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

More Still Life Paintings

Inspired by Paul McCarthy, I went on a frenzy of still life painting recently.  Still life is most suitable for this time of the year as it is frequently too cold and wet to set up outside.  The subjects can be arranged as you please, and they do not move!  Furthermore, painting from life looks so much better than from photos or sketches.  There is virtually no downside with regards to the logistics of still life painting, although I do prefer to look at a lovely view than a lovely fruit. 

I did despair when I saw Margaret Olley's bush lemons after I had painted mine.  Of course she was a very famous and talented painter and I'm only starting out.  The point of the exercise is to try and paint a white tablecloth in the light, that actually had blue and bits of yellow in it.  Did you know that a white tablecloth isn't all white??

I'm quite fond of this painting of my gorgeous silver jug.  It has the most lovely reflections, and here I posed a pink camellia from my garden next to it.  The camellias in my garden are only just started to get going, whilst I know other people's gardens have finished with them.

Sculpture and other clay masterpieces

The firing has now been completed for works in clay and here are the results. My Shrek container is quite audacious. I rubbed iron oxide on the texture to get the effect.


The gumnut/ Shrek ears are a bright orange red inside.


And then there is the nude model; this time with a head and arms!





The final thing I brought home (there are quite a few items still at the studio) is this flower frog which turned out a delicate green blue.


Of course if I were a methodical note taker like my studio mate Lilli I would now have meticulous records of the glazes and underglazes. And be able to replicate the effects. Ahhh.... To be so organized!

Florist scene

My continuing interest in flowers has led me nearly 10 months later into painting this scene of my daughter at the florist cafe where Cath and I had our exhibition last year. Yuga is lovely because of the florist part. Setsuko informs me that she has moved her operations over to another shop nearby since.

Still life with poppies

Apologies for the photo but it was proving difficult to get the right exposure. In a bid to get the poppies on paper before they faded, I had to forego a shopping excursion with my 2 shopping buddies. Well it was probably worth it as this painting is really vibrant with those shades of yellow and orange against pthalo blue. Over the years I have finally made a friend of pthalo blue which used to take over all my paintings with the least encouragement.


Paul has unleashed something creative in me as I've completed 4 paintings in 2 weeks!

Still life with wattles

Wattles are in season and I was very taken by their yellow powdery beauty. For weeks I drove around with secuteurs in the car looking for an opportunity to snip some off, preferably from public property. Finally succeeded in sneaking these on a dark rainy night (location best not disclosed!).


Taking advice from Paul and Sarah, I plonked the lot on the studio floor for a more interesting composition. And attempted to follow Paul's colorful style by placing the mandarins in a teal blue bowl to make the colours sing.

Wild landscape workshop

On Saturday I attended an enjoyable workshop where Art Est's funny art tutor and raconteur Paul McCarthy regaled us with stories and showered one and all with good natured insults. Paul tells us that he has been painting for 30 years which seems incredible for a 45 year old. His work is wonderfully loose and gestural. He is a colorist and will put the most brilliant teal or magenta on with effects that I can only envy.

Paul's style is relaxed and he works pastels into the dried painted paper to give it highlights and to emphasize lines. Here is an attempt I made of a scene down the Illawarra.

Great isn't it? It only took me 2 hours. So I had another go. This time I got into trouble straight away and had to be rescued. This painting is definitely more like Paul's style. It is abstract and colourful.


I don't think I've quite mastered the colours but the loose gestural way he works is rubbing off. I'm quite inspired to paint a few more pieces now that I've restarted. Have to remember a few tips: 1. Line and colour interruptus. Boring to have large areas of one colour or a straight line 2. Work the whole painting at once : do not focus on a small area 3. It's ok to have strange colours so long the tone is right.