square format: abstraction enhanced by colour

The Task

working from the closest still life...

1. in pencil, draw it quickly
2. repeat
3. find a square composition within second drawing
4. draw a different area of still life
5. find a square composition within third drawing
6. redraw
7. select an area to add a single colour 
8. In a new drawing select an area of the still life.  Before drawing, consider; it will be square and you will apply one colour to it.

Simples! - well, not really but the results are brilliant, see below.

Well done everyone!

Christine

Derrick

Derrick

Dorothy

Dorothy

Mike

Mike

Monica

Monica

Farewell for now - Art Circle returns 10 January 2019

lino cutting without the lino

It's that time of year folks - snowy scenes, snuggling inside and seasons greetings.

So, to help the Christmas preparations along, we combined the start of a printing process with festive images.

The results follow and a brief "How to do it" is at the end of this page.

Well done everyone - lovely work and we all survived without bandages!

Mike

Mike

Mike

Derrick

Derrick

Derrick

Monica

Monica

Dorothy

Christine:  demo pieces follow

 The Task

materials & equipment:  paper, pencil, mount-board, oil pastels or children's wax crayons, craft knife

• on paper make a pencil drawing of image  [The simpler the better.  This is the time to adjust image.]
• draw onto mount-board
• using craft knife and without going all the way through the board, cut around outline 
• peal away top surface of board in the areas not part of the drawing (rubbing of my demo piece in image 1)
• take a rubbing to determine next stage 
• Continue removing other areas and taking rubbings until your satisfied with the result.
• Once happy with image, experiment with colour

Tips
Use wrapping paper & Christmas cards to give you ideas for images.
If making Christmas cards, the size of the piece should be determined by the envelope you intend to use.

Enjoy!

Happy Christmas to all visitors to circles of light-fylde blogspot

black paper, white ink & a parsnip

This was much trickier to do than to explain.

Very well done everyone...

Derrick

Christine 

Monica

Monica

Mike

colour, celebration & gratitude

Whilst across the Atlantic our American friends prepared for a thanksgiving meal, we used gratitude as the starting point for considering the use of colour.  

The Task

• depict or represent things that are important to you by doodling mini images across the page 
• using a limited pallet, introduced colour

This process of considering where to place colour is an approach to controlling colours in paintings.

Well done everyone - lovely work! 

Dorothy

Derrick

Monica

Mike

Christine

sycamore seed sets

Firstly we looked at the work of Natasha Clutterbuck who makes large drawings of the produce grown in her garden and allotment.  Natasha uses natural dyes to add colour to her work which produces wonderful mellow tones to highlight her flowing, organic drawings.

[This tied in with last week when we looked at potatoes.]

Next we considered Lisa Milroy's oil paintings of familiar items, mathematically laid out into sets.

The task:

Draw a single sycamore seed or several sycamore seeds arranged on squared paper.

[The squared paper gave horizontal and vertical lines to help with the proportions of the subject.  It also enabled the items to be evenly spaced, if required.]

Not an easy task particularly with evenly spaced, overhead lighting.  The results follow.  

Very well done everyone!  

Natasha Clutterbuck: Nepeta, beetroot & broadbean

Natasha Clutterbuck

Lisa Milroy:  Hardware, oil on canvas 203 x 284.5 cm

Lisa Milroy:  Stamps, oil on canvas 203 x 284.5 cm

Mike

Dorothy

Derrick

Monica

Monica

Demo page

Natasha Clutterbuck

Lisa Milroy

graphite, putty & potatoes

The task:  using tone and texture, draw a potato

Everyone had their own potato to befriend which was placed on a piece of white paper.

As the morning progressed, we experimented with the graphite sticks, for example; 
using like a pencil
using the side to make broader marks
blending with fingers & kitchen towel 
creating dust to "paint" areas  

We also looked at using a putty rubber for lifting out sections and and eraser to clean areas.

Lastly, some of the group considered composition.  (This is when the magic corners come out.)

The results follow - brilliant work everyone!

Monica

I love the movement in Monica's drawing.  The soft, overlapping areas of the potato and its shadows and the expressive lines depicting the edges of the paper and table give the finished work a wonderful energy.

Christine

The tonal values in Christine's work cover the range of the graphite, from the darkest to the white of the paper, very nicely done.

Derrick

Sometimes I think documenting the work throughout the morning would be a good idea.  Then I could show when and how drawings become something much more than marks on a page.  This week, Derrick's work would be one of the first in line.  Lovely! 

Mike

Not quite resolved but definitely going in the right direction  Well done Mike! 

Me:  Demo

in addition...

"F" on a pencil means it can be sharpened to a fine point.
"2HB" is I think, an American way of grading pencils.