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. 

Fun Palace aka Ansdell Library

Well done everyone!

Red, yellow and blue are the primary colours.

green is made by mixing yellow & blue

orange, by mixing yellow & red

purple, by mixing red & blue

The solar spectrum or rainbow...

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

demo 1

demo 2

b & w with the lights switched on

Our last look at charcoal for a little while...

Building on last week, we added soft pastel to switch on the lights!

Resource material from a calendar of black & white photographs with painted areas added.  Not ideal but a reasonable starting point for experimenting.

Notice the edges of the pieces were masked to reveal a frame when removed.

Well done chaps - lovely work! 

demo pages

Christine

Derrick

Mike