Happier Days

Righty oh, Mr 'B' AKA Yours Truly, who I hasten to add is currently struggling with a pen and ink drawing of a building; is now signed up for a 'Botanical illustration 1' course with the Art & Design department of Aberystwyth University.  

The art course starts tomorrow and is spread over four very well gapped days with the last day due to take place on the 18th June.  I like the course brief; "ideal course for those wishing to . . . develop their fine art skills'.  Yep it's about botany, but it's also primarily about art.  Another course aptly titled: 'Botanical illustration 2', seems to be about watercolouring techniques and tonal modelling.  So that's going to be one for the future, especially given my recent spends on Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolours.  Plus of course I'm really excited, not because of tomorrow's course, but because I'm sat here with a coffee waiting for Mr Postman, who happens to be carrying several hundred pounds worth of water colour paints that I ordered online from three sellers for the bargain basement price of £40

Oh happy days. Now, back to that pen and ink drawing. . . 

Life should mean life

According to the BBC online News Service; "Colin Pitchfork was given a life sentence in 1988 for the rape and murder of 15-year-old schoolgirls Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, from Leicestershire." I recently watched an excellent two part docu-drama about the pioneering DNA work that caught Pitchfork, along with the excellent police work that caught the person who pretended to be him and took the first DNA test, that in turn allowed Pitchfork to roam free for longer.

Pitchfork was convicted of two heinous crimes, and Pitchfork should die in prison.  

To release Colin Pitchfork would be a travesty of justice and a shameful indictment of the low value now placed on human life by our society.  I don't care about perceived risk to society, as Pitchfork could be a bedridden 90 year old and I would still believe that such a person should still be in prison. 

The only reason to release someone who was convicted of the rape and murder of two human beings, is when technological advances or other evidence subsequently proves that the convicted person was innocent.  That will not be the case for Colin Pitchfork.  If a person is guilty of such heinous crimes, then that convicted person should die behind bars. 

Well Wednesday didn't happen

Nope, the DIY painting didn't happen, as Wednesday was a wash out in the pressure stakes.  I spent the day mooching around town instead.  Whereas Thursday was about exercise and an enjoyable Trail Run at the fabulous Nant-yr-Arian. So the decorating was simply put on hold.

So on Friday I cracked open the paint tin that has been hanging around for quite a few weeks, and took a laborious 6 hours to apply one coat of emulsion to four walls. Yep, they need a second coat, but alas that means more pressure, so that idea has been parked for a while.  And Nope, the walls aren't large.  I just think that it was a case of not being up to the task. Maybe they will be painted next week or indeed the week after, who knows.

Thankfully not all tasks are the 'your face pressure stuff' that I try to avoid.  Avoidance strategies work, and are an important defensive mechanism.  Another defensive mechanism is to flitter from one thing to another.  So using pastels is good fun, but that fun mustn't diminish.  Hence the pencil drawing, and the watercolours.   Mix it up, and the pressure is reduced.  With that in mind; I'm trying to complete a pen and ink and watercolour as a gift for two friends of ours who are getting married.  It's slow, and has to be set aside and picked back up, but it's enjoyable.  It might look good, but then again it might not.  But I suspect that they will be grateful.  Albeit it's likely that the finished item will be handed over well past the marriage date.  There was a time, a long time ago, when I would have worked slavelessly to finish to a deadline. Not any more, as deadlines are now something to be avoided at all costs.  I'm not really that fussed when and how I do something, and I simply don't set myself the target.

Seascape imaged

So this is how the seascape (shown in an earlier Blog Post) eventually ended up looking like when using Winsor and Newton professional quality Watercolours applied onto Sennelier Pastel Paper. The watercolor painting is approximatel 25cm high by 63cm long. It's our intention to mount the Artwork using White Mounting Board and to surround that with an Oak Frame ready to hang above the bed in our Guest Bedroom. 

The restricted space between the Dado Rail and the Bedroom Ceiling in that part of the room; is the reason for the deliberate narrowness of the image. Some of the colours were used for the Watercolour to compliment the color of items bought for the room make-over, now that the room has become vacant. 

As usual, I can't put myself under too much pressure when doing these sort of tasks. So the redecorating has already taken many weeks, instead of a day or two.  I've managed to fill the holes, and today I got around to eventually painting the ceiling.  I now have to build myself up to painting the walls.  We are thinking, take tomorrow out and instead do some art at 'MIND Aberystwyth' and go for a coffee, and then see how I feel on Wednesday.  If not Wednesday then Friday might be a DIY Day.  But Wifey understands that Friday could even turn out to be next week or the week after.  But in between all that DIY and pressure sort of stuff, I shall try to complete a Soft Pastel Drawing image of the same scene and using the same type and size of Pastel Paper. But I am enjoying using watercolours and I am already on the look out for some new Kolinsky Sable Art Brushes. I also intend to buy a sheet of watercolor paper, having today been told the difference between 'hot press' and 'cold press' paper.  I want to paint some butterfly's and I'm also keen to paint eight or ten leafs (in two rows, one above the other) without a background. Don't ask me why, because I simply don't know.  But there you have it, this is where the art direction is going at the moment. And before you know it, the art will probably be placed back inside a box (metaphorical not actual) and I shall move onto something else. Which of course is what we do when we need and use such defensive mechanisms. 

 

Imaging the SeaScape

Today was the day that I should have been settling down to that much looked forward to 'Imaging the Landscape' using Pastels course. I was particularly excited about that pastel course as mentioned in a previous Blog post. 

