Month: August 2025

  • Painting Shapes Meditation

    Painting Shapes Meditation

    This is a really good reference for pulling your brain out of the world and into just looking and seeing and trying to make sense of the shapes. I have that privilege, many don’t. Til the morn, Suzanne 561/600

  • Snatching Time

    Snatching Time

    Painting while dog-sitting. He’s a bit of a nervous Beastie, so I was aware things might be interrupted, but he’s been very good. I got another version of the pose I painted yesterday, and a quick gesture sketch (below). I packed the wrong tube of blue for my limited palette, but I’ve decided that I…

  • Loch Lee and Figure Study

    Loch Lee and Figure Study

    Today was a long, filling-the-well day. We travelled to Glenesk and walked around 6 miles altogether in fairly hot weather that was forecast as cooler and a chance of rain. We did get some sprinkles of rain, and the clouds came in about, but it was still hot. You may have picked up that I…

  • Hot Dry Paint

    Hot Dry Paint

    Another few days of limited supplies far from home, and unexpected very hot weather. The paint was drying on the gel plate before I could even get it to the paper, so I kind of gave up. Til the morn, Suzanne 558/600

  • Persevere

    Persevere

    Persevering with this reference, and the drawing on the left is where I felt I got the hand, but I wasn’t happy with the face. The drawing on the right I like the overall proportions much more, but I like the previous hand more. It’s an easy fix, especially if I decide to paint this…

  • Too Neutral

    Too Neutral

    I’m finding it interesting that this reference is challenging me. The hand I am struggling with is in a fairly neutral pose, and I think that’s what’s challenging me. I’ve been doing lots of hands in ballet poses, and I guess I have more affinity with them, then this neutral pose. Or something. I’m enjoying…

  • Twenty Minute Paint Dash

    Twenty Minute Paint Dash

    There was a lot going on today, and I only managed a twenty minute window for painting. I hate this pose, which means I will be going back to it again until I find what it is I am looking for. The first thing I will be looking for is another hand under that chin,…

  • Sunday Batching

    Sunday Batching

    The only way to decide if something is going to work is to try it out, which is what’s happening on these canvas boards. I was trying to get the gel plate into play today but either the heat or the humidity scuppered that plan. These are very messy, lots more to do, but the…

  • Saturday Extremities

    Saturday Extremities

    Lots of things were done with paint today, but all of them are in that stage where they don’t really look like much, but I did have a go at this pose which is a bit fun. Til the morn, Suzanne 553/600

  • All Fingers And Pose

    All Fingers And Pose

    Cobalt blue and caput mortuum make a satisfying mix for this luscious pose in my continued season of hands studies. Dinoopis is on hiatus at the moment, but she is my favourite muse, and creates the most interesting figure references. This is in my A3 sketchbook, with acrylic sludge as the ground, which I am…

  • Quinacridone Muse

    Quinacridone Muse

    She’s all fingers and toes, and if the paint was quinacridone rose I could make a poem, but I didn’t think of that, so here she is in quinacridone magenta, which is about as much to die for as this juicy pose. Til the morn, Suzanne 551/600

  • Thirty Seconds and Counting

    Thirty Seconds and Counting

    For today’s practise I cut some large sheets off a roll of cartridge paper to fit my A2 boards. This practise is one that I really enjoy, but don’t do often enough. Today it was all I did. The basic practise is to choose a figure reference, then set a timer for 30 seconds and…