New web links - landscapes and colour

Blogroll

I'm adding Terry Miura's Studio Notes into my blogroll of illustrated blogs about artistic endeavours. Although he paints in oils I have an affinity with his more recent subject matter (landscapes - with a lot of emphasis on trees) and his practice of life drawing. It'll also be fascinating to see how he gets on his new studio.

Artist websites

I bought a book by Nicholas Verrall last summer "Colour and Light in Oils
" as I was just well and truly knocked out by his use of colour. He works in oils but I find his subject matter, its composition and treatment of both light and colour to convey the mood and spirit of time and place to be very appealing. And ignore what Artnet has him listed as - he's a UK artist!

John Hammond is another artist whose use of light and colour I very much admire. I'm currently reading a book of his which is ostensibly about "Capturing Light in Acrylics" but is actually about more of less every aspect of being an artist and the process of painting as a whole. However since I can't find a website with an effective link he can't be added in to the list!

Katherine Hurley is a colourist working in oils and pastels (and is an ex student of Wolf Kahn). Her website also focuses on the sort of landscape subjects that I'm becoming increasinly interested in. Do go and look at her galleries of archive and current paintings if you enjoy colour.

Drawing development in children

I was admiring the drawings been done by the 19 month old child of an artist friend of mine yesterday (I think she's been watching her mum at work!) and thought it very advanced. Which led me to try and find something on the web providing an illustrated and annotated description of how drawing develops in children.

which led me to finding this excellent website about drawing development in children developed by Susan K Donley and adapted from teacher inservice training materials for early childhood, art education, and special education workshops. This particular work was done for a teacher workshop.

Drawing development is analysed according to the views of Viktor Lowenfield - as expressed in "Creative and Mental Growth" and Betty Edwards - the latter being the author of a book I recommend to a lot of people starting to draw "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

So interesting to see two perspectives on drawing development in children of different age groups set side by side. They identify how the use of symbols by children develops over time and when their search for realism starts.

Maybe they could continue their good work for those of us who have left school behind us.........? I find the range of drawing styles in adults to be truly fascinating and wonder all the time about what it says about our education and ourselves.

art , drawing , drawing development

Le ciel avec les nuages

The sky now has clouds!

This one is destined for the Views and Vistas Gallery on my website - but is it ready to go yet? I've reached the "ummmmmmmmmmm"ing stage ...............(not least because that scan stitch is looking a bit obvious!)

art , drawing , coloured pencils , colored pencils , landscape painting , painting , plein air painting , sketching , sketchbooks

Developing a plein air sketch - an update

Here's an update of the current work in progress - my coloured pencil painting of Domme in the Perigord in France. See this post for what came before.

I've developed the colours and the trees, got the canoes in (are they too big I ask myself?) and still have the clouds to do. I don't want to do these until I've got the values and colours sorted out elsewhere as they need to be really subtle. This image is a stitched scan as the scanner is able to produce a better representation of the colours.

art , drawing , coloured pencils , colored pencils , landscape painting , painting , plein air painting , sketching , sketchbooks

Developing a plein air sketch

In 2004 I spent two and half weeks in France painting - starting near Bergerac where I spent a week, meandering down the River Dordogne and through Gaillac via good restaurants over a long weekend and then spent another week painting near Carcassonne in the Languedoc.

En route during that long weekend I visited Domme which is a bastide town in the Perigord region I'd last been to Domme in 1976 and was intrigued to find out whether it was as I remembered it - and whether the view was still amazing. More tourist shops than I remembered - but the view was every very bit as stunning, albeit it was midday rather than early evening!

I had lunch sitting on the terrace of the Hotel L'Esplanade. The hotel enjoys the most amazing views over the River Dordogne towards the Cingle de Montfort. And I've been meaning to develop the sketch I made during lunch into a painting for some time now.




First image is the sketchbook drawing I did during my lunch. It's a double page spread in my A4 size black hard back Daler Rowney sketchbook - and I used my coloured pencils to sketch. They're very handy and don't require a water pot!

Notes at the bottom of the sketch indicate that I had Sandre (Pike) with morels, tomatoes and physallis and then Tuna (but I don't think I remembered to write all the food down) and that a nearby roundabout turned to the sound of the theme from "Titanic"! I like making notes about my environment on my sketches as they always help to provide better memories of the whole experience.

Also posted are some early stages of the painting. I'm doing it on Arches hot press watercolour paper (in a block) using coloured pencils - which seems quite appropriate given it's French paper! It's 12" x 16" in size (a classic 3:4 ratio).

art , drawing , coloured pencils , colored pencils , landscape painting , painting , plein air painting , sketching , sketchbooks