Saturday, 9 July 2011
Sketching in the summer
"Every life can be told as a novel, each of us is the protagonist of his own legend" wrote the famous author Isabel Allende. I prefer to tell what I see in drawings driving through the beautiful countryside in my car; stop when I see a pretty view and set to work. The sun was shinning and the troubles and cares of this world vanish the moment I find my pastel colours. The only way to describe it is bliss! I work quickly before the weather decides to change and the image of that first impression is gone. Somehow when you draw, the scene gets imbedded in your memory and it becomes part of you. That is my tree and my hills. Are things really as I remember them or as I have painted them here? When it's done, I always feel disappointed that I have only managed to grab a 10th of what I saw. Still, the impressions of the day are there in mere chalks of what it was like to me that day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
.jpg)
23 comments:
Hi Maria
I love those pictures. How on earth did you get so much detail into the tree while using only chalks? It looks as if it's been painted with a tiny paintbrush, not chalked.
Those are the kinds of pictures that I can gaze at and imagine myself actually in them, walking in the fields.
Hi Robert
I'm smiling to hear that.
To get the detail I sharpened one end of the chalk into a point with a craft blade, this way its easier to draw the details, it is still fiddly because it requires delicate finger movements. With the clouds, I use circular movements using the unsharpen side of the chalks. Thank you Robert for your kind comments.
I took this photo of the picture before I had re-worked the background of the tree so it's now looking much better than shown here. The picture is being framed at the moment and with the glass over it, I doubt I will get a better photo with all the reflections of the glass.
I can't wait to start another chalk painting outdoors, I feel hem in at home at the moment since just now, we are having part of the wing of the roof repaired, our builders are on the scaffolding hammering away, hopefully this will do the trick and no more water will be trickling in. It is fortunate we were able to get them at such short notice and all will be made new before the winter gets here. What a relief! since it has rained a lot in the past two days.
Hi Maria
Yes, get as much as you can done in the summer while it lasts. I suppose it's possible to do autumnal or winter scenes outdoors, but I don't suppose it's as much fun. If you're sitting there doing your picture, then you're not moving around and keeping warm. The only artist I can think of who paints on the move is Rolf Harris. Ha!
Yes, the most famous examples of winter scenes are by Brugel like the Massacre Of The Innocents. One of several paintings where a biblical theme is treated in a contemporary way. In that particular winter painting, Brugel highlights the atrocities of Herod's soldiers, (shown as a Spanish brutal force attacking a Flemish village.) Another Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp who was deaf, specialized in delicate winter scenes with colourful figures skating on a frozen lake which create a vivid impression of a cold winter's day.
Its very cold to paint outdoors in the winter but maybe if I do pastel sketches like these two here, it would be possible to make them in more detail in oils in the studio. Rolf Harris no doubt has got a whole team to carry his paints and easel around the world.
Hi Maria
On the subject of cold, there was a painting whose title I cannot remember and whose artist I cannot remember, but I think he was British. The thing I remember about the painting is, there was a figure in the painting who was shivering with cold. I cannot remember if it was on a frozen pond or not. The wind was blowing, and the figure was shivering in the cold wind in an amazingly realistic way.
Sorry Robert, I don't know that painting at all where did you see it? It would be nice to see it.
I saw it on a TV programme. If I remember right, the art critic Brian Sewell didn't much like the rest of the painting, but he liked the figure in the wind very much.
I wonder whether some artists are better at doing certain things, whether they have strengths and weaknesses. I don't mean average or good artists, but great ones. I had always thought that someone like Leonardo or Michelangelo could paint anything equally well. But I remember reading a book by Kenneth Clarke where he said that although William Blake wasn't as good an artist as the top Renaissance artists, he was extremely good at drawing flames and his flames were better than the ones by Botticelli, or Masaccio, or whoever it was (I forgot the name). I was wondering whether a great artist might do good human figures but struggle with trees, or do good faces but have trouble doing clothes and drapery.
