Category: Sketchbook Practise
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Six Hundred Days of Art
Day 600 of the 100 Day Project I started in February 2024 and didn’t expect to get further than the first couple of weeks, a month tops. I still count the days because maintaining this streak works for me as a motivator. Today’s postcards from the studio are multiple, and I love that over six…
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We’re Gonna Need a Bigger…
I have gone big. Properly big. I’ve had the A1 paper for a while, but never got around to getting a big board. Until today. As soon as it arrived I abandoned the sketches in my A4 book, grabbed a 3″ brush, and tried painting a giant hare. It’s not the best hare I’ve ever…
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Sketchbook Filled
I finished a sketchbook today. Woo hoo. I started it in March, so that’s not bad going. I had three spreads, or six pages left, and they are now painted. I played with the “ancient palette” again, and I can tell you that I don’t like it on a dusky pink ground, but that’s precisely…
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Earthy Palettes
I am trying out a couple of different palettes here based on earthy hues. I saw something somewhere about an “ancient palette”, but I can’t find it again, so I’m working off memory and imagination. The portrait on the left is a very limited palette: unbleached titanium, caput mortuum, raw sienna and olive green. The…
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Satisfied Sigh
I’m finally happy with a version of this pose. I think I’ve figured out that she is slightly tilted away on the left side (her right hand) and her hands are not the same distance from the viewer. I used a very limited palette of unbleached titanium, raw umber and French ultramarine for this one,…
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Dusting The Oil Pastels Off
I have a box of oil pastels that I never use. One reason for that is the fact they don’t dry, and up until recently I didn’t have fixative specific to oil pastels. That my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. Most of my oil pastels are the fairly ubiquitous inexpensive ones, with a small…
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Reflecting
Two versions of the same reference. For some reason I did the first one in my A4 sketchbook, even though there’s a hand, so it meets the criteria for my A3 sketchbook. The background was already there, from using up paint at some point, and it worked quite well. The second painting is in the…
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Charcoal Pastel Gesso
Starting with some warm-up play in a sketchbook on a page that had some acrylic paint from a previous session as a ground, I played with this high-contrast reference and some charcoal powder. Having smudged in some basic shadow areas, I wanted a darker dark, so I mixed the charcoal powder with clear gesso, and…
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Repeat Until Satisfied
I’m still obsessed with this hand and foot pose, and I’m really enjoying the process. Somewhere in between yesterday’s painting (r) and today’s is where I want to end up. I do like the black I mixed today, I’m going to play with that more tomorrow. Til the morn, Suzanne 587/600
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Hand and Foot Combo
The hand and foot combination that was bugging me before my trip was given a full A3 page, and some large untidy brushes, to try and make sense of it. I definitely got closer to the shapes and placements, so I’m happy with that. Til the morn, Suzanne 586/600
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Home Again
We spent almost all day on trains, and it’s been a surprisingly tiring few days, we are now back in the Kingdom, and as knackered as I am, I really missed painting, so this is a very quick portrait in my A4 book. Good to get a brush in my hand again. sleep tight, Til…
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Ferry Nice Day
A ferry to Stromness, passing the Old Man of Hoy, and a bus to Kirkwall. And back again. I didn’t get in any street sketching, but I did give that hand and foot combo that’s bugging me a couple of gos in the sketchbook, still bugging me. Til the morn, Suzanne 584/600
Thrummie Bizzum 