blending a simple pink of just the right shade, and an almost-black. The branch I painted first, then, the sakura, and last the pale blue. It's a great pity, really, how much is lost in the photo. It was a simple painting, took very little time compared to the other one (not a hard thing to do, admittedly) and was a delight to throw together. Also, it was interesting to have a lot of unpainted white.

An attempt at Fauvism

The latest school assignment presented quite a challenge. Apart from the studying, we were supposed to paint in Fauvist style. Reading about the movement itself, it is hard to find much about how the artists painted, other than that they wanted to experiment with colours. I did my best to study different paintings, and artists, but at first, the only common denomination seemed to be strong colours, often slightly skewed, or a lot of orange and yellow and red. Eventually I figured I had to try and paint anyway. With the latter half of Jim Dale's reading of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", I set about looking at a great number of paintings, and then to paint. I decided on the fairly, for me, unusual, and also interesting, subject of a prancing horse.
I began by sketching, with blue-black acrylics, the horse, and then simply set about painting. It was done on the paper block I purchased before, and with rounded brushes, mostly; also some was done with the feather brush I am now eagerly trying out at every opportunity, and the two small round brushes I use. It took me but one sitting to paint it, with a few pauses.
Perhaps I should have been using clearer paints, but after a few layers, and a lot of concentration and some more looking at other paintings, I think I figured out most of it. Exaggerated colours and clearly delineated areas seemed to do the trick, and at a distance it really looks good. So despite its shortcomings, I feel I managed to do the assignment mostly justice.

I feel proud that at least I, myself, can see my skills improving! I look forward to the next challenge.

Two projects after my own ideas

The task was to paint two paintings; with subject and tools of your own choice. Still not having access to my oils, I went for acrylics again, and started out with a canvas board of the size F2. I had a vague idea for what I wanted to do, and it boiled down to what you can see on the right. I looked for a nice photo of a bus stop, and it had to be in Edinburgh. Eventually, I found one on the Lothian Buses website, I think, or somewhere similar, and it fit what I wanted to do. Originally I was going to have the girl stand up, leaning on the signpost, but that would have disturbed the picture rather than add to it. Having her sit down, and on a big old trunk, made it more coherent. You can still see the things that make the picture just that degree of odd: her satyr legs and horns. I used acrylics, and after my first bout with the picture I wasn't too happy with it. But then I came to an important realisation: I didn't NEED it to look perfect right away. I was going to come back to it and work on it again and again, and after many times and many hours, it would look better. That was a very important piece of insight.

I worked with flat brushes a lot for the larger areas, but then went over to smaller, round brushes, with rather long hairs. I found some incredibly cheap and sturdy little brushes at an art shop, that work perfectly well for how I treat them and use them. The trees to the right of Waverley Bridge (which connects Old Town and New Town in Edinburgh, and is the place where I first arrived to, by, incidentally, bus) were almost stippled, and I had a hard time at first finding the right balance between photo reference, suitability for the overall picture and what colours would actually look good. The puddles of water were something I fretted about, as I couldn't seem to do them justice, but they are done well enough, I suppose. I did try to make the painting tell a bit of a story, though you can't see her facial expression very well from the photo. Nor are the colours as nice as they are in real life but that is all right. That's a greater issue with my next picture than with this one. I call it "Waiting for the bus" by the way, and it's my first properly "urban fantasy" painting, I guess. Next time I decide to go for these tiny detials, however, it'll be a no-grain paper for me, or oils. I might also work on this more in the future, but we'll see. I started by sketching with pencils, and then work from larger areas to small detail.

Here we have the picture that came into my mind, and I couldn't wait to paint it. It's acrylics on a 24 by 32 cm paper from a Canson cold pressed, four side glued block for acrylics. I started out by grabbing a round, thin brush and a piece of Process Blue (cyan), to quickly sketch the outline of the bird. It's a phoenix, known as Fushichou 不死鳥 in Japanese (the signs mean respecitely "un-, non-", "death, dying" and "bird"), and it was lovely to go haywire with colours, and to make use of the great delight I take in painting fire and all variants of it. Fire, you see, needs some study to be able to paint it properly. Here, I have used both the "real" way that fire is built, and the "perceived" way. In the very inner core, some white that is almost blue, and then, darker as we go further away from the source of the flame. Yet it seems sometimes that it is the very outer parts that are the brightest, and indeed, in some cases, flame does go from bright, not as bright, dark and then brighter again, before the air takes over. The picture is life and motion, is rebirth and is a riot of colours. Once I had finished the bird itself, I knew I needed to bravely venture into the realms of background and so I did. With a bit of some blue-tinged green, I started out from black and then went head to toe with the fact that I'd painted real pretty wings... and that I'd have to try and keep the flamey aspects of them. Drybrush, an old friend of miniature painters worldwide, became part of the solution, and then I just added more and more green, and diluted it with water until the very core, which is pure Titanium White. Some parts are better blended than others but all in all it was a very good result, compared to expectations.

It is very difficult to capture this in a photo, but I went off to my figure case and brought out Games Workshop's Shining Gold and Burnished Gold. Adding a dash of these metallic paints to some parts gave the picture the finishing touch I wanted. It brings it to life in a whole different way. I think I missed going over the detail shot in Photoshop however, but oh well, there you go. I forgot to sign the pictures too, before I brought out the camera.
I also, incidentally, used the colour Red Gore from the GW range, as it is an old-time favourite anyway, and I simply didn't manage to get the right red, when I tried blending colours. Those colours come in small pots, and are acrylics too. In the very darkest recesses of its wings, I used black with some Red Gore in it, and the loose flames emanating from the wings are painted with Cadmium Yellow Lemon or somesuch over Process Yellow, with a dash of white in some.
I am very, very happy with this picture. I learned a lot from making it. The joyous expression in the phoenix's face, the swirly feeling of movement, the composition, the balance between colours and lines and details; yes, I can safely say I am very proud.

As per usual these days, I was listening to Harry Potter audiobooks while painting. For these two, I had reached "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" which, to my immense happiness, proved to be as good as I remembered it - not as good as my favourites of the series, but so very much better than the poor movie. And Fawkes, Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, makes an appearance in it.

That will be enough rambling from me. I hope you enjoy these my latest projects, and I am also proud to say that I feel confident enough now to take on some kind of commissions. As of yet, payments for them are not standardised but will be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. I hope that what I have posted here so far shows some extent of my versatility. I enjoy painting thoroughly, whether it flows easy or presents me with tricksy obstacles.