Portraits and life drawing

 I've been attending some portraiture sessions recently. Sittings are about 3 hours, so I've been trying to focus on getting better with oil painting and focusing on tones. So I've been working in greyscale with titanium white and ivory black, which lets me focus more on tone and not get distracted by colour so much. My thought is to get my tones and my manipulation of oil right, before jumping into a full pallet. Ill probably use a limited pallet next portrait session, and see how that goes.   

Oil. 8"x10" panel. Three hours.

Oil. 8"x10" panel. Three hours.

I tape off the sides, mostly so I dont get paint over myself walking home as I dont have one of those panel carriers. But it also looks quite nice to have clean edges.

Charcoal. A3. One hour, thirty minutes.

Gouache. A4. One hour, thirty minutes.

For most of October most of my figure drawing has been one in inks. I've been using 3 water pens with different mixes of ink and water. Starting with the thinnest and finishing with thick ink. 

Ink. A3. Thirty minutes.

Some older gouache life drawing from this year. I have quite a lot of old drawings from the past 3-4 years, but I dont think they'll ever see the light of day. I should keep things current, instead of looking to far in the past.

Gouache. A4. Thirty minutes.

Gouache. A4. Twenty seven? minutes.

Street draw

 The street draw exhibition was on a few weeks ago. One of my paintings sold, and the other won a runner up prize. Talking with some of the people who put the event together the runner up picture showed the spirit of the event, which was raising money for the homeless.  There was some really nice pieces on show, hopefully it all went well.

"Coffee gets cold fast" - On the day I bought a coffee and sat outside in the rain, it was cold in minutes. The staff of the cafe gave this man a coffee after I started drawing, I couldn't help but think the same for him.

The prize was a Winsor & Newton Cotman water colour set. I rarely enter any art events, but they're quite fun, so I'll keep an eye out for more in the future. 

Maenport beach, and other paintings.

I walked to Maenporth today to spend some time painting the beach in gouache. 

Here's some other paintings I did over the summer. This artichoke had an really vibrant purple colour, i couldnt match it, but I think I got close enough, 

I spent a while painting in oils, trying to get generally better at wet-on-wet. I think I just need to do more of it and I will get it eventually. A few of these have been bought by people who have seen me painting.

Painting and figure drawing

 I took part in the Falmouth Street Draw this year, I started by painting this man in the rain on one of the wettest days of the week. I tried using some masking fluid for the rain, but it didnt turn out that nicely. I think I should have set out a bunch of small thin lines, then just erased what was needed. 

The next day I got to paint some boats in the morning. Although what I was paining was quite grey, I was able to get some sunlight in there. 

I think before that there was a Show girl themed life drawing session. So I took part in that too, poses ranged from 1 min to 15. I decided to work purely in inks, with three water pens filled with different ink consistencies.