A few more for Cambridge Open Studios

Sometimes things just don't work. With the technique I use with the acrylic inks, there is a lot of spritzing with water and sometimes I end up with mud as the two (or more) vibrant colours decide to mix completely! This is what happened with the kingfisher I was doing a couple of days ago. I love the subject - such beautiful colours - but in this case less (acrylic ink and water) is more! I was at a party recently and met a lovely gentleman who works in the art business (as in selling). I told him that you can't do really detailed work with the dropper on the FW acrylic inks. He mentioned a product - which they can no longer get in the UK - that is a empty bottle with an 18 gauge (0.8mm) applicator. He believed that he might have one of these left in stock - and bless him - he has sent it to me. This means that if there is a particular colour I want to do a really fine line with, I just pour some of the colour from the original bottle into this and off I go. Will try it out and comment on it in another post.

Now on to the few that worked....

While visiting a garden last year, I took photographs of some lovely roses. The modern type are no good for my technique, beautiful though they are - the petals are too close together and it doesn't make for an interesting painting. However, the old style, with the open aspect and wonderfully interesting stamens, do work very well. The rose was actually white - well, that wasn't going to work, so I added a few "subtle" colours! This is just the acrylic inks (no pastels this time) on Bockingford quarter imperial NOT. I decided that although I like working on the half imperial, with the mount and frame it makes for a very large painting - so for this coming exhibition I am trying a number of smaller ones, which may fit in peoples houses a bit more!

I have been to Africa on safari quite a few times - always taking numerous photographs (over 1,000 each time). Looking through them recently, I came across some lovely bird photographs. This crowned crane was spectacular - an amazing head-dress. I used masking fluid to do the head feathers - although I may have been a little too subtle with the white? Again acrylic ink on Bockingford quarter imperial NOT with a small amount of soft pastel on top.

I wanted to do a guinea fowl for two reasons - I saw them in Africa outside our tent, as well as other places, but also because a friend has them (raised from eggs by her). They are ridiculous things really - the painting ended up more cartoon-like than I wanted. Can't decide whether to keep it as a quirky one, or to ditch it. Jury is out on this one! Maybe I should do a series of cartoon-style paintings. I could add the ostrich (looking straight at me) for a start, along with the water buffalo, giraffe and a skinny hornbill (looks exactly like Zazu from the Lion King!)

I am hoping to do some landscapes soon - completely different style and medium. I was inspired by my course with Sarah Bee at West Dean College where she used soft pastels on top of textured acrylic. I already paint with pastels on occasion and this would be an extension of that. If you go on her site and look at the gallery, the painting she was working on during my course is the last one on the second section - called "Warm Rocks and Cool Water at Haytor Quarry". We didn't see it finished at West Dean, so good to see the final painting now.

The other person who is influencing me at the moment is an American lady called Karen Margulis who does pastel painting as well, but underpainting of either watercolour or pastel, diluted with alcohol. When she described the alcohol method, I really didn't understand what she meant. I have now found a brilliant YouTube video by an Australian lady, who actually demonstrates the alcohol underpainting technique - which can be found here: Leesa Padget demo   I never cease to be amazed at how generous artists are when you ask them a question. I posted a message to Leesa on the YouTube video site, saying I found it extremely useful and now understand how to do the technique. She immediately came back to me saying that not only can you use the same small pot of alcohol for the whole of one painting (starting with the lightest colour and going through the tones to dark), but that you don't have to throw away the alcohol afterwards. If you let it settle, the pastel particles drop to the bottom and you can use it a few times, as long as you don't disturb the sediment. I am assuming a tall bottle is probably the best thing to use for that. Anyway, that is for the future - need to get a few more acrylic ink paintings done first.

Obviously all this is for the forthcoming Cambridge Open Studios. This is a huge event in July with over 300 artists in and around Cambridge - and Nina Sage and I are joining forces to exhibit together on the middle two weekends. Both of us are working hard to get new work and are really excited about our first Open Studios event. COS is working hard promoting the event on their website Cambridge Open Studios, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Luckily we have done a couple of exhibitions already, which means we feel relatively under control - at the moment! Hopefully that will continue....