Latest Life Drawing

This was done in about two hours last night at Life Drawing

The pastel paper is a sort of smokey mauve colour - I think it is called "Twilight" or something like that. I drew lightly with a white Conte' crayon to work out proportions. This is actually the second drawing as the other - on the other side, I didn't like the results. Then I couldn't locate an eraser so  I just turned it over. Shortly after, I found *four* erasers - they had become so grubby from the pastels that they weren't recognizable. So now I have cleaned them up a bit - threw one out - and have them in their own little plastic "snack pack" to keep them cleaner. Of course, kneaded erases don't last forever anyway. Then I worked mostly with soft pastels - a little pan pastel in the lower left- and pastel pencils in a linear way- especially on the face. We do a "long pose" every two months and they are  mostly draped figures. Nice to have a longer time to get into it - and to work in colour.

"Summer's Gift"

     This is one I actually painted quickly - in less than one day. Maybe I got my speed up in the GrandPrix! I was also feeling pressure because the flowers are just not lasting very well these days. I have a large sunflower painting on the go - worked most of one day and evening on it before there was major drooping. Of course, I also took some pictures and I'll need them to finish.  The sunflowers have now gone on to make their contribution to the compost box. I think flowers have more life in a painting when they are painted from life.
     Last blog I was writing about blue - and here I am with a painting that has almost no blue in it. The background is Paynes Grey and white with just a touch of French Ultramarine. This is not the historical Ultramarine but rather a modern replacement. In 1824, an industrial society in France offered a prize for any chemist who could discover how to manufacture an artificial Ultramarine. Four years later, the French colour maker J.-B Guimet developed the winning recipe. French Ultramarine quickly became a core colour for artists, who appreciated its cheapness. Today, it is still a basic blue. I often use it in shadow mixes because it is transparent. Prussian Blue is one of my favourites for water- especially for reflections.It was the first colour to be made artificially and was produced accidentally in 1704 by a paint maker in Berlin. Cobalt Blue was created in 1802 by a French chemist called Thenard. Made from cobalt aluminate, it took over from Smalt. It works nicely in acrylic for our  local summer skies.  Cerulean Blue was also developed in 1802 by a German scientist Hopfner by heating cobalt and tin oxides. This is a great colour for watercolour skies but not transparent in acrylics. Phthalo Blue was synthesized from copper phthalocyanine in the early 1930's. It is a deep intense blue and is often used instead of Prussian Blue. I think you have to be a bit careful with it to keep it from looking too strong and artificial. Indanthrene Blue is similar to Indigo and is available from some manufacturers and another substitute for Prussian. One interesting thing is that hues can vary from one manufacturer to another and from one medium to another. Artists tend to develop favourites and it is one of the reasons an artist's work develops a recognizable "look". It is interesting to think of the history behind the colours we squeeze out on our palettes.

A New Blue

     There is a new blue in the world. It was accidentally discovered by Oregon State University researchers who were testing compounds for uses in electronics. The pigment ha been named YInMn Blue after its three elements - Yttrium, Indium and Manganese. The mixture was brown but turned to a brilliant blue in the heat of a furnace - an entirely new pigment.  Because of the rare elements, it will sell around $1000 per kilogram - so, although it can be mixed into paints and plastics, it is doubtful that it will be lavished on canvases in paintings. It has some other interesting  aspects - it absorbs UV light and resists high temperatures so it could be used for cooling roofs.
     This is not the first pricey blue. Artists of the Renaissance's Ultramarine (which means " from beyond the sea") came from a gemstone called lapis lazuli which was more expensive than gold. Ancient Egyptians had a blue that was made from azurite, a copper carbonate mineral. This was still used by 15th century Renaissance artists , sometimes as an underpainting for the more costly Ultramarine. Artists' contracts often specified that Ultramarine  was not to be substituted by the cheaper azurite as it was to denote the patron's status and wealth.
    Woad was used in northern Europe ever since the ancient Britons used it to dye their faces blue to strike fear into Julius Caesar's invading army.  Artist monks used woad to illuminate the Book of Kells in the eight century. Then Indigo was imported from India and it was 30 times stronger than woad. It became available to painters who sometimes used it to underpaint azurite to give it more depth and warm its effect.
     Smalt was a deep blue colour produced from cobalt oxide that replaced azurite. It was used widely from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century . J.M.W. Turner (1775-1850) was said to use great quantities of "smalts of various intensities".
     Artists nowadays are fortunate to have a choice of blues available- as I did in the above plein air painting "From the Balcony" .
     There will be more on blues - my main reference for this is Simon Jenning's "Artists Color Manual" from Chronicle Books.

