Playing with a dip pen

My grandmother was an art teacher and I was fortunate enough to get some of her equipment.  One thing that I inherited was a set of dip pens originating from the 1920’s.  Well, I came across them recently and decided to see how they would combine with watercolour paint.  The results are presented below.  I used Windsor & Newton Sepia Calligraphy permanent ink in combination with my Windsor & Newton Cotman watercolours.   I found that the earth colours combine really well with the sepia ink.

The first sketch his based on an photo I found in a British magazine.  The second sketch was about 80% improvised and could be a representation of the shack from the book The Shack by William Paul Young.  I have never been comfortable with improvisation, so this was a breakthrough for me.  I like the different values of green that I obtained by tinting the light green with an ultramarine blue.  I used Payne’s Grey in some places for the shadows under the trees and for the porch.

An English mansion.

The Shack.

Watercolour painting of a Venda woman

To date I have struggled doing a watercolour painting.  The reason is probably that you need some patience to do a proper watercolour, since you need to let the different layers dry of partially dry before you can apply the next layer.  It could also be that I have been working on the wrong paper.  My paper was probably too absorbent.  The work that I have published to date here on the blog was more sketches that proper paintings since the paint was used to colour a pen sketch.  Sometimes the paint was actually used as you would in a painting, but my aim was more sketching that painting.

For the work presented here I tried to actually do a painting.  I used a video taken during a community development project that we are involved with in Northern Limpopo (in the Venda area) as a reference.  I tried to  do some proper layering, but I think that the changes in values between the second and third layers was too big, causing hard edges in the painting.  I could also have used less pen, but overall it was a reasonable success.

Venda woman

A napkin

During my previous post I tried to paint a tablecloth and realized that it is not easy, so I tried to experiment a bit with painting cloth.  My “model” was a checked napkin (presented below).  I tried to capture shadows and the weaving of the pattern as the material rises and falls.  I used purple for the shadows.  I think I achieved the sense of realism that I was looking for at the start.

Napkin

Tea time

My experience in capturing the real life at Johannesburg Zoo (my previous post) on the Saturday led me to try and capture our Sunday afternoon teatime.  Below is my attempt.  It is somewhat sketchy and loose, but it is actually capturing the essence of the afternoon.

Tea time

Johannesburg Zoo – plein air

As I mentioned before, I have always been fascinated by the idea of painting outdoor, also known as plein air painting.  One opportunity that I recently had of painting outdoor was when we had a year-end function at the Johannesburg Zoo.  I sat down with the intention of capturing an atmosphere, rather than being too specific in capturing the reality.  The sketch below was the outcome.  IT worked against time and with an audience, but some things still came out fine.  I did not like the faces.  I am bad with face and I am still working on improving.  Sometime I actually leave the face out all together.  The postures were also not good and the trees in the background is blobby, but I liked the shadows and the tree on the left.  It may sound like I did not like the work at all.  I may find a lot of faults with it, but for me  it was a milestone in trying to capture a moment from real life with people looking over my shoulder and me working against time.

Johannesburg Zoo

Just sketching

Sometimes I just sketch.  Just to keep up my skills and just to check that I can still do it.  It has become my primary form of artistic expression, probably because it is so hassle-free to do.  Acrylics are complex and quite messy, but forgiving and very rewarding.  I can make a mistake with acrylics and I can fix it, but with pen and watercolour you usually cannot fix it.  So the one thing that watercolour allows me is to do is to paint quickly and wherever I want to.

Here are a couple of quick sketches that I made one evening.  They were not meant to be anything special – just a bit of a study in light and shadow.  Payne’s Grey played a big role in my effective creation of shadows.  I have found the Windsor & Newton Cotman Payne’s Grey to be one of the most valuable colours in my paintbox.  I can use it to tint colours and to layer it to create shadows by itself.  It is also not as potent as black, so it does not mess up the painting that easily. The sketches were not done on good quality paper, but I accomplished what I wanted to do in the study, which was to play with shading.

 

Wood bowl

Wood stove

Urban sketching – Hillfox

I started to join the Johannesburg Urban Sketcher in July 2014.  I mentioned urban sketching in a previous post here.  The idea of urban sketching is to go around your city to and draw/paint/sketch whatever you see.  The international urban sketchers’ website is a good source of information.  Also check out their Facebook page and their Flikr page.  The Johannesburg group is headed by Cathy Gatland.  The group’s Facebook page is a good source of local activity.

The essence of urban sketching is to sketch what you see.  The medium is not important, but it is important to capture you local city or town and share your attempts online.  My first attempts was to join the Johannesburg group when they visited the Hillfox centre.  This is plein air work in the roughest possible form.  I tried to work as fast as possible and at this point my style was still developing, but I thought to still share it.  I used 0.3 mm permanent ink pen with my Windsor & Newton Cotman watercolour.

Hillfox

HIllfox Food Lover’s Market

De Rust aloes

As a final project for my June holiday I decided to paint some of the local aloes.  De Rust is well known for these plants with their flaming flowers.  I first made a watercolour sketch of some aloes in our backyard.  The “flames” should have been a little more orange than red.

Watercolour aloe sketch

Then I used acrylics to do a proper painting of the aloes.  My aim was to do an impressionist style painting where I work rougher rather than trying to go for all the detail in the painting.  I made a reddish underpainting of a colour similar to the soil of the area.  This colour shines through in some places and tends to form a connection between the different parts of the painting and even created a link between the sky and the soil.  I am satisfied with the painting.  The depth of colours and the shadows just works.  I just made one mistake in that I used a glossy varnish to finish the painting.  This left it with a artificial look and it ruined the painting in the end.

Fingers of fire

Plein air De Rust

I continued my plein air endeavors by sketching the Dutch Reformed Church on De Rust.  I was not too satisfied with the lines, but it was OK.  It is more the trees that bothered me, but I sorted that out in later sketches

Dutch Reformed Church De Rust

The sketch below was made on location of Die Gat guest house close to De Rust.

Die Gat geusthouse

My first plein air work

For my first plein air (painting/drawing something on location) work, I used a frame and grid to determine the proportions.  I tried to cram as much detail as possible into the image and was satisfied as it is a good resemblance of the actual house.  Looking at it now, I think the colours could have been more intense, but it is a good representation of the actual building and garden.

Burgerstreet 4, De Rust

My second plain air approach was to sketch the house directly across the road from the house above.  This is the house where we stay during our De Rust holidays.  This was quite a difficult painting as I had to add enough shadows to make it believable whilst not making the painting “muddy”.  I am reasonable satisfied with the outcome.  At a point of interest, I caught a criminal that escaped from the local prison while doing this sketch.

Burgerstraat 3, De Rust