Category: Studio Diary

  • Let Them Cook

    Let Them Cook

    I have a bunch of unfinished paintings and projects, and I used to give myself a hard time about finishing things, but I am now embracing the idea of having lots of unfinished things that are simply cooking until I feel moved to come back to them. This one has been cooking for ages, and…

  • Clown Paint

    Clown Paint

    I pulled this out of the unfinished stack and did a little work on her this morning. I didn’t have a lot of time as we had visitors today, but she’s back on the easel with a fresh pair of eyes, and I think she’ll probably end up with a fresh pair of eyes. Til…

  • Sometimes the Worst is the Best

    Sometimes the Worst is the Best

    I am highly amused at the fact I spent most of my art time painting the Let’s Face It class portrait in oils, fannying about with values, and repeatedly reminding myself this was not a colour exercise, it’s a value exercise. I was pretty happy with my sketch, but as the oil paint moved around,…

  • From Sketchbook to Painting

    From Sketchbook to Painting

    I was at risk of spending all my time doing more sketches of this reference, but I started on the painting proper, even though I only had time for a graphite sketch and a first block in of the shadows with raw umber. The graphite sketch was really bothering me, but the paint has improved…

  • Three Brushes Three Sketches

    Three Brushes Three Sketches

    Today I have been working in my sketchbook doing multiple sketches of the same reference photo. I have mostly been using my trusty caput mortuum sketch blend, although I did do one sketch in graphite. This is a Let’s Face It class, and the reference is the artist herself, so I’m setting myself the challenge…

  • Third Pass Nearly There

    Third Pass Nearly There

    I have to laugh at myself. A while back I made myself a stay-wet palette, and even wrote a blog about it. I tested it out and decided it would work perfectly for doing larger paintings where I need to save mixed colours for the next day. Yesterday I worked on this painting, and I…

  • First Pass Keep Going

    First Pass Keep Going

    Yesterday’s photo appears much more blue than the actual canvas, and my phone seems to have a tendency to do that. Today’s pic is much more like it for the background. This is the first pass of this painting. I’m just playing with the limited palette I chose, and blocking in values. The reference photo…

  • It’s Just Paper

    It’s Just Paper

    Paint made it onto canvas today, and I have a first sketch down. I realised today that my brain had somehow started subscribing to the idea that I must paint deeply meaningful paintings, and that I was treating canvases as if they are made of gold. Fascinating the way the inner critic can weedle its…

  • Patterns

    Patterns

    I’m still playing with ideas for the painting I want to do, and working things out in my sketchbook. I got some new stencils today, so a couple of them went straight into the mix. I think I just need to put some paint on the canvas and get on with it tbh. Til the…

  • Golden Ratio

    Golden Ratio

    A bit of an odd here’s what I did today photo, but it’s kind of the most coherent page from all the bits and pieces from today. I am piecing together ideas from recent work to put in a painting, so this is just my sketchbook page reference for composition ideas. It’s not very exciting,…

  • Mini Monoprints

    Mini Monoprints

    I’m using a little 9x14cm Art Creation sketchbook with my 2×3″ gel plate. (yes, I’m bilingual as far as measurements go, never going to change). It started out as a project in the Things To Do When Creativity Seems Blocked – one of several tricks that I try to remember as good ways to get…

  • Second Pass Colour Play

    Second Pass Colour Play

    I continued playing with this little painting, adding some colour in a very limited palette, and using fluorescent magenta as the mother colour. Til the morn, Suzanne 242/300