Oil and water

Yesterday I went with the FABULOUS Cajun Dawgs to one of their gigs at William the Conqueror in Rye Harbour. While they played, I sketched a scene of the boats on the water. Not a good piece in itself, I spent far too long on it because I was working  relatively small in chalk pastels and as the tide came in the level of the boats rose so the perspective changed, but decent reference for a future acrylic piece and I had fun.
Today I have just had a play with the oil pastel garden scene and added some alkyd oil to bring the colours back to life. It's getting there.

Wheely bad day

In other news, last weekend we decided to go for a bike ride. Jim has been in heaven since he rediscovered his shed - having a good clear out of the old stable (dumping ground) and all the tools, lead to Jim being able to clear out and organise his shed (life-escape-pod). This includes sorting all of the screws and nails into little pots, I suppose a man's version of filing. So he had time, tools, space and inclination to sort out a bike for me. We have a few bikes dotted round the place from various friends who've left them here, family bikes, hand me downs and rescue bikes (like rescue dogs but you don't actually care for them, you just let them rot in the corner of an old shed).

We set off, the sun was shining, we stopped for a chat at the end of the lane with an american couple looking to cycle to Eastbourne, carried on about 20 yards on a slow incline and there was a loud bang and a puff of chalk dust from my front tyre. The whole thing had exploded, not just the inner tube.

Walking back home we caught sight of a neighbour in his driveway, stopped to say hello, talked about what happened...pause...'what size wheel is that?'. Turned out he was that second off to the dump with various bits including 2 tyres that would fit my bike!

Carrying the 2 tyres we walked on back home and Jim got straight to work, in the shed, fitting the tyres while I mowed the lawn.

Mowing is my latest passion. It has always been a man's job in this household. First Grandad, then Dad, then my brother, then Jim, then our boys one by one. But now the boys are busy doing other things so it's Jim's job again and he's busy doing hedge-cutting and strimming too so I have finally been taught how to use the ride on mower. What fun! It turns on a sixpence, has no gears, just a forward and backwards pedal and it is a very satisfying job.

I was bombing around on it last week in the scorching sun, wearing a big floppy sunhat and the only long-sleeved lightweight shirt I have which just happens to be covered in sequins, when a visitor arrives. A man who came to my open studio 2 years ago and decided to pop in on the offchance that he could show his wife some of my work. I looked every bit the eccentric artist, only lacking the G&T and cheroot.

The ride on mower doesn't fit into our little walled bit of garden so I use the push along one. As Jim was busy in the shed, I dragged the mower out of the stable, across the pea-beach drive and started mowing. Little did I realise that a stone was caught in the back drive wheel and 5 minutes in it shattered the wheel. Sigh.

Later that evening, as we were playing backgammon - a game we haven't played for years and which took about 2 hours to read up the instruction - we heard a bang outside that sounded like the shed door. Jim had forgotten to lock the door. Torch in hand, he rushed out making as much noise as possible so that any burglars would disappear before he got there. Nothing.

The 'stuff to be fixed' pile in the shed

Next morning we set off for another bike ride - only we didn't because it turns out that the bang was my tyre exploding. Sigh.
But, as luck would have it, the burst tyre was perfect for gluing (in a shed) around the broken pieces of the mower wheel and I have just used the mended mower to successfully mow the lawn. Cool.

Of workshops, balloons and pushy fish

Feeling it

Inspired by the enthusiasm and work of Corina Stupu Thomas, I tried to create an abstract to reflect how I was feeling. I had a large canvas that was just crying out to be repainted (it had been used as several different posters in it's life).

Out came the vibrant pink, the glue, the strips of fabric. I splattered paint, left the wet canvas in the rain, put light and depth in to reflect my mood then reality got in the way and I had to leave it for a few days.

 I came back, in a different mood, and all the colours changed - I went primary and lots of black crept in (probably not a good day!) so I went of an a huff and ignored it for a few days more until, in a lighter mood I went in with the white acrylic ink and changed most of the black to white so there was a glow round everything.

But still something wasn't right. It had gradually become an underwater scene, wreckage perhaps, but as I knocked back the primary colours which were all fighting eachother, it looked unfinished. It remained so for a week then I had the urge to do another fish painting - there was the possibility of putting work into the window of the local aquarium shop for an art trail - so went into the studio in search of paper and the next thing I knew I had painted a fish onto my abstract and it came to life as a painting. More fish, a quick wash all over of green and it was complete.


I was so pleased that this had suddenly come together after weeks of struggling that I put the photo on Facebook which lead to it being sold the next day. Cool.

Pushing Pastels


Here I was experimenting with oil pastels. I used them many many years ago (honestly, I think I was about 19) to paint a picture of waterlilies which worked really well, lots of contrast, lovely shiny leaves but since then have only ever used them at kids classes for resist techniques (oil and water not mixing).

