Little Amy

Spent the afternoon in the delightful company of my little grand-daughter Amy:

"Amy, newborn  study#1", pencil in sketchbook, A4.

At only a few hours old she is holding her finger up over her nose just like my own mother used to do

"Amy, newborn study#2", pencil in sketchbook, A4.

It seems that any mark I make, in whatever medium, is always too harsh for a newborn.

"Amy, newborn study#3", charcoal on paper, 59x42cm.

I like the idea of Amy's face the only element with colour in a neutral surrounding  .

"Amy, newborn study#4", acrylics on paper, 59x42cm.

Nanna Jacqui's arm should be less straight but curved round more to continue the encirclulation.

The big questions for me to answer are:

i) How am I going to translate all this information into a decent painting?

ii) Can I do a decent painting?

iii) Do I know what a decent painting is?

Much to ponder.



29 May 2013

Subconscious Musing: acrylics on sugar-paper, 59x86cm.



Glen Sannox

Ever true to my word today I am posting three sketches from my Arran sketching trip when I took to the hills and glens laden down with my usual drawing paraphenalia - a clutch of felt-pens, a poly bag of Neocolour II's, sketchpad (which is now nearing it's end), and my little aluminium fold-away chair draped around my neck for the hike up into these hills:

"Ceum-na-Caillich & Suidhe Fhearghas", mixed media, 2x19x25cm.

"Cioch-na-h-Oighe", mixed media, 2x19x25cm.

"Lower Slopes, Cioch-na-h-Oighe", mixed media, 2x19x25cm.



I love place-names, and I especially love these gaelic place-names, the way they appear in written form but totally unpronouncable by this lowland chantie-wrastling churl.

I think the high altitude musta gone fur ma heid!

ps: Thanks to Sheila I have indeed listened (with my good ear) and uploaded full resolution pics since she apparently is hauf blind without her glasses. I trust it is worth it?

April Sketching Trip

Right, where was I?

Ah yes, I remember - Arran, in April, just after the terrible snows that brought the island to a standstill.

But by the time we went over for one week the snow had mostly melted away although it was still bitterly cold. Not ideal for an outdoor sketching trip you might think, and you would be right and wrong all at the same time for it was as beautiful a week as we have ever had with bright blue skies and no rain. There I've said it: NO RAIN!

First day out sketching we went over to the other side of the island to Blackwaterfoot to Drumadoon Bay and this great lump of a hill which I have sketched many times before:

"The Doon", Mixed Media in Sketchbook, 2x19x25cm.

My intention was to continue with this style of sketching which I have become very comfortable with - starting with felt-tip pens to immediatley establish a strong colour, then working up with Neocolour II's to provide local colour notes. Hopefully this will be enough for me to develop a larger painting back home in the studio when the weather is dreich.

My second sketch of that day was this double-spread overlooking the small but perfectly formed harbour at Blackwaterfoot, just fifty metres from the Kinloch Hotel where a nice hot meal awaited me at the end of a very pleasurable day:

"The Harbour", Mixed Media in Sketchbook, 2x19x25cm.

I can see both these sketches being developed into larger paintings sometime in the future once I get some time off from all the other things in my life that demands my attention like a programme of major house refurbishment just completed and pram-pushing my new little grand-daughter, Amy.

More from Arran soon.



Meeting of the Waters

These sketches were done a few weeks ago when the weather was positively balmy - sun shining like there was no tomorrow and dry as Scotsmans throat after two days on the wagon!

"Scots Pines on a Lonely Hillside", charcoal on paper, 40x30cm.

There I was sitting on my little fold-a-way aluminium chair with the ocassional passer-by giving me very strange looks as though I had just touched down from Pluto moments before, acres of open farmland on either side giving me no inspiration what-so-ever when this stand of lonesome pines called out "You gotta stop and draw us for pines-sake, there ain't nuthin' else for miles around!".

"Scots Pines, Contre-jour", Mixed media on paper, 30x40cm.

And so the history of 'daviddrawsandpaints' fills another day out in the wilds of Lanarkshire: Me, a wee chair, a bunch of Neocolour pastels and a blue felt pen., up a hill, near North Brackenridge Farm, chittering with cold (even tho' I still got them old long-johns on) but driven on by artistic vision. I don't do things by half.

But these sketches were only the pre-curser to the main event:

"The Meeting of the Waters", Neocolours on paper, 30x40cm.

Further on from North Brackenridge, down the glen a bit, is the subject of my loving dreams: where the Logan Water meets the River Nethan - two small burns joining together to make a beautiful flowing stream, under a canopy of trees, that runs all the way to the River Clyde and the sea.

This is where I met John Stewart and his twa dugs, but that is surely for another day.

Hope you are all well and enjoying your artmaking :o)



Water on the Brain

I can still hear the water running close beside me as I doze in the afternoon sun.

I dream of the water rising at it's source, soaking out of the peaty hills and gathering together to form small rivulets and conjoining together to make larger streams, then busy tumbling burns on their way to rivers like this, and onward, gathering like-minded fellows, to the Avon, to the Clyde, to the sea, to the oceans of the world:

"Glengarvel Water", Acrylics on canvas, 50x100cm.

Where the moisture is sucked out of the mighty floods and condensed into thunderous clouds that rush inland and burst again over the hills, and so the cycle repeats itself continously, endlessly, round and round, and round....

No wonder I fell asleep!





Me and the Gang

I know truly that painting is a lonely occupation and that unless you are partaking in a joint collaboration with one, or more artists, you is most definitely on yer own.

Or unless you have friends to keep you company in the long hours between sunrise and sunset (or vice-versa whenever you do your painting) to encourage and support you.

Here are some of mine from Subconscious that popped in to say hello during yesterday's morning Musings [sounds a bit like morning prayers, or meditation, which in a strange way it is]:

"20 February 2013", mixed media on sugar-paper, 59x86cm.

Thankfully these pals of mine are not real in a real, material sort of way, unlike my virtual friends on the internet who I believe (against all rationality) to be real people, otherwise we would all be tripping over one another in the narrow confines of my padded cell, studio.

What fun we had that morning with everyone listening to my hypotheses on Life and laughing at all my jokes.

Happy days.