Rocanini show and pencils and war...

     "The Old Camera" is one of my paintings on show at Rocanini Coffee Shop in Steveston. It was painted from a model who is wearing my yellow leather gloves. I thought about calling it "The Yellow Gloves". The gloves were bought in Paris over 50 years ago. Nowadays they mostly stay in a drawer but back then, gloves were worn more frequently. They are beautifully made with an interesting cut-out and braided join at the wrist.
     The show will be on until June 1st and has paintings by Bonita Ruttkay, Margreth Fry, Penny Talbot and me. My "White Bouquet" is there too. If you are in Steveston, drop in to have a look.
     With gloves from Paris, it might be a suitable time to continue with more pencil history. Conte' is a name familiar to artists as we often draw with conte' crayons - a form of harder pastel - but there is a real person behind the name. Nicolas-Jacques Conte' was an officer in Napoleon's army. Britain's naval blockade prevented the import of pencils from Cumberland. In 1795, Conte' invented a combination of clay and graphite for a cost-effective pencil. They could be made in degrees of hardness- something we accept as a "given" now, but it wasn't always so. So, a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars was that France manufactured its own pencils. Then conte' sticks were developed with using iron oxide, carbon black and titanium dioxide, clay and a binder to produce sticks in black, white, grey, and shades of red-brown.  These mix better on paper than any other hard pastels and have become a staple for many artists. The square profile makes for a more drawing style where soft pastels yield bolder strokes for a more painterly style. Georges Seurat used conte' to produce many of his studies. It is easy to find black, white, grey and shades of sanguine in most art stores but Conte' also used to make a full range of  colours. I have some I am guarding carefully as I haven't seen any in years. I remember seeing a whole stand of a hundred or more different colours in Conte' in an art store in Europe.  How I wish I had *that* in my studio!

"Eva"

I was persuaded to do a painting for the Finn Slough show although I was feeling I had nothing more to contribute - so then I got inspiration to do the "Eva" in another view because "Eva" will be the subject of the Friday night talk - so here she is!  Eva has an interesting  history and has been donated to the Finn Slough Society. Usually moored in the Slough, she also appears at events such as the Maritime Festival. Naturally, I included her in my triptych for the hospital. I also did a bit of Finn Slough too  on the triptych but I took artistic liberty and turned the houses the other way around so they could be seen. As an artist, you can even move trees!  I thought it would be different to use autumn tones in this painting. This is a small painting - only 10 inches square  (easy to find room for)   It is acrylic on "gallery" canvas - which means it has deeper edges.  It doesn't need framing and looks a bit sculptural with the deep edges. I have a collection of 10 by 10's by friends that make a grouping by sitting on thin ledges --- just the width of the canvas edges so too narrow to call a shelf. It makes a nice grouping and will get added to. 10 by 10 is the size we use for our GuessWho? show and sale. (Next GuessWho? November 5th!) The Finn Slough show opens tomorrow- Thursday and runs to Sunday afternoon with the talk and the reception being on Friday night - in the Performance Hall in the Cultural Centre.

"Once Upon a Reflection"

Here is the full view of the painting I just sent out on my April Newsletter. It is 36"x36" and is currently hanging with 14 other paintings by 14 other members of Richmond Artists Guild in the upper lobby of Gateway Theatre. They can be seen- until June 1st - during office hours as well as before and after performances.  I called this "Once Upon a Reflection" because this is the boat used in "Once Upon a Time"- the TV series shot in Steveston.  I like reflections anyway - and this was both interesting and bright. The sunny day and reflected blue sky helped as the Fraser River is not blue, in itself.

Drawing on red pastel paper

     This is last night's "long pose"  - which is about 2 hours as there is set-up time, always a bit of an adjustment to make with lighting, and then breaks for the model, then clean-up time- so a three-hour period is not three hours of drawing. The evening gown was a sort of iridescent silver grey with a lovely shimmer. However, when I applied grey pastel, it looked greenish. I think that was because of the red paper. The grey took the complementary colour. I had to combat that by using some lavender pastel first and also using pure black and white as well as greys. Still, it was interesting working on the red paper as it made the set-up more dramatic and gave a good underlying warmth to the skin. I might consider making a painting of this and I do have a reference photo as well- but the skin tones and light on the dress show so much better in the pastel!

