Last lesson of term

Sadly today's the last lesson of the term. I've had a ball - Susie is just such an inspiring teacher. Today we get to paint landscapes or flowers.


Robyn brought a photograph of these gum trees taken during her trip to the Kimberleys. Some wax resist later, here is the result.


We also attempted to paint this church building- located in UK I'm sure.


Here are my poppies but the following is Susie's. Don't you simply love the delicate petals? Absolutely stunning!


Having eaten far too much cake (thank you Rowena!) I said goodbye. Unfortunately I can't return next term due to work. Bummer but I think I'm ready for a break anyway- it's been so frantic recently. But I will miss the company and Susie's effervescence.

More still life

This week we attempted to increase the contrast and let the watercolour 'do its thing'. The iris actually was an excellent subject for this.


I also attempted these magnolias.


And finally a still life of onions and garlic to challenge us. They have lovely shapes. Much easier of course to paint brown and red onions than anything white.

Flowers again

Today we tackle flowers again but this time experimenting with wet on wet. Some lovely effects are possibly with the colours running into one another.


This ink drawing was super-imposed on a background of colours. I used acrylic ink as it does not run once dry and I can come into it with more watercolour.

Blue mountains

Our recent holiday at the Blue Mountains has inspired this painting of our bushwalk. It was morning and the light was beautiful- ideal time for a walk to appreciate the scenery.


Meantime I've started T2 watercolour with Susie. We did a still life and I introduced this wonderful colour called paynes grey. Naughty of me but its so gorgeous and dark!






For the gumnuts I used gouache white as it was impossible to get the texture otherwise.

Large format at last!

This week's focus was on large format and ink (hallelujah!) something I've wanted to learn a long time. Susie brought a2 paper and distributed it around. We were given an ink pot and a bamboo stick to draw with. After drawing, a brush was applied to give it some shading.






I just love the effect! And then I tried putting a wash of colour in first, letting it dry before inking them.





It looks a treat and so quick!



An English scene done the same way. Perhaps best in a smaller format. Or more subtle colouring? Need to work on mixing large batches of colour. This is our last week this term. I'll be back for more next term!

Flowers

This week we painted Susie's favourite subject - flowers. The idea is to let the watercolour be beautiful- spraying it and letting the colours run into each other. Then outlining the shapes before the paints could dry.



The gold pen looks remarkable in these paintings. The mantra is to 'not care'. As it happens I'm very good at not caring!

Class 3

The subject today was birds. I've often baulked at the thought of painting animals but somehow birds are okay. Especially roosters and hens.



Following this we were encouraged to paint a bird perched on a cup. Obviously large birds can't be perched on a cup. To my surprise Jennifer used my bird for her website.


After that I found some sketches done by John Haycraft and decided to paint the subject in watercolour.






It's actually easier because John had already simplified the subject for me. All the tones are there - he draws magnificently.

Class 2 watercolour

On an unexpectedly wet day Susie was held up in traffic so everyone had a go at their own painting. Here is my Wylies special.



When she did turn up, we painted portraits. This one should have been a woman but looks mannish. Oh well....

Watercolor again

As the weather warms up I find more opportunities to sketch outdoors. And watercolor is a great medium for my quick sketches. I find my gestural work much better than the paintings: they are fresher and take less time to execute plus they give me the perfect reason to go outside and enjoy the lovely scenery. Am resolved to do a watercolor class next year.


This is a sketch and watercolor of a wharf at Leicchardt.

Bowral retreat

Attending a work related conference last weekend, I had the rare pleasure of combining my artistic interests with work. We stayed at the former estate of the Hordern family on acres of grounds called Milton Park. Lovely place with delightful gardens.


The vistas were so well conceived, offering peeps into different garden rooms. I just had to sketch what I could, whenever I could.


Food was also terrific and we all over ate although this was somewhat mitigated by a game of tennis on the well kept courts, watched by a small healthy herd of highland cattle.

Brooklyn sojourn

After a huge day of preparations, I managed to get away to Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River. My employer Robert had kindly offered me the use of their house in their absence and happily I was able to schedule it in. I left by myself on Thursday afternoon as I well knew the numerous plants I had to water, beds to make and paths to sweep. If I had gone on Fri I would have wasted half the day on the journey and chores.

After a goodnight's rest, bright and early on Fri morning I packed my watercolor set and went for a stroll. This painting is of the sandstone escarpment near Robert's house.

Lovely isn't it? Too many photos I've taken of the same subject have failed to highlight it's colours and beauty. I love this so much I plan to paint a larger version.


This next one was at the mangrove swamp. I like the watercolor effect for the leaves.


Finally after a walk of 2 km I settled at a cafe near the marina. The reflections of the pier caught my eye. I then walked back and began an acrylic painting of the view from the kitchen. All up, a very productive day!

Watercolours and the art of travel sketching

Having planned a trip to Uluru in a couple of weeks, I was thinking hard of how I'd pack a compact set for the purposes of travel sketching and painting. The problems with photographs are manifold, the colours never come out as what you see. Darker colours vanish into a uniform shade and bright colours just take over the image.
The solution is to sketch something on site - but this has to be done quickly and all art materials must be compact and highly portable.  My aim is to get a set together that will fit in a backpack that I can just sling on and get going by bike, bus, boat or train. This was what the Sydney artist Tom Carment was said to have done and how he managed to so many cameos of Sydney that we all identify with and love.
Previously I had done sketching using soft pastels. The problem with that was the colours are limited - not easy to mix pastels. The dust and mess plus the need to fix the image are off-putting. The other issue was that fixative is highly flammable and therefore not allowed on planes. Watercolour was the most common media used for travelling artists and I had to bite the bullet and enrolled myself in a one day workshop on watercolour and the art of travel sketching at Art Est.

Susie Murphie is a gregarious teacher, with a love for watercolours.  Her mission is to "spread the word about water colours". The key thing is to leave white (contrary to the acrylic painter, who is urged to cover every surface with paint as soon as practicable).  Watercolour paper is lovely in texture and so I guess there is a need for white to be left.  I took to it like a duck to water - mainly because I love gestural work - where one line can convey immense amount of information and for the rapidity of execution.  I do not think that it can be the final product though - lovely as it looks. Although Susie showed some beautiful books where someone's journal was published.

The first exercise was to copy an image and to try out the watercolour.  And then to paint some cumquat branches that Susie brought in.




After that we went to a street near Art Est and sketched 6 small cameos. We didn't paint on site, as the southerly had arrived by then and it was extremely windy.

Gable roof window with flowering grevillea	Parked boat
Red front door	Striped awning and yellow letterbox

Trees

After lunch, we did an exercise in cropping.  Travelling artists seldom have much time - the bus might go in 15 mins.  One way to capture something quickly is to zoom into an interesting bit.  Susie put up a row of photographs and asked us to crop and render a small part. 

Flying buttresses

Reflection