New Commission- work in progress

This is what I'm working on at the moment. A new mixed media painting with a musical theme. This is for my brother's music studio so music is an obvious theme. Continuing my current love for quirky buildings and rooftops I thought it would be cool to do a New York themed rooftop jazz / blues band.


Early sketches and ideas

Prepping the canvas

Used collage and various texture pastes to build this up


Transferring the sketch and incorporating some of the random collage and texture shapes

THe silver leaf really picks up the flash! hoping this will help with the glittering city in the distance

RYan

Last rays- Glen Sannox

Last rays- Glen Sannox
Soft pastel on board
18x12inches

Another landscape from Arran. The previous Bastion painting was from the top left of the ridge looking down to spot this painting is from. Here we are looking back up Glen Sannox with the Bastion on the left guarding the entrance. 'The saddle' can be seen at the far end of the valley. We almost went that way till we say the descent!! Opted to come down 'the Devil's Punchbowl' onto the lush (and boggy!) slope on the left middle distance!

This painting was started on Canson board but I have to say the surface did not suit my heavy impasto style. Lesson learnt. I used one of the Canson boards and used Colourfix 'Supertooth' pastel primer tinted warm red on top to give my grip for my thick pastel layers.


Also tried out my new Henri Roche pastels- very lush and high quality sticks with high pigment content. Very nice - thanks to la maison du pastel

Here's the sketch

Ryan

New Pastel Scribbler available

The new edition of the Pastel Scribbler is now available to download for free from the Pastel Guild of Europe CLICK HERE!

or paste this into your browser:
http://www.pastelguild.com/Scribbler/Pastel_Scribbler_June2012.pdf

Please take a look. There's some great review articles about the various pastel papers available out there. I've got an article in there about the wonderful Sennelier La carte paper that I use for studio paintings.

Enjoy

Ryan

The Bastion- amended!

I got some great new Unison pastels yesterday- their 'Heavenly Shadows' set. I'd not been happy with the shadows in the mountain of 'The Bastion' painting but didn't seem to have the right colour. The great thing with pastels on Sennelier la carte is that using a bristle brush, you can remove layers of pastel and the paper keeps its grainy surface and you can paint over the top.

I've lightened the shadow overall, especially as the Bastion ridge gets further away. By lessening the contrast between dark and light and cooling the shadow colour, it helps to acheive the effect if the ridge receding into the distance.

Ryan

The Bastion, getting a little late in the day

The Bastion, getting a little late in the day

Soft pastel on Sennelier la carte
16x12 inches

Here's another landscape from the recent trip to the Isle of Arran. The mountain is called The Bastion- quite fitting! The valley below is called The Devil's Punchbowl. The bay in the distance is Sannox Bay where our B&B (and the pub!) were waiting. As the title suggests it was getting a bit late in the day and legs were very tired at this point. Home was in sight but there was no easy path down. Plan A was to work our way along the ridge to te Bastion, where according to the map there was a route down (??), we decided against that!. Take my word for it though the Devil's Punchbowl is no easy shortcut!!

With this painting I was trying to capture the sense of distance and aerial perspective. The contrasts of the deep shadow were tricky to control and not dominate the scene. I opted on keeping it simple and just suggest the forms of the slopes in shadow.

Ryan

Standing Stones, Machrie Moor

Standing Stones, Machrie Moor
Pastel on Sennelier La Carte
16x12 inches

Here's a landscape painting, the first I've done in absolutely ages. These stones are one set of about 13 on the amazingly atmospheric Machrie Moor on the Isle of Arran. We stopped for a while here and soaked up the atmosphere (and a dram of whisky).

In the painting I wanted to capture that atmosphere and sense of peace and remoteness that we felt there.

Ryan

These boots are made for walking

These boots are made for walking

Soft pastel on mixed media board
16x12 inches

This painting just won the April 'Get Dusty' competition for the Pastel Guild of Europe! I'm excited as it's the first time I've won something with a painting and it's the first painting I entered in the guild's competition- beginer's luck I reckon!!

This was a bit experimental too I used mixed media collage of old maps from a vintage atlas. Maps of Scotland specifically where I've walked. I'd just come back from a walking holiday on the isle of Arran. I distressed the maps with inks to add to the weathered look. I tore up the paper's edges and stuck to illustration board. This made for an interesting starting surface but to make it suitable for pastel I needed to paint a pastel primer on top. I didn't have one so made my own! Some gesso and acrylic inks gave a neutral grey colour. For Pastel though you need 'tooth' grit or nice expensive paper that holds the pastel dust in multiple layers. I added sand from Portobello beach and marble dust. This gave me a really coarse sand paper ready for the pastel.