 I ran a workshop at the Arlington Arts Group one evening on working large using paint and pastel and one person bought oil pastels, not chalk and was finding them frustrating as they didn't blend like the chalk pastels. I remembered that I used them very thick and 'pushed' the colours together to blend them, scratching off areas and getting terribly grubby.


So, I had another go. the sun was shining and I dragged my easel down the garden to the pond area where there's a rustic pergola over one of the paths which casts great shadows. I'm not so keen on this one yet - it's lost a lot of the vibrant colour of the sunlight on the vine leaves, that beautiful citrus green, as I've overworked it so I may try some light alkyd oil over the top, but the sunlight on the path is just what I wanted. I primed a piece of mountcard with black gesso, accidentally stuck some newspaper to it so carried on and added a load more strips of newspaper to the bottom half to add some texture and primed black over it. That texture was perfect for the path.

TUTORING

 These are some pictures of my Summer class students working in the studio/garage/barn/workshop. Unusual still life in chalk pastel, 'breaking the rules', and textured seascapes using polyfilla / texture paste and acrylics.

Some of the other classes included pencil details of eyes, hands and feet and black and white designs inspired by the Vorticists.

I enjoy these classes immensely and get a lot out of the research and preparation beforehand, plus I get inspired by the way other people work and always have the urge to be creative at the end of the class - sadly there's always something else to do at that point so I must run some morning classes and keep the afternoons clear for my own painting time!

My final class is on Wednesday, painting in the garden, but with the weather forecast I'm not sure that's going to be going ahead. After that, it's demonstrations and workshops to art groups (loads of those lined up) and the new Hailsham Art Group, where I'll be doing quick demos and tutoring twice a week if anybody actually comes along - we shall see, it's worth a try.


FESTIVAL STUFF

The Hailsham Arts Festival is fast approaching and everything had gone terribly quiet once the programme had gone to print so I started pushing it on Facebook, twitter, updated the website with all of the individual events and applied to put up the banners. Screech to a halt here - applying to put a banner up over a road requires £10,000,000 public liability insurance and the fixing points need to have an annual test certificate. With Gallery North's insurance only covering £2000,000 and my £5000,000 cover not actually covering a  banner because it's too high a risk (! what?) it was looking impossible. But Guy to the rescue (I believe he's connected to the Hailsham Bonfire society) , who puts banners up for the Town council and has his own PL insurance, does the fixing points testing and will apply for the licence and put the banner up for us! Result.

So, publicity can be hard to come by but Jenny, Festival Director, managed to get a press release into the local paper which got a lovely large piece with a photo on page 5. to keep the momentum and remind folk it's coming up, I suggested a press launch of the Festival programme. We had this yesterday and had the photographer (Stephen Curtis, lovely chap, knows everyone, is related to me and took our wedding photos) come along at 12 so we should have a picture in next week's paper, and then quite a few people came in the evening to pick up copies of the programme and meet eachother - not as many as I had hoped and only a couple of the committee, but sufficient numbers to make it worth doing. Julian Sutherland Beatson gave us a short talk about how to make the most of the Open Studios, based on his 5 years experience of the Eastbourne Festival,  which was very interesting and I'll write notes on the festival page. Balloons are key to success.

Sam Elsby from Hailsham Theatres was there and several members of the Ropemaker Theatre Company so I chatted about the Dicker Players which has whetted my appetite for our next rehearsal (I use the term advisedly) on Monday night. I do love doing our annual Cabaret - I updated the Dicker Players blog page with photos last night and you can see how much fun we have. Amateur and proud of it!

Not as old as I feel - and finally, I realised yesterday that I'm not as close to 50 as I thought I was. Sometimes being forgetful and bad at maths can have its advantages. Maybe my usual birthday 'blues' won't hit quite so bad this year!

Painting a Cat in Acrylics

I have created a slideshow of one of my demonstrations, painting a cat in Acrylics (used as watercolours on watercolour paper). Please let me know if you can view it OK, if the instructions are helpful - it's the first slideshow I've done so comments would be welcome!

Click on the arrow to start slideshow,  then you can view the instructions / captions by clicking 'show info' in the menu bar at the top OR while the slideshow is running, click the image and the relevant instructions/ caption should come up .
Hover over the image to bring up the menu at any time. If you click 'options' you can choose to slow the speed of the slideshow. There will be a row of thumbnails at the bottom of the screen so you can click on any to see them again. There is a play/pause button bottom left.
You can view the pictures individually with the captions on Flickr by clicking 'photostream' which should open up in a new window.



