meldrum artI gave this hand two washes and then stopped, I was planning to add a few more but realised that I was happy with it after two. It is interesting when one gets the message to stop. Sometimes, it comes too late of course.
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| Moleskin watercolour notebook, 9 x 14 cm. |
Firstly, I would just like to say that I am very happy with the execution of this painting. It was the first time I used 100% cotton paper (Arches Rough, 300gsm), and wow, what a difference it makes. It is so much easier to paint on high quality paper.
The only problem I have with this painting is the subject matter. Why is it that a naked person who looks you in the eye, feel pornographic? Why do naked models who look away from you or have their eyes closed feel like classic art nudes? I have a problem with this, Lucian Freud did not but then again, he was not exactly glamorising his subjects either. The next nude I paint will have a cloth over her head, let’s see how that feels!
I paint, I learn and I paint some more…
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| Autumn, 38 x 76cm / 15 x 22″ |
Lunch sketch painted in my mini-watercolour Moleskin.
I had big plans to do a whole bunch of watercolours on my sailing trip. In reality it was almost impossible to concentrate for any length of time in the 35-36 degrees of heat. Still, I had a wonderful holiday and my batteries are charged. The sketches are A5 in size approximately.
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| Reversed perspective. ( It felt right at the time! ) |
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| Paimpol, Brittany, France |
Yes, I finished it, the biggest watercolour I’ve ever painted, 56x76cm or 22×30″.
I’m proud that I stuck with it, I learned so much by the endless mistakes I made. As a complete painting I am not totally happy, it is stiff and the uncertainty in my strokes is clear to see. Too much white gouache for highlights almost ruining it in the end. But, I learned so much by not giving up.
Buy good watercolour paper, the one I used was very poor, not cotton, it was closer to toilet paper in quality. I ran out and bought Arches 300g because of the poor nature of the paper I used, so I learned. There was one million things I had never experienced; like how does one paint stones walls? It’s really hard but it will be easier next time. Flowers, I had never painted them before either, not seriously, they were also difficult to master. Ah well, on I go to the next pigmented challenge …
Currently I’m working on a large watercolour, it’s a real challenge, I’ve never worked in so much detail before and I’m pushing my technical limits to the maximum. So, it was necessary to take a little break and paint this little watercolour nude. I like the freedom of the way the colour pigment illustrates the figure.
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| Nude 20130719. Moleskin, A5, watercolour notebook. |
I am on holidays, which means I have the opportunity to paint at last. Time, such a hard treasure to find.
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| Nude In Red Armchair, 30 x 42 cm (A3), 11 3/4 x 16 1/2″ |
I learn so much each time I do a watercolour. I learn, that I should not draw so many lines, that I should be patient, that I should simplify what I see, that I should be more subtle with my tones and finally, that I should be more confident with my brush strokes.
This is a portrait of Micke Nybrink, he is a Trotting media journalist here in Sweden. Last week I created a web site in which he featured and this is where the image of him inspired me to paint him. You can see the website and his photo here if you like. It took me three lunch breaks to complete the painting, almost two hours I would guess.
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| Micke Nybrink |
