Harbour village in pastel

I went to the art class in Beverley today and did this picture.  I prepared the board last night with a mix of white acrylic paint and pumice powder.  I applied it firstly with a brush and then evened it out with a decorators sponge roller.  I gave it two coats, letting it dry in between each coat.  I read about this in Mark Leach's wonderful book "Raw Pastels".

Cornish Harbour, Pastel mixed media, 14 x 17 inch

At the class I brushed in a quick under-painting in watercolour, using complementary colours in places.  After this was dry I started to apply the pastel.  Pastel isn't something I feel in control of, but it's something I admire and I would like to get reasonably competent with it.  I didn't mean to make such a big picture as this, but perhaps using pastels works better on a large surface.

I intend to keep going with the pastels, and want to try all the things I have read about such as using alcohol to liquefy the pastel, making runs and drips; using different supports; using pastel pencils as well as soft and hard pastels.  I also want to experiment to see if I can include collage in a pastel painting.  I think this would work if I use acrylic matte medium and pumice over the collage.  I will have to try it and see what happens.

More on work in progress

After the last post I thought I would try the work in progress idea with a smaller canvas.  The one below is only 8 x 8 inch.  I painted the canvas warm AZO yellow, then covered it with crumpled dressmakers tissue.  I did this as an experiment to see how it affected the look of the canvas at this stage, and I was surprised by how much the yellow showed through.

Harbour work in progress, side of canvas

The above picture shows clearly how the yellow is shining through.  I really like this affect and will experiment with it more.  I think it has great potential for using complementary colours under the tissue so that the painting will zing!

Harbour work in progress, composition

The front of the canvas shows the composition roughed in with a charcoal pencil.  You can clearly see the printing on the dressmakers tissue and I will be keeping some of it to incorporate it into the final piece.

Unfortunately I didn't get any further yesterday, and today I am back at Burton Agnes Hall.  I am taking it with me but don't know how much I will get done.

Harbour Street

I love doing collage, and I love doing harbour scenes. This one has worked out particularly well.  The background is dressmakers tissue which I had coloured with streaks of acrylic inks, when dry it was screwed up and then flattened out and glued to the board with acrylic medium.  It's a great way to get texture, and the dressmakers tissue is particularly good because it's quite tough.

I painted the scene with acrylic paints, inks and technical pen.

Harbour Street, acrylic mixed media, 12 x 14 inch

My shoulder is feeling a lot better now, and I am eager to get lots of work done.  I had a lovely break at Cober Hill, feeling recharged.

Another day gone

Another day gone but no paintings, so its a sketch from my sketchbook again.  I feel as if I am running up a down escalator at the moment, with no time to catch up.

basic drawing

tonal sketch

colour sketch

These are from a series of large thumbnail sketches of a boat in the dry dock of the harbour in Bridlington, where I live.  I am looking for an abstraction of the subject. I have painted it before but I want to make it a more fractured image , similar to the Still Life I did last month.

I only just noticed, this is my 100th post - amazing.