Have a look at other examples of my pet portraits on www.petsbyjosie.co.uk

Open Studio and Free painting demonstrations in September

I'm teaming up with the very talented Anne Howard to show work at Pickhams in Wilmington from 8th to 16th September 2012 as part of the 'fringe' Art Trail for Hailsham Arts Festival.
The Open Studio will be, for want of a better word, open from 11-4 daily and I'll do a quick painting demonstration every day at 2pm.

Anne produces beautiful local landscapes and photography, I produce a whole raft of subjects and styles - take your pick! The gardens are looking particluarly spiffing at the moment, partly of course due to my new found love of using a ride-on mower, so while your eyes are recovering from the onslaught of beautiful art on show, you can stroll around the grounds and make your mind up which picture you can't live without and simply have to buy. ( Quick health and safety notice, garden paths are uneven etc etc).

We both sell cards of our work and will have sketchbooks and other bits and pieces on show too.

For those desperately in need of refreshment, if you can't wait until you get to the next stop on the Art Trail at the Wishing well Tearooms in Wilmington or the Village Shop at upper Dicker, we'll make you a cup of tea or coffee for a donation to Chestnut Tree House.

See full details of all the Art Trail venues HERE or pick up a map from Gallery North.

Hailsham Art Group

I'm starting a new Hailsham Art Group on 17th September - initially we will meet at Gallery North and I will tutor sessions but as the group grows we'll look at additional nights at additional venues. Let me know if you are interested and want more information. Email.

Yes, you read correctly, Hailsham Art Group, or HAG for short. It could have been Art Group Hailsham with an exclamation mark on the end...

There are a few people who teach art in Hailsham: Eileen Proctor teaches watercolour at Southview (next to the Library), Veronica Van Eijke runs workshops at her studio at Longleys off Battle Road, and Anne Hunt runs watercolour classes at Gallery North, but there doesn't seem to be a Hailsham Art Group as such.
Our Arlington Art Group format seems to work well - everyone comes along when they can and does their own thing. Occasionally we have a demonstration by an artist or a workshop. But a lot of people say they don't like to come out to Arlington in the evenings or in the winter or they don't have transport and they'd rather have regular tiution... so here's my solution. HAG.

I'll start off by offering 2 sessions a week and see which is the most popular, Monday afternoon and Tuesday evening. Gallery North is a good central location with easy parking and is affordable. It does get cold in the winter though so we will either stop for the winter months or have to find an alternative location.
I will give a half hour demonstration at the start of ech session (same one on Mondays and Tuesdays) and then folk can either do their own thing or work on the demonstration subject and I'll be on hand to give advice and assistance. We'll cover a wide range of subjects and pretty much all mediums but not traditional watercolour techniques as it's not my forte and there are other watercolour classes available.

To start with I'll charge £6 per person and no membership fee - once I know if there is sufficient interest to keep a group running I can look at setting up a committee and constitution and we'll have official membership. My eventual aim would be to run tutored sessions once a week and untutored sessions once or twice a week which would not need me to attend, like the Arlington sessions, and once a month to arrange a demonstration or workshop by another professional artist.

'Angel' - commission, the cloud was client's request

The first ever HAG sessions will be Monday 17th Sept 2-4pm AND Tuesday 18th Sept 6.30-8.30pm where I will be demonstrating 'animals in chalk pastels'. Please book your place:  01323 485153 or email hailshamartgroup@gmail.com

Big and Bold

 A five day holiday in Shropshire, Wales and Cheshire gave us some much needed chilling time. We also walked along mountain rivers, up a Hill Fort, alongside canals, over and under the Ironbridge and over a very high canal Aquaduct. I did no sketching but soaked in all of the views and atmosphere as inspiration.

As we made our way along the motorway we drove under black clouds heading towards blue skies and, true enough, when we arrived at our first stop in Much Wenlock the sun shone on us for the first time in weeks and continued to shine with the exception of a 2 hour cloudburst one evening which we dozed through in the comfort of our little tent.

On our return my classes started with the Working Large workshop at Arlington Art Group - having taken a million and one photos on holiday I had some great reference material and chose a view of a stream along the Llanberris Pass with some large hills and the background. We sketched loosely and quickly with acrylic and big brushes onto A1 paper or card then gradually added in more colour and detail either with paint or chalk/oil pastels. The picture below is half way there, about an hour's work to do I reckon.

My next class was Vorticists - Black and White designs, and I had a great time researching all of the artists of the period, creating boards on Pinterest  and printing out reference sheets. The 'students' started by copying part of one of the images to see how it was constructed then created their own design using elements from various reference photos in black ink with pen and brushes. They had to be quite brave filling in large areas of black without planning in advance what the final piece was going to look like. The mood and balance of the pieces changed constantly. The final results were all very different, interesting, bold and were a complete break away from the normal way the artisits each usually work. It inspired me to do more of this work - these fish images were my initial response to the Vorticist exhibition at the Tate last year.