Lifebook weeks 10 and 12

Week 10 was a lovely lesson from Effy Wild - a tree created with lots of layering and glazing. I folowed the demonstration videos very closely for this lesson, so I can't take any credit for the design right down to the colour choices. The glazing was amazingly effective, it's a technique where you have to plan ahead - creating underpainting to glaze over. When I paint on canvas it's usually not very planned, I kind of do a random underpainting just to cover the blank canvas, and then see what that suggests and turn it into something! There is a lot of relying on chance and hoping that inspiration will appear... On the other hand when I do a linocut it's carefully drawn out and planned in advance, so maybe I could get my head around planning out a painting to use glazing!

I spent so long on week 10 that I didn't get around to the week 11 lesson.

Week 12 was a watercolour with Susana Tavares. Watercolour is a medium I'm not confident with - particularly because you can't go over your mistakes! So I  was surprised how much I enjoyed this lesson and learned a lot. Again I followed the demonstration very closely.

I do feel a bit ambivalent about copying the lessons so closely. I guess in the past that's how artists learned to paint, by copying old masters. These days it's all about being original, doing something new, it's hard to put that attitude aside. If nothing else I'm putting together a folder of techniques that will be a great reference for me in the future.

Terrible watercolours!!

For the past few years, every Christmas holidays I plan to go painting 'plein air'. Sometimes I have managed a couple of watercolours, one year I bought myself a beautiful moleskine book with heavy paper...which is still in the wrapping, far too daunting to use.

I have the idea of painting sunsets, storm clouds can be glorious at this time of year. But evening is the time of day when I'm low energy and have chores to do. I found that the holidays were zooming past and I hadn't done one painting. So instead of worrying about sunsets I took my paints along on my morning walks. I did these 2 quick sketcches on a windy morning at the beach.

And this one down at the park on new years day.

These are just in a normal little sketchpad, I'm using good quality paints but they seem to soak into the paper and disappear. So I bought a little watercolour pad to see what difference it would make. I did this sketch of evening clouds above my house yesterday, and the colour seems much better.

Hopefully I'll get a few more done before the kids go back to school and normal routines kick in. When I think about going painting I imagine doing something like the watercolours of Emil Nolde!!! with free brushwork and intense colour. The reality is very different, wrestling with a medium I'm not comfortable with - I like to work with line not light...

One of the blogs I follow has some gorgeous watercolours, I wish I could do some like that!! Go visit Jumie's blog and take a look :)

I hope your new year has started well. Best wishes to all.

Patience

Before I had kids I thought I was a patient person. These days I lose my temper a lot more than I'd like to admit. Often I hang onto it all day, and then lose it at shower time, when peace and quiet is almost within reach. You can be sure one of the kids just won't get in the shower, and then once they're in won't get out. (I'm gnashing my teeth just thinking about it)

Working on being patient is something I have to remind myself about often. I like the phrase 'practising patience', because of the suggestion that if I keep practising I might get there in the end...

These journal pages started with splaxhing about watercolour to let off steam after a grumpy evening, but the end result makes me think of how women used to embroider verses from the bible, an act of contemplation.