Monthly Archives: July 2011

New Full Figure Drawing Class

I just wanted to let everyone know about my new class starting in September.  It’s about drawing the human figure by coming to understand the structure and proportion of the body and being able to draw that body in any position or from any perspective.  This is a new class and I’m very excited to be offering it.

Information will be available at the Calgary School Of  Art website.

On Vacation

I’ll be away from my computer for awhile so my posting may be sporadic at best.  I thought I’d leave a concluding thought from this last period of time.  Strangely, this small thumbnail sketch that I did last night is quite representative.  Ever since I learned it from Sharon Williams I’ve been doing this thumbnails.  I cut a piece of cardboard approximately 2″ X 3″.  It’s actually exactly the same format as an 18 X 24 image which is a size I use quite a bit.  With this I can quickly trace the template and then right from the start I’m thinking about a painting.  I know exactly what the composition will look like when it’s enlarged.  Anyway, I have these little cardboard cutouts in all the sizes that I use.  On this size of image I can do a quick sketch checking composition or value or whatever.  Even with shading it  doesn’t take long.  The photo I used for this had a larger tree in the mid ground basked in light.  There was a pleasing mid value, out of focus bunch of trees s and sky behind this tree and another bunch of trees in the foreground that went right out of the frame.  I think that this could make an interesting painting.

Hoping everyone has an enjoyable summer.

Art In The Garden

Just a little advance notice of a show I’m in in August.  We have put this show on for the past 2 years and it is a wonderfully pleasant location in Rosemary Bennett’s lovely garden.  We have had beautiful weather the last 2 years and hope for the same again.  It’s a relaxed atmosphere so I hope you’ll be able to come out, say hi and take a look at all the art on show.

Defiance Revisited

This is an image from a while ago that I was on the verge of throwing away inspite of the fact that I love these old truck images.  But after my recent experiments with gouache I thought, ‘what do I have to lose’ and revamped it extensively.  I now feel that the composition works and I really like the variety of textures and values in the background.

Defiance
watercolour & gouache
18″ X 14″

For information on this or any other painting contact me.

Backyard Plein Air

Today I was looking at this scene in our backyard and was quite captivated by the bright green leaves agains the dark back ground and felt it was worth a painting.  I’m also anxious to work on the skills of plein air painting.  I watched a presentation on plein air painting that stressed a clear process for doing it.  Basically, identify 5 to 7 major shapes in the scene and then put them together like a jig saw puzzle to get a simplified composition.  Then get a value pattern with lights, mids and darks and then paint it.  I was aware of this as I worked on this image.  I like the fact that it is fairly accurate to my value study.  It’s all about the contrast of the dark and muted colours with the bright leaves.  The one aspect that I missed in the painting is that I made the tree smaller than it was in the sketch.  That reminds me of some sage advice I’ve heard quite a few times.  Make the painting about what it’s about.  In this case it’s about the tree and the bright leaves.  So a larger tree and less background would have been a stronger statement.