After the last post, I had a terrible session at the AVAA where I ended up doing an almost cartoon life drawing of the model. I finished the session early, feeling defeated and broken. The above drawing is from this week. Again I struggled. This was the 3rd and most successful drawing. Below is the worse.
I can’t even think what was I was considering as I drew this. It started off as a very poor drawing in pencil and then I decided in the last 20 mins to add colour. I was desperate for it to work.
This was my first drawing, at least the feet look like they stuck to the ground! It definitely feels like I am going backwards at the moment. I can see good points in this and the top drawing but both are disjointed, in that parts don’t seem to be connected to each other. It like I am creating several drawings on one page to create one drawing.
My new venture is plein air painting with the Plein air Austin group and that is tough, not just because of the Texas heat. Again, my drawing skills suck. My first venture wasn’t too bad but I only painted for about an hour as it had taken me longer to find the location than anticipated. Ironically it is about a 15 min drive from my house but it took me over an hour to find it! I intend to go back as it is a great location.
This is a very small painting – 6×4 inches and done in oils. After painting in the garden recently and tackling acrylic paint that dried too quickly in the Texas heat, I decided to try out oils for the first time in over 30 yrs. Yep, now I remember why I ended up painting in acrylics! I am a messy painter and oils have a tendency to spread if I am near them. However, I intend to continue and on this Thursday’s paint out, I discovered MUD.
I realised after an hr and a bit I started out too tentatively and I really couldn’t see the wood for the trees LOL. I was concentrating on the pattern the trees were making. In the last 30 mins of this painting , I decided to hell with it and just started to load on the paint (still pretty thin to be honest). I can see I will need lots of practise with oil paint as it so different from acrylics.
Plein air is also reminding me how nerve-racking painting with a crowd can be. On the first paint out I was able to concentrate as we were in the middle of nowhere but this week we were in the middle of a very public garden with tours for young children and mothers trying to entertain toddlers for the summer. On top of that, there were the very loud peacocks wandering around. Memories of my days at Corsham abounded with the ‘theo’ calls that were constantly in the background.
This week I will task myself to go to the local park several times and just draw as I seriously need to just draw and observe more. Now I know I can tackle the heat, it might not be so bad. I am also working on a still life which has taken too long basically because my drawing skills are so poor. However, the basic drawing is now done, so now the painting can commence.
Jacqui Boyd Alden 