meldrum art
Six months after my first exhibition I am now having another. It starts on the 3rd of December and is at Konsthallen in the old town here in central Stockholm.
Here are the full details:
David Meldrum – Watercolours and life drawings
Saturday 3rd of December 2016, 12.00 – 18.00.
Konsthallen, Köpmanbrinken 2, Gamla Stan, Stockholm.
Exhibition continues until the 8th of December.
Opening times: Saturday to Thursday 12.00 – 18.00.
I have been busy with my art so I haven’t blogged for a while. It’s strange but once you stop it is so hard to get going again. So I throw this out in the hope that I get my act together and start publishing again…
I had an amazing week on a course run by Angela Barbi in Girona, Spain recently. Her company is called EPC ( Enjoy Painting Catalonia ).
One of my watercolour heroes is Chein Chung-Wei and I was lucky enough to get on his course. Chien has been a teacher of watercolour technique for twenty years in Taipei, Taiwan. He was discovered on Facebook 3 or 4 years by the editor of “Art of Watercolour”, the magazine has regularly featured his work ever since. Surprised by the amount of international interest in his art he has been holding courses internationally now for a few years. He said his English wasn’t very good in the beginning but he has improved a lot since then. He is such an extrovert and quite eccentric, he uses his body a lot to explain what he means which helps his students understand. I had absolutely no problem understanding Chien and have been totally inspired by the experience.
In the next coming weeks I plan to post more about my time in Girona.
Last week it was a bad reaction to what I ate, this week I have totally got the flu and seem to spend most of my days sleeping. Yesterday, I managed three small watercolours. I have an exhibition in the Old Town here in Stockholm starting on the 3rd of December so I thought I’d better get a move on. The paintings are rather dark, the days are getting shorter here, the sky is a numbing grey and I don’t feel so good.
In the evening of my first day following my tough new artist week schedule I went to life drawing. At this stage my food intolerance was setting in big time, I had eaten something that did not agree with me. I made it through the first half of the session but I was in too much pain and too tired to continue in the second half of the evening. I think it shows in the sketches I did, I haven’t shown the bad ones of course but I think I struggled with them all, at least it felt that way.
I was proud that I was able to produce so much in one day, I hope to continue doing this in the future, like I said in an earlier post – I’m not well today so no watercolours and no schedule was followed, hopefully in a couple of days I’ll be back on track.
This week I have introduced a tough working schedule to my artist week. I’ve been frustrated that I am just not producing enough work. Unfortunately my plans burst after only one day as I became ill, I’m incredibly sensitive to what I eat , it was either broccoli or balsamic vinegar that did it. My body can’t cope with many types of sugars since I passed midlife.
Anyway, the plan is for me to follow a ridget schedule and it worked yesterday so I’m really happy about that. In the morning I spent two hours on a commission and then anther two hours on this painting that is featured here. It’s the ferry called Norrskär that has been in service since 1910.
My first life drawing since the spring and I decided to use my watercolours. I used cheap Canson watercolour paper, I hate it compared to Arches or Fabriano but it’s just too expensive to waste a block of quality paper during a life drawing session. I used Koo i noor woodless watercolour sticks for the first time, I really liked them so I’ll be using them a lot in future. Each of these watercolours took five minutes to complete, at that speed one cannot hesitate – a quick line sketch of the figure and then paint as much as you can in the remaining time before the pose ends. It’s stressful for sure but I find it exhilarating.
Back at work does not have to be a negative thing for my art productivity. Yesterday I was asked by my boss if I could do a caricature of an employee who is leaving this Friday. I accepted the challenge but by lunchtime today I was regretting saying yes. I battled on trying to create a caricature, it wasn’t easy as I only had one picture as reference, a smiling one. The person in question is more know for his scowl than his smile so I had to use a bit of imagination.
(A bad photo of the artwork unfortunately.)
There is a beautiful shaded street in the center of Palma de Mallorca. I saw two street buskers playing really soft and harmonically. I started drawing them, the light was wonderful. Unfortunately they moved on after a few minutes and I was left trying to remember the lighting on their clothes etc.
The second watercolour was a quick one. I decided that I really need to loosen up. Not be so fixed on details. Why is it so hard to do this? I was happy with the result, I wish I could be so relaxed all the time.
I’ve been walking around the streets of Palma de Mallorca. I’m starting to find my way around the old narrow streets in the shopping districts. This court yard I found down a quiet side street away from all the tourists. It was a pleasure to paint, it was so tranquil.