GrandPrix Delta

     Here is the 10 x10 (inches- and, no, I have no idea why canvases here are still in inches) that I painted in slightly less than 3 hours during the GrandPrix Delta, held in Ladner. Just like in real estate - it is location, location, location, but this is the luck of the draw and I got looking across a road under reconstruction to the Museum. I understand it was the old municipal hall. The totem pole is an authentic one and it is currently rotting. According to First Nations, totem poles should be allowed to return to the earth. Ladner has to decide whether to leave the totem where it is and let it be , or move it elsewhere to let it rot.  I did cut down the height of the tree which would have gone far off the top, but there wasn't much I could do about the flagpole- leaving it out didn't seem quite right. The figure was invented - to bring the viewer's eye back into the painting. I am reasonably pleased with what I did. If I had my choice of any place, I would have picked a colourful store front or a boat down by the river. The latter, boat, reflections and all was what the first place prize winner got to paint - a beautiful painting but also a great location. However, it was fun and we had the owner of Hill's shoe store - two doors down- being very helpful. She even supplied a tray of cookies that could be offered to passers-by. I found a couple of chocolate chip cookies really helped with the painting- especially as it had been an early start to the day and paint time was from 10 am to 1pm - so a later lunch. If construction had not been going on, there were plans to have a couple of antique cars parked on the street. That, of course, would have made an entirely different painting possible. The challenge, of course, is to do what you can with what you get in a situation like this. Going out and picking your own spot is a whole other story.

Salmon Festival on horizon

     Rapidly approaching is July 1st, Canada Day and the Steveston Salmon Festival. I will be in it this year, sharing a booth with Margreth Fry. Quite a few other Richmond artists will be there so we hope that people do come inside to see the Art show. I don't think I'm taking this one of "Baskets" for sale but I thought it looked summery.
     Following on from the last blog - I forgot to give the actual name of the the political cartoonist who took his pseudonym from the Russian word- karandash- for pencil. Emmanuel Poire' was born in Moscow and became a Paris illustrator. The Swiss pencil company Caran d'Ache is named after him and the logo is a stylized version of his signature.
     Now that we are into better painting weather, Men in Hats are back outdoors painting. There is a different challenge in painting on the spot - apart from the weather which can be challenge enough.It can be difficult to focus on what seems to capture the mood of the location. Then the light changes, boats, cars and people move. Yet, for all the difficulties , there are a lot of benefits - learning to find the focus, trying to capture the mood, compensate for light changes- and get something fresh. There is certainly an intensity felt in the paintings that is just not there in a photograph. We often take a reference photo in case we want the small outdoor painting to also become a larger studio piece. It is only by looking at the painting that I get a real feel for what interested me. Too often the photo is "ho-hum". So then the new challenge starts - how to translate the "hey this was a neat place!" feeling into a larger piece done over a longer period of time. Nobody said it was easy - that's why it is called artWORK.

Caran d'Ache

     Here are a few recent life drawings- this first is two five-minute poses from our rotation pose, the next two are 20-minute poses and the last is 35 minutes. All are drawn with Caran d'Ache watersoluble wax crayons. The last book I filled at Life Drawing was black and white on grey paper so I figured it was time for a switch into colour. Draw dry, take a brush to wet the drawing and it all blends in but can still retain a bit of the linear look of drawing.
     As you know from previous blogs,  I've been looking into the history of pencils and drawing materials so I researched the Caran d'Ache line. This line has over 100 years of history as  the factory was set up in Geneva in 1915 using graphite found in the Swiss mountains. Around the same time, there was an illustrator in Paris who became very famous. He took the pen name (or should we say "pencil name"?) of Caran d'Ache from the Russian word for pencil. And, just to make this even more of an international mix-up, the Russia word comes from a Turkish root "kanco tash" which refers to black stone. Nine years after starting, the Swiss company took the name of the illustrator and used a stylized version of his signature as their logo. I'm assuming the illustrator was paid for this.
     Caran d'Ache makes a full line of pencils, pens and drawing materials. Their pens are renowned for  being especially beautiful. For the 100year anniversary, Caran d'Ache created a clever design of a ballpoint pen that looks like a pencil. Unfortunately, I don't have one but I do enjoy the Caran d'Ache
materials that I do have.

Full Mountain View

Here is the "full square" (10"x 10") of the mountain view painting that is one of two choices for my free draw for DoorsOpen. It is a reminder of why we are so fortunate to live in this west coast landscape. We have beautiful scenery from mountains to sea - and even the cities can be scenic. DoorsOpen is this weekend - June 4th and 5th from 10am to 4pm - lots of sites  throughout Richmond as well as my area- where there are three of us artists close together. I've been hanging paintings and setting up easels to get ready. I still have a few paintings to wire and I'll put out some sketchbooks for people to view. Come and have a cookie and browse!