Pencil sketches

Not much in the way of serious work going on at the moment, but here are a few recent pencil sketches.  These are done in an A5 sketch pad.  The first two pages are from imagination, exploring ways of getting the facial features in the right proportions.  For the third, each was an attempt to capture the likeness of a video presenter - so not static images, but with little variation in the poses.

Chinese brush painting

At our Art Society meeting last night, we had a demonstration by Maggie Cross, who has been painting, tutoring and demonstrating Chinese brush painting for a number of years.  She has also written three books about the subject. Her art encompasses both meticulous and freestyle disciplines and on this occasion she used the latter style, at the same time explaining the various traditions, materials and symbols surrounding both the calligraphy and painting.  A very interesting evening.

After initially demonstrating the various brush strokes, she painted three studies (as shown below):

Wisteria (copyright Maggie Cross)

Rooster and family (copyright Maggie Cross)

Cat and Mouse (copyright Maggie Cross)

Several members bought brushes, paints etc. and at our next monthly meeting we are going to attempt  to put into practice what we have learned from this demo.

Another birthday booklet

This has become my current favourite fold book structure and, once the paper is painted and printed, is quite simple and quick to make.

The lilac side of the paper was painted first and I was unsure which colour to use on the reverse.  In the end I used a sponge roller with some silver acrylic and, when dry, lino printed over the top using white gesso.  I was quite surprised and pleased with how subtle the finished result was - it looked like brocade fabric.

The flower decoration makes it a bit bulky for posting, but I used a padded envelope and hoped it wouldn't end up too crushed.

Size approx. 4" x 5"

Urban Sketchers 2 March 2019

Our group was fortunate to be offered use of the premises of a charitable organisation for this month's meeting.  Although the weather wasn't too bad, it was good to be able to sit in comfort in this high street, shop front location to capture the passers-by and the buildings, as well as the interior space and fellow sketchers.