I think what you like is subjective. I know that I prefered another painting when Sewell was judging a painting competition in programme called 'The Watercolour Challenge.'
Yes Robert, Renoir was magical when painting portraits and flowers but I don't think his landscapes were that great. A Spanish Art teacher once told us to paint what you love and it will always come up well.
Hi Maria
That's a very nice picture of the farmland, and I think it's extremely skilful the way you get the distant view to look so faint and ethereal. It's also a very interesting picture because although there are no figures in it one feels there's actually a lot going on there.
Your comments give me the incentive to carry on working thank you Robert. You should have seen what happened with this painting, I was quite advanced with it and had parked my car on a 90 degree hill when the farmer appeared on the road with a huge combine harvester to cut the wheat in those fields. Oh nooo.. the moment I dreaded was going to happen, so I walked towards the farmers in their machines and asked him if he would give me 10 more minutes and that was it, I had to clear out of there plus it was a bit tricky to reverse the car because the combine harvesters were on the way, I had to come home to finish it by memory.
Don't worry, Maria, you did a very good job of it.
Please remember to put your handbrake on when parking on a hill. It's fine to get carried away by your painting, but not by your car.
That was the other thing.. I did put on the hand-brake but in my haste to leave the fields I forgot to take the handbrake off so driving back, I kept on hearing this alarm and funny smell of rubber inside the car and it wasn't until I got home when I was going to put the handbrake on that I realized I hadn't taken it off in the first place, hence the rubber smell and the alarm luckily it wasn't a long drive but yes, you are right, I must remember to do both things in the future.
Oh crumbs, I hope the discs are OK then.
I reckon if you explain to the farmers that you want to paint their fields, they'll probably let you park the car in their yard and walk into the fields to do the painting. They'll probably be flattered, and might even buy the pictures.
The trouble is that they are never there, for the most part, these fields are empty, devoid of people and when they show up its with their gigantic machines where they want you to move out of their way because essentially I'm trespassing. I don't even know the name of these farms which I will have to find out when I put the pictures in an exhibition next month. I think the car is fine, now is the other way around, the field I have chosen, is downwards so I try to park with the boot of the car first so its easy for me to see when I have to drive out onto the main road.
Hi Maria
Yes it can be difficult to know where one farm stops and another one starts. Are the roads very narrow? I remember when we holidayed in Cornwall and Devon, it was quite common for three or four cars to have to back up because a coach wanted to get through.
Fortunatelly, this road is not narrow but that means the big lorries can go there as well, the good thing is that there are certain times when the road is not very busy although there seems to be a helicopter training or something like that, two farms away and the sound was quite infernal so I put on two cotton wools in my ears because I was determined I was not going to go away. The helicopter came flying and circling around two times it was annoying but after about an hour they buzzed off, then I had a bit of trouble getting out of the field as the rear tires kept on turning without advancing forward maybe it was slippery because it had rained earlier in the end, I put the accelerator at full throtle and it got unstuck and into the main road in one go.
Sometimes at these gates they have mirrors to help motorists who are edging out blind.
I wonder why the helicopters are there.
I wondered that too. Since all they were doing was flying in a straight line and then landing again doing this several times and it was only twice that they circled around me wanting to see what I was doing there so it ocurred to me that maybe someone very important was there and this was security when they finally flew away they were so low, I could actually see people they were looking at me and I was looking at them, not clearly but there were at least 4 people in the helicopter. Two days in a row.
Good job you weren't there taking photos, Maria.
Why? you think they may have thought I was a paparrazi if I had been taking photos? Its all very strange, one of the helicopters was rather big the sort they use for the search and rescue. I know that Prince William is stationed in Anglesy and it wouldn't be difficult for him to fly around here. I know that it wasn't Prince Charles because he has a red helicopter which comes to the Royal Welsh every year and that finished last week. Strange.
Well, no helicopters today, but the sun was so infernal that I couldn´t stay as long as I wish. I will try again tomorrow. At least I know there won´t be noisy helicopters circling over my head anymore.
Post a Comment