31 Oct 2012

Learning to say NO

I accept commissions to paint portraits of animals from photos. An animal lover myself, I enjoy painting cats, dogs, horses - you name the animal, I've probably painted it at some point.

My strangest commission was to paint a Dodo to join a collection of Dodo memorabilia. Of course there aren't any actual Dodo's around these days to photograph or indeed, any actual photographs or definitive illustrations so I went back to a childhood haunt, Horniman museum, where there is a 'stuffed' Dodo model. It was strange, and ironic, to work 'from life' rather than from a photo but as it stayed still I could take my time and sketch from all different angles. I had free reign to do what I liked so long as it depicted a Dodo so I decided to make it a happy picture of a family rather than an image of a solitary Dodo heading for extinction.

But I have my limits. I have found, from experience, that I cannot produce a really good painting from poor reference photos. It is disappointing for me, not to mention hard work, to struggle to make out features in a poorly lit photo - the hardest one was a silhouette of a black Labrador - I literally had to use guesswork and I know for a fact it could not possibly be a true likeness of the animal, although the owners were very pleased with it. If the pet is still around I can always suggest the owner takes more photos but I prefer to take my own photos so I can meet the animal. Even if I do end up using the owner's photos as reference, somehow it is easier to draw the animal if we have met.

It is difficult for an owner to judge their own photos because they know or knew the animal and that is what they see when they look at the photos - they don't necessarily notice that there is a huge shadow covering the eyes because they know what the eyes look like. I have been sent photos of a dog as a puppy and as an older dog towards the end of its life with the request to put the older dog in the pose of the puppy, or a recently clipped dog with the request to paint it with longer hair.

I have always accepted the challenge and have never said 'no' until now. And it has made me feel very bad, to say I cannot paint a portrait of someone's beloved animal because the photos aren't good enough and, as it is a posthumous portrait, there is no chance of getting any better photos. Perhaps it is vanity, but when I see some of the bad portraits that are out there and look back at some of my earlier attempts - not thrown away, I keep all of my work hidden away, even the things I myself have rejected - I really don't want to give anyone a 'bad' painting, no matter how much I'd appreciate the fee.

In an attempt to avoid this problem, I produced a set of guidelines on my Pets by Josie website on how to photograph pets. http://www.petsbyjosie.co.uk/how_to_order.html

25 Oct 2012

Figures, rocks and kiwis




Three different styles, subjects and mediums here:
The nude is in mixed media and was done as my demo piece for my 10-4 workshop with the Bexhill Art society on Monday. The initial sketch (from a drawing done back in my first year of college!) was broken down into circles, triangles and straight lines onto the board, I then applied coloured tissue and other collage bits with PVA glue into the background, a few circles of tissue onto the figure's round bits (!), then painted in the figure with acrylics, a bit more acrylic on the background to reshape and finally some pastel and pencil work over the top.

The seascape was a very quick demo during my 6.30-8.30 class with the Hailsham Art Group on Tuesday - thick acrylic lilac to yellow blends for the sky and sea onto a primed piece of cartridge paper, I then added in the rocks and the orange glow, added PVA glue to the purple/blue acrylic mix to make a transparent glaze for the clouds. A bit more white into the sky and sea, dry-brushed rock colour onto the surface of the water, and finally a glaze of white over the background rocks.

The unfinished still life was Wednesday's 2-4 demo to the Acorn Painting Club in Worthing. On A1 paper using a variety of makes of soft chalk pastels, I sketched out the basic shapes in the green, working onto a dark gold coloured canford paper on the smooth side, gradually blending with finger or cotton bud. It's the first time I've ever tried drawing kiwis or gold platters so am pleased with the progress and intend to get it finished over the weekend. And before you say anything, its deliberately out of proportion and wonky, it's my still life style!

Well it's been a busy old week! I'm having to miss the Arlington Art Group session tonight because I'm going to the Blue Monkey Network event at the Towner in Eastbourne for a talk by the Binnie Sisters which I am really looking forward to. But I did get my Arlington Village Hall 'fix' last night because I went to the talk by Keith and Stella Myerson about their transatlantic adventures which was fascinating and had some beautiful seascape photos.
I need to give my hand a rest for a few days because my fingers kept locking up during the pastel demo, which was equally worrying and annoying because it was putting my smooth curves out a bit, but hope to be able to finish all incomplete works over the next week or two then get stuck into more works for my Rural Industrial and Band collections.
But right now, I'm off to the office to get engrossed in figures of a different kind - bookkeeping on Sage.

20 Oct 2012

Figuratively speaking

On Monday I will be running a workshop for the Bexhill Art Society (http://bexhillart.wix.com/bexhillartsociety#!) on Figurative works in Mixed Media. This follows a demonstration I gave to Battle and District Art Group earlier in the year. One of the audience was from the Bexhill group and booked me to come along to them in October to run a workshop. This seems to happen quite often - people attend more than one art group and, if they enjoy a demonstration, will recommend me to their other groups which is handy.
On Thursday I will  be demonstrating to the Acorn Art Group - a still life in pastel.

My plans to do sketches of the Cajun Dawgs and dancers hasn't really progressed yet but I am using some photos I took of another band, the Wakin' Snakes, at The Star in Eastbourne, to produce this painting - work in progress. It's lacking that element of movement at the moment and needs a lot more work but I'm pleased with the colours, different to my usual palette.










5 Oct 2012

If this is Thursday, it must be Warsash

Well, what a lovely bunch of people they are in the Warsash Art Group. I gave a demonstration to them last night of how I paint moving fish in acrylics and mixed media and they were all very appreciative and complemetary.

Jim  came with me to do the driving, as it was near on 100 mile drive, for which I was incredibly grateful because motorway driving isn't exactly my thing and we got lost as we left the motorway. I managed to stay relatively calm as I watched my setting up minutes ticking away, until a car suddenly pulled out in front of us and Jim had to brake sharply, sending my paints and paintings flying. Just a couple of minutes later we arrived at the hall and I walked in, feeling terribly flustered,  to be warmly greeted by most of the members of the committee which instantly put me at ease again.

The demo went well, the preparation I did while stewarding at the Gallery on Wednesday helped greatly because watching me fill in each individual shape in the background would have been as interesting as watching paint dry. I was quite pleased with the picture I ended up with but, with quarter of an hour to go, I had got to the stage where I really need to take it off the board and curl up on the sofa with it on my lap in front of an episode of Hollyoaks, which doesn't really work in front of an audience when you're being videoed and have a clip mic on... and where there's no sofa. But questions from the audience and bit more of me talking about myself, filled the gap.

Having had his half a shandy and packet of cheese and onion crisps at the local pub while watching football on the big screen, Jim returned to help me pack up and we wended our way home once more, eating our picnic of sausages, quiche, salad and redbush tea. Rock and roll!
Next October booking is Bexhill then Worthing.