Rue Lepic

(Rue Lepic, 10x20, Inktense)

This is my contribution to the virtual paintout the Bill Guffey hosts. This month he took us to Paris and I found this lovely little street.

The perspective on this drawing is all out of wack but that is intentional and it is supposed to look a bit sketchy and even a little odd. I think the right hand side looks a bit off and I think I must have had my camera at a bit of an angle but it's late so...

This painting was fun to do and now that it is done I quite like it and may do more based on several other sketches I did while "touring" Paris.

Promise of Something More

Wild Apple Blossoms I (6x6, Inktense Pencils)

I love apple blossoms. They are delicate and beautiful and they mean that spring is here and summer is on it's way. The crabapple trees loaded with fuschia blossoms all around just make me happy.

This picture was done from a photo I took yesterday of some wild apple blossoms growing near the garbage dump. They aren't that exotic fuschia colour of the mikmaks and the like, they are soft and delicate and when I saw them I had to stop.

The suprise was the scent. "Tame" crabapples don't have that scent. The smell of these wild apples was lovely. It was sweet but subtle, just the hint of scent that would get stonger as a breeze blew by and then would waft away again. I would be left wondering where it came from and where it had gone and when would it come back. It left me waiting for and wanting the promise of something more.

The drawing is in inktense pencils again and is on stonhenge paper.

Brown Horse

Portrait of a Brown Horse (Inktense pencil, 10x10)

The inspiration for this portrait came from Inspiration All Around Us - a photo taken by Dana Marie called "Modesty" that she posted on her blog. It was a realtively quick one to do. Drawing horses is easy for me - I've been doing it for 30 years now... I really liked the pose of this horse. I cropped the original image in my quick sketch and then after I transferred it to Stonehenge paper I got going with my inktense pencils and water. I piddled around for awhile with light washes and underpainted with reds, yellows and purple and then I added the top layers. The underpainting actually changes the way the top colour comes out. The body of the horse is a bit rough in this photo and I've reworked it a bit now, not sure which way I like it better... If I decide I like the new version better I'll change the picture.

I'm happy with how this turned out though. I think I kept it loose and not too controlled. My horse is a little heavier than the one in the photo but I guess that's OK. Thanks to Dana Marie for providing such great reference photos, this is my first attempt at interpretting one of her shots and I hope to do it again.

Stop Lights

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here.

That was supposed to be because I was going on vacation and was busy at work before I left but as it turns out I never went anywhere - my basement flooded and the trip got cancelled. But that gave me some time in the last 3 days to work on this picture that I desperately wanted to do.

Karin Jurick, at Different Strokes From Different folks posted an image of New York City the challenge for the last 3 weeks. The work done with this image and that is posted on Karin's blog (see link at side) is terrific.

Karin had made a comment that some people say that they are nervous working outside of their comfort zone and that who wants to always do what they are familiar with. I agree with her. How do you learn unless you try new and unfamiliar things??? I wish I could step outside of my comfort zone more easily in my real life - the way I am willing to do it with my art. All I can say is that I am still a work in progress. I don't think I'll ever be finished.

Anyways... This wasn't something that was out of my comfort zone per se. It was really more like something I had never thought of doing. I try to approach my art with a no fear policy and just go for it.

So I just went for it and this is my interpretation of her image. I did it with Derwent Inktense pencils on Stonehenge paper and used water over top of the pencils which makes the colours incredibl vibrant and alive.

Stop Lights (Inketense pencils on paper, 14x16)

I am happy with how this turned out. It is the second time I've used the Inktense pencils and the only time I have ever done an in-colour picture of a cityscape. I like that it challenged me to get outside of something that I would normally do and I really enjoyed the puzzle of all the buildings.

I had a couple of goals. The first was to make sure the taxis and vehicles were grounded in the picture and that they didn't look like they were just floating on top of the ashphalt. The second was to use the intensity of the colour and the detail of the drawing to help with perspective. The third was to try and paint the buildings loosely so that the cars stayed the focus of the work. And the fourth was to make the stop lights and the tail lights look like they were glowing.

I think that I managed to do that.

The lines of the building edges aren't perfectly straight and I guess the light post on the right is leaning at a bit of an angle but I don't mind. For me this is supposed to be representational and not photorealistic - I want it to look like a painting or drawing and not like I just took a photo.

Next I want to work on my Virtual Paintout paintings of Paris and I'm thinking the old Inktense pencils may be coming out again for those drawings as well.