A Different Pencil Name

     A lot of pencil companies are named after people -such as Faber-Castell, Dixon and Conte'- while others may take place names like Cumberland, but one manufacturer has a different name altogether- Koh-i-noor. I've used the pencils - even have a lovely big set of coloured pencils, but I didn't think too much about the name until I got into this whole research on pencil names (see previous posts). Koh-i-noor is the name, from Persian for "Mountain of Light" of the famous large colourless diamond that is now part of the British Crown Jewels. The pencil company was founded in Vienna around 1790 by Joseph Hardtmudth. Variations in spelling of his last name appear on pencils today. In 1848, he relocated to Ceske-Budejoivice in the Czech Republic where the company remains a private company to this day.
      The diamond's story began back in the 13th century when it was found in India and after changing hands many times,  ended in the possession of Queen Victoria after the British conquered the Punjab region in 1849. Following a fairly perilous sea voyage, the diamond arrived in London and became the "got-to-see" item in the Great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London in 1851. Jostling crowds complained that it didn't really sparkle as sunlight was not really catching it.  Prince Albert was also unhappy with the dull irregular gem and in 1852 had it cut down from 186 carats to 105.6 carats. Some size loss was because of the discovery of flaws, but after 38 days of cutting, the diamond emerged 42 percent lighter in a dazzling, oval-cut brilliant.  It was worn in a brooch by Queen Victoria. After her death, it was set into a crown for Queen Alexandra and is now in the Queen Mother's crown on display with the other Crown Jewels. There is still some dispute about the real ownership but Britain claims legal ownership under the Treaty of Lahore.
     Obviously the diamond would have received a lot of attention  around the time of the Exhibition and the re-cutting so it must have been around this time that the Czech pencil company adopted the name. Interestingly, Koh-i-noor  was the first pencil company to paint their pencils yellow- a colour now quite common for pencils. The photos above are of an art supply store in Cesky Krumlov in the Czech republic. The doors of most shops are double-doors for security. Then,when the outer doors are opened for business, wonderful decorations are often shown. This art store features interesting sculptures that combine fingers and paint-tubes. And, yes, they also sold Koh-i-noor pencils.

Skin on Skin

I couldn't resist that title as this is a Life Drawing- 20 minutes - done on Terra-skin, the "paper" that isn't really paper. It is actually ground stone mixed with some kind of a resin. It is a very smooth surface and not as absorbent as regular paper. I did the drawing of the model, Virginia, with "Ink Black" Derwent Inktense pencil, using it dry. Then I used a water-holding brush to wet the lines and produce the wash. Then I added the more intense shadow as the surface was still somewhat damp. This is the first time I have used this paper for life drawing and I thought the Inktense pencil worked well in the limited time frame--- so now I am anxious to try it again.  I bought some Terra-skin some time ago but hadn't used it much- but then I thought it could work well with the Inktense pencil because you don't lose any of the intensity of it sinking into paper. The surface is very durable and apparently it is possible to scratch onto the drawing or painting medium but not  disturb the surface of the the "paper" itself. It is always interesting to try the challenge of different materials and I can certainly see the value in further explorations of this method- and possibly others on this surface.

Latest Life Drawing

This is the latest life drawing. I just put it on my Pinterest board of life drawings. We had Amanda on Friday and I decided to work my mixed-media approach again. I did the initial drawing with black conte' crayon on watercolour paper and then did a wash of thinned acrylic quinacrodine  red, used a blow dryer to dry it and then applied acrylic ground for pastels. Blow-dryer again and then it had a nice gritty surface for pastels, so I finished it in soft pastels. It is a bit looser way of working than working directly in the pastels on pastel paper and I think it gives it more body. I'd rather work on paper than try to paint on canvas in the same time period, which was basically 2 hours. Also- easier to store - but it could be framed as a finished piece.