When the competition theme came up 'Old shoes still life' I knew straight away that my muddy walking boots would be a good subject. I set up the still life in an interesting composition and lighting and painted with a mixture of soft pastels.

Ryan

A little bird told me

A little bird told me

Mixed media on canvas
8x8 inches

Another small painting, inspired by the noisy bird in the garden! It was so loud and once you'd picked up on the sound it got in your head and couldn't shut it out!

I used personal collage elements as the base of the painting and then embellished with acrylics, inks and texture gels. In this one I added a printed element also.

Hope you like it


Also I became a member of the Pastel Guild of Europe this week. This group's aim is to promote the use and interest of pastel painting as a fine art media. I regularly use pastels for my life drawing/painting group as its ideal for quickly getting an image and colour down on paper- this is really essential when working directly from life as even the best model will move. I'll certainly be doing more pastels as a result, and hopefully pushing myself to do other things like landscapes (I've not done a pure landscape in ages!). I'll try to keep updates coming!

Ryan


Ryan

Setting out

Setting out
15x12 inches
Mixed media on canvas

This one is inspired by the many beautiful harbour/fishing villages on the East Coast of Scotland, Eyemouth, Dunbar, Crail etc.

I've used collage, Inks, Texture gels, Acrylic and oil pastels to create this.


Ryan
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A moment of pure bliss

A moment of pure bliss

mixed media of canvas
8x8 inches

This was a really fun painting to do. Lots of gold bling in there makes it very decorative, Klimt wouuld be pleased!

There is collage elements that are then painted over with acrylics, inks and oil pastels.

Ryan

Classical style drawings

Have been continuing to practice my clssical drawing techniques, here's some recent examples:

This one is from life and took about 1hr 15mins. It utilises grey paper, graphite and heightened by white chalk. There no smudging, only directional hatching to indicate form. This is a technique favoured by many of the old masters.

This one was done yesterday at the National Galleries of Scotland. There was an 'Easel Sketching in the Gallery' event that I took part in. Basically there was a model and easels set-up for volunteers to draw. Took about 20mins, but was tough because there was quite a crowd (about 30-40) bustling around watching you work!! It uses willow charcoal and white chalk on a warm grey paper. Reasonably happy with my effort considering I wasn't warmed up and was under pressure!

Finally I went to the back stair of the gallery where there are many classical Roman busts (Mix of marble and plaster casts). Picked this one to do a sketch off in my journal, using just a new mechanical pencil (HB) I bought. I really liked the fact that this pencil was always sharp! There was quite an audience again as visitors walked past, many stopped to see what I was doing and asked a few quesions. Quite a challenging afternoon!

Ryan

A night on the tiles

A night on the tiles

Here's a sketch of the next painting for my new mixed media style that's developing. The sketch is literally a thumnail 3.5 x 3.5 inches. It's enough to give me an idea of what the finished piece might look like.

For the sketch I use Staedler pigment liners to draw the image, this one worked first time luckily but then I have drawn my cat Baggio lots of times! By using ink, you can't erase any mistakes so makes you just go for it (its only a sketch!). Once I have the drawing down, I use Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble wax pastels to add colour. The best thing with these is they have high pigment ratio and when you get a brush with water, you get a lovely wash of pure colour to quickly indicate the colour strategy. It's still transparent so you can see the ink still too.

With this there's not much I wanted to change other than the angles of the buidings. So I got started with the painting. I start with collage to make the basic shapes and add texture. I sketch in black ink the image using the wooden end of a brush and a square cut-out of cardboard (this stops me being fussy and detailed- adds character to the drawing as its a bit wonky). Colour and paint are then built up in layers with extra colloage here and there. The cat is made up mainly of collaged newspaper!

A night on the tiles
Mixed media on board
15x15 inches

Ryan

Defiance, new portrait in pastel

Defiance Pastel on paper 12x15 inches A new portrait painting I was keen to try to capture the expression on the models face in this one. She's got a really strong defiant profile. Ryan

Portrait swap

Karen Oil on canvas 8x12 inches For the past 3 years I've taken part in a portrait swap with other artists around the world. It's great fun painting another artist and getting a portrait in return from them. All along there's encouragement and sharing of techniques and ideas. This year I was swapping portraits with a New Zealand artist- Karen. Here's my portrait of her. Happy 2012! Ryan