Indeed, I am still smarting about the course being cancelled two days before its intended date. Worse still they had cashed my cheque and sent me joining instructions. So although I had been forewarned by others that they often cancel adult learning courses, the cashed cheque and the joining instructions meant that I didn't see the negative outcome that was looming.

Maybe the cancelled Pastel Art Course was the catalyst for this temporary change from my recent determined flurry into the world of Soft Pastels.  It seems to be onwards and upwards and onto a new medium.  So the artist quality soft pastels have been set aside, and we are now indulging in a watercolour journey.  I deliberately chose to use Pastel Paper (that was kindly gifted to me by my friends at the Art Shop) and set an intentional panoramic view by cutting the paper in half along its length to end up with a 25 x 63 cm sheet.

This is the just the start of the image.  It's from an idea that Wifey found online and wants for one of our rooms.

I'm using 'Winsor & Newton' professional quality watercolours bought from the Art Shop on Pier Street, Aberystwyth, along with a 'Winsor & Newton' Kolinsky Sable art brush. Kolinsky Sable brushes hold more water than other types of art brushes and therefore allow longer strokes and cut down on the 'drag' that occurs with cheaper brushes. I have had quite a few Sable brushes in my tine, but to my shame, most of them have been used with modelling acrylics when painting massed armies in 1:72nd and 25mm scales. Oops, now that was a tad foolish wasn't it? 

Coastline Art

This is another one, in my so far mini series of Coastline art images.  Artist Quality Soft Pastels were drawn onto A3 size Watercolour Paper.  This means that some of the watercolor paper ridges show through.  A combination of Schmincke, Rowney (out of production narrow sticks) and Sennelier soft pastels were used. I waited a few weeks for the Sennelier set to arrive before finishing off the foreground of this image.  My main problem at the moment is working out how to sign completed artwork.  Soft Pastel sticks are too broad and clumsy to form letters and numerals, whereas various grades of charcoal pencils from Soft to Hard, seem to break away in their wood when the charcoal pencil is sharpened using a normal pencil sharpener, or a pastel sharpener, or a knife.  For the darker images, a white Pastel Pencil fairs no better.  It is pretty frustrating in this so far 'teach yourself' course of artistic development; that I am having more problems with signing rather than completing the work.

As usual, All Rights are Reserved: Roger Bennett 2015

I was due to start a three day art course called 'Imaging the Landscape' tomorrow, but alas, the course was cancelled due to what appears to be a lack of numbers.  It looks as if it was two of us.  Which is pretty sad as I had built myself up to attending this pastel art course and was really looking forward to the three days spread over several weeks as being part of my springboard to better pastel artwork.  Worse still I had been forewarned by several others that this particular institution often cancels adult learning courses due to poor uptake.  I don't know if that's true, and I don't for one moment suspect that such last minute cancellations are deliberate, but I do wish that they get their marketing act together and go ahead with this intended high end stuff.  It appears in a prospectus, but the bottom line is that adult learners probably don't look in a prospectus like an intending University Undergraduate.  We probably rely more on posters and advertisements being placed in the right places and in a timely manner.  It's not much use putting up a poster a week or so after the early bird discount date, that sorts of misses the point really.  So as you can see, the artwork is developing, but alas I am bitterly disappointed regarding the last minute cancelled pastel art course that I had paid for last month.

Meanwhile, I need to get back to practicing how to sign my finished pieces, before I go and cause a calamity and ruin a piece at the last hurdle.  Mmmm, I wonder if 'Imaging the Landscape' would have taught me how to sign my name? 

Sutton Medieval Bridge Pastels Snow Scene

The last piece of original artwork that I uploaded was a Pastel Pencil drawing of the Sutton Medieval Packhorse Bridge in the village of Sutton, England.  That pastel artwork was completed on thick 160g orange pastel paper (see earlier post).  The pastel paper colour was allowed to show through when representing the Sutton packhorse bridge and other parts of the pastel pencil drawing.  The second piece that I completed over Easter 2015 was another A3 size image of the same bridge (shown below).   This new image was constructed using soft pastels (a combination of artist quality Schmincke, Jacksons, and now out of production narrow Rowney pastel sticks). This representation of the Sutton Medieval Bridge has a slightly different perspective than the image that I completed earlier over this Easter weekend, and of course unlike the Summer scene in the former, this one is in the grip of winter.

Sutton Medieval Packhorse Bridge, Sutton
Soft Pastels on Red Pastel Paper
A3 Size

Like all of my artwork and poetry; all rights are reserved.

Sutton Packhorse Bridge

This is my first attempt at using Pastel Pencils instead of recent move towards using Soft Pastel 'sticks' for a piece of artwork.  It  was drawn using various Derwent Pastel Pencils from a wooden box set of 48 that I recently bought for detailing the broader strokes of the larger pastel sticks, but alas pastel pencils seem to have a harder binder to hold the pastel inside the wood of the pencil, and therefore the pencils are not that good in my hands for detailing, as they indent into earlier strokes.  This artwork of the Medieval Bridge at Sutton was drawn onto Daler Rowney 'Murano' 406x305mm size 160 g/m2 warm colour pastel paper with the chosen base colour allowed to show through in the final piece. 

The Medieval Sutton 'Packhorse' Bridge and ford, in the village of Sutton in Bedfordshire.