art class

Last Squeak of 2013

| June Malone

And so as Christmas creaks into view, with the nation reaching wearily for its winter woolies once again, lo – behold my latest offering before I totally disappear up my own festive fundament.

Portrait©FinalPersonally, I prefer a looser, more spontaneous and drippy effect to this overworked watercolour portrait, but I learned so much; primarily how to conquer my fear of a blank sheet of paper:

  • my pigments are not as translucent as those of the tutor
  • squinting to properly see tone, light, shadow and reflected light
  • identifying warm and cool colours
  • preparation – pre-mix enough paints
  • glazing – how graduated washes create many layers – first time using a mop brush
  • establishing soft and hard edges
  • lifting off damp as well as dried pigment
  • ability to look at watercolour paintings by other artists and decipher which technical aspects were probably used

I enjoyed this online course so much.

Herewith the various stages showing the process…

Portrait©MontagePortrait©Likeness…just don’t ask me to share the technical details – it took me a long time to complete and I am busy preparing for the impending fa-la-laaa fiasco.

Once they have had time to complete the course themselves and IF they decide to publish, I will be adding links here to posts by my good painting buddies, Leslie White and Carol King.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.  Rum pum pum pum!

I’m not a slacker…I’m just surrounded by over-achievers!

| June Malone

I won’t lie.  Sometimes not very much art happens.  (What do you mean, you noticed?)

Yes, it’s been a while but here I am again – and thanks to this great online watercolour portrait tutorial I’m getting a kick out of painting again.

This image is merely an exercise in tonal values which I found compelling.  Agreed, it is undoubtedly overworked for what is supposed to be a simple study.

I find the tutor, Matt Rota, to be exceptional and easy to understand.  I haven’t even started the final portrait yet and I already feel I’ve learned more in a couple of hours watching his tutorials than ever before.

I’d forgotten what it’s like to be this motivated and giddy about painting…I feel like I could throw off sparks from my fingertips.  A new phase in my creativity is opening up and finally giving it some direction.  Seriously, I don’t know if I can take much more excitement!

Despite your suspicions, I’m not getting paid to drool enthusiastically about this course.

Au Naturel

| June Malone

More pictures of (the same) bare, naked man without a stitch on, in his birthday suit.  He was impressive in that he effortlessly held difficult poses without swaying or trembling and never complained.  Next week we’ll have a female model.

This figure drawing/painting class is freeing me up – it’s refreshing to focus purely on the PROCESS instead of the end product.

The first was a 15 minute pose and the second 10 minutes.  In future I’ll only use large 420 x 594 mm paper for figure drawing as the 10 minute studies are far superior to the 20 minute watercolour I did on smaller 356 x 254 mm paper….which is why I’m not showing it to you.

Male Nude

| June Malone

I thought that would get your attention!

Today was my first figure drawing/painting class since the age of nineteen.

After some initial nerves I decided to simply have fun, especially as I was wearing my lucky Wonder Woman pants.  Technically, there is room for improvement, this I know.  I’m trying to disciplin myself to really SEE and make my hand draw what I see.

The scanning isn’t up to much but here is one of my ten minute study plus a twenty minute effort in watercolour and ink.