Lockdown and ... Another Challenge

Some of our members have been working while lockdown has cramped all other activities.

We hope you fellow artists feel inspired. When you have any work, do forward it to us for inclusion.

Here, Nicky Ross has been working on eucalyptus leaves she found on her early morning walk in Clovelly Golf Club. Nicky shows that even small items have a place in a drawing. What was your medium, Nicky? Is it in dry or oil pastel?

Marcelle has been working on a number of different themes. 

We recognise the alley of oaks at Ohio Farm. Always an inspiration. 
Those florals are gorgeous. Marcelle works in oils - even when heading for a paint out destination.

Which brings us to the next CHALLENGE.

We are suggesting a ROUND work of art (take a dinner plate and draw a circle and work 

within that!) and if you are stumped for a theme, then the suggestion is GLASS. 

...A glass, a twig in a glass, a glass of water, a glass of painting water, a vase, your reflection 

in a mirror... 

You'll have plenty of ideas and if you don’t want to be challenged by glass, invent your own theme.

Deadline for receiving works is 15 June.

Send your work to us either at noninichols@gmail.com or zwets@mweb.co.za 

AND LASTLY... TWO TIPS
You're probably unable to get any news art supplies for the moment but here are a couple of recycling ideas.
1. Use the backside of your less-superb paintings for more painting or drawing practice
2. Use kitchen towel to dry off your brushes or reduce brush load? Don't throw them out after use. Dry them and use them again. (That's a Hazel Soan tip!).

Do you have any tips? Send them to us for inclusion here.

Meanwhile...John has been busy

Just before we get on to John's creativity, we received a slightly late participating picture for the fruit and veg challenge. Too good to leave out, we include Marie Rowe's bright and well composed painting which she did in water-based oils while in Hermanus lockdown. It speaks for itself! Well done!

And so to John:
Ever active, John has been painting and drawing numerous and varied subjects during lockdown.
He works from his own photographic archives, memory and also creates paintings entirely from his imagination.

Here are some of his (mostly) watercolours.

The Mona Lisa gets a facelift

Hello fellow artists,

Our FHAS photographer ,Rob McAlpine, discovered this wonderful bit of video footage and has sent it along for us all to enjoy. If we thought Photoshopping was amazing, this goes way beyond, as you will see.
It is how the famous painting of the Mona Lisa gets a digital facelift in Paris.
Just click on the arrow to watch.

Keep painting!

Updating those fruit and veg

APOLOGIES.

Your blogger was too keen to get the pictures up on the web (before a lockdown birthday) and so was delighted to receive more paintings later. 

May we remind you of the August theme for the Hugh Murdoch Trophy:

THROUGH THE WINDOW. 

It can be any sort of window. See from outside in. Or inside out. A passing glimpse through a car or truck window. A bird tapping away at your window (I have a very persistent couple of sparrows in Fish Hoek), view from an airplane window, the window of the gondola going up Table Mountain, something in a shop window, the rain drops coming down your window... Wow! 

There are just so many options. Start thinking fellow artists.

So back to our fruit and veg pictures. The latest ones are now the first ones in the page.

Sue Wilkes tackled here complicated theme (flowers AND fruit) in watercolour with great effect. Glad to see you used all the paper for this bright and large image, Sue.

  

 Maugie found some colourful bold fruit to tackle. The fruit bowl has an excellent composition, Maugie.
Is it pomegranate season? Are these works in oil or acrylic?  I can see they are on a canvas surface.
Either way, well done. 

And Noni took to painting a trug of summer garden produce in watercolour.

And now back to our earlier works.

This picture was done with oil pastels, a delightfully rich medium. Maureen used a blue dish to successfully set off the vivid yellows and oranges. Note how the roughness of the paper contributes to the illusion of roughness in the orange peel. Do more Maureen!

John found some vibrant autumn coloured leaves which he put, to great effect,  on a very dark background. This type of background that focuses your interest on the subject matter is worth trying out with other still life arrangements.

Ann returned to the ever popular theme of peppers: Using a mixture of graphite an watercolour they are bright and vibrant. Most of us have peppers in the larder and their solid rounded shapes are excellent for subject matter.

Fiona went a bit overboard trying out various different approaches (and learning where she ought not to venture!).


Watercolour and a wobbly hand didn't produce a good result. So she got out coloured pencils where the artist is in control and did the same bit again with greater success.

But there was more to come. That pile of fruit and veg.

This was a graphite drawing with a bit of overlaid watercolour. Ann did something similar above. It is probably more successful as a graphite work but the temptation to add colour was too much.

Why stop there?

And so she did it, item by item, in watercolour. And splatted some colour over the end result.

There are so many different ways of tackling a picture, as we showed in the previous blog concerning a challenge to produce fruit and veg.

