Painting Blackfriars

On Saturday, September 20th, residents of Blackfriars will host the inaugural “Painting Blackfriars” community arts festival. Over 40 artists from the Gallery Painting Group will converge to capture the charm of this historic neighbourhood in plein air paintings. From 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. the artists will set up their easels and paints at vantage points throughout the community to paint houses, streets, gardens and the river.

Gallery Painting Group Show and Sale

Just finishing the matting and framing of a couple of peices for Gallery Painting Group Annual Show next weekend. The summer came and went too quickly. Between work, golf, family and weather issues, I didn't attend as many paintouts as I would have liked. The GPG scheduled events have finished for the season, but I still plan to get out to work on location.

GPG Second Drawing

Path by the Fence (6.5" x 10", Ink and Graphite)

Finished the second of two drawing at the Gallery Painting Group Location. With this one I was consciously using solid black and leaving white areas. Sometimes I get carried away with drawing all over the paper, instead of using the negative space and the white of the paper. This drawing is slightly out of proportion, but I really liked the dead tree on the left side and wanted it in.

GPG Country Location

Gallery Painting Group location, north west of the city. Country property with rolling hills. Went to this location, first on a Saturday, but accomplished nothing. Figured out why, I had my contacts in the wrong eyes. Just enough of a difference to make it hard to concentrate and see completely clearly. Colin and I wend back a few days later. Both of us had decided that we wanted to paint the field with the bails, BUT they were gone! So we went for a walk on another part of the property, I spotted this small building set among the trees. This was the first of two drawing I did.

Shed Among the Trees (5.5" x 10", graphite and ink)

The other one remains unfinished. I seem to have alot of unfinished artwork lying around at his point. My goal for the next week is to just to finish all the drawings I have started.

Port Stanley Paintout

Saturdays paint out was to a lovely house on the beach in Port Stanley. Continuing with my goal of painting every week, I worked on a couple of watercolours of the shoreline. Both need more work... hopefully tomorrow I have time to finish both them, from the photo reference. This ink drawing on stonehenge drawing paper, was supposed to be just that, an ink drawing, but now that I have started working with colour, it seemed unfinished, so I added a little bit of colour.



Port Stanley Shoreline (6" x 9" Ink and Watercolour)

Adding Colour

I draw. Graphite and Ink are my favourite mediums. One reason is simplicity. All I need is a pencil and some paper and I am ready to go. Second reason is that I believe that drawing is the cornerstone of all visual art. I believe that until you master the art of drawing, which is really about learning to see, you will struggle with other mediums. I am far from mastering it, but I am now reasonably comfortable with my drawing skills.

Having said that, I am ready to work in other mediums. My goal with the Gallery Painting Group this summer is to paint. Watercolour. Visited a beautiful city garden yesterday. Flowers are not my favourite subject. With a little searching you can always find something visually interesting. The screened gazebo was interesting, but with architecture I tend to try to be too perfect and detailed. The pair of old work boots, filled with hens and chicks was a good subject for a small drawing/painting. I worked on three small images at once, simply to let the ink/watercolour dry. This is one of them.... I really consider this to be a drawing with colour added.



Old Work Boots (4.25" x 4.25" Ink and Watercolour)