It is fun experimenting and don't forget to use both sides of your paper so nothing goes to waste.

Some fruit and veg paintings

A few people took up pen, pencil or watercolour to answer the fruit and veg challenge.

The first picture was done with oil pastels, a delightfully rich medium. Maureen used a blue dish to successfully set off the vivid yellows and oranges. Note how the roughness of the paper contributes to the illusion of roughness in the orange peel. Do more Maureen!

John found some vibrant autumn coloured leaves which he put, to great effect,  on a very dark background. This type of background that focuses your interest on the subject matter is worth trying out with other still life arrangements.

Ann returned to the ever popular theme of peppers: Using a mixture of graphite an watercolour they are bright and vibrant. Most of us have peppers in the larder and their solid rounded shapes are excellent for subject matter.

Fiona went a bit overboard trying out various different approaches (and learning where she ought not to venture!).


Watercolour and a wobbly hand didn't produce a good result. So she got out coloured pencils where the artist is in control and did the same bit again with greater success.

But there was more to come. That pile of fruit and veg.

This was a graphite drawing with a bit of overlaid watercolour. Ann did something similar above. It is probably more successful as a graphite work but the temptation to add colour was too much.

Why stop there?

And so she did it, item by item, in watercolour. And splatted some colour over the end result.

There are so many different ways of tackling a picture, as we showed in the previous blog concerning a challenge to produce fruit and veg.

It is fun experimenting and don't forget to use both sides of your paper so nothing goes to waste.

Colour up some fruit or veg

Waiting for the results of the DRAWING COMPETITION, we're still here and we're still confined so let's get cracking on something new and colourful.

It's not a competition, it's about having a bit of fun with colour. Or line. Your choice.

I bought my veggies and fruit last week and laid them out on the washing machine to dry (yes! here where I am quarantined you have to wash and disinfect all fruit and veg coronavirus or not!).

What a variety of shapes and colours I thought. Surely there was a painting in there?

Do I hear you saying: what, just a bit of fruit?

Yes fruit, even simple apples, make a picture as that wonderful French painter Cézanne showed us.

The great Spanish master, Zurbarán, was also rather good at moody fruit scenes. Lots of dark shadows - fun to try and imitate on black paper?

Cézanne was following a great artistic tradition that was particularly popular in the 16th and 17th centuries  - Nature Morte, Still life paintings. 

The Dutch were prolific painters of such subjects as you can see in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Not been there? No excuse! Works in the Rijksmuseum and dozens of other magnificent museums around the world can be viewed during a virtual visit online.

Tap here and off you go:  https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/from-home 

Look at these other images 'borrowed' from the internet - I've selected a varied to show different approaches starting with a couple of pears by British artist, Andrew Geeson (he's got a good website).

And Hazel Soan's fruit - done in 10 minutes - from her book of 10-minute watercolours. Lots of wet paint, and excellent wet in wet. BUT as Hazel would tell you, lots of thinking before you put the paint onto the paper. Think before pink!

You'll see that you don't have to do a whole bowl, or even the whole fruit to make a picture.

       

Maybe you remember either of these, below, that were shown in a workshop a couple of years ago.

No fancy props. Just a dish or a bowl. And done in coloured crayon. Not up to Cézanne's standard (or sale price!) but nevertheless fun to do and a colourful result.

So, how to proceed? 

Get out your pencils, paints, or crayons. And decide what type of paper you'll use. 

Look at what you have. Arrange it simply but tastefully with side lighting or good shade somewhere to give good depth. Unless you just fancy doing an outline drawing or painting. 

You don't need many props.  A plate, and you can ignore the background. Or, if you followed the 'cellphone blog' a few weeks ago, arrange your potatoes, apples, bananas or grapes - whatever - and take some snaps and work on them on your phone, pad or computer, cropping or manipulating till they are sharp and colourful. 

Or that old standby, just cut a rectangle in an old bit of paper and hold it up to your fruit, moving it around till you find, confined by your cut-out, shapes and colour you like.

It's also a smart idea to take a photo of your composition in case the painting gets interrupted by your early morning walk, the plumber or Netflix and the lighting conditions change.

You don't have to have realistic colour. You don't even have to have colour! Last week's DRAWING COMPETITION featured, if you recall, a simple drawing of an onion in graphite. And you don't have to reproduce every nuance and blemish to make a good picture.

I looked again at my fruit on the washing machine and isolated an area I thought might make a picture. But I didn't like all those tacky stems at the top of the grapes and decided to cover them up with more grapes. See below.

But don't think this is just about fruit. Veg are good too!

Over to you. Send us your pictures by 20th May and we'll put them on the internet later on.

Happy painting.