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

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

New studio- new work!

Haven't posted in a while as I've been settling into my new place and finally getting organised!

I went to the National Gallery of Scotland and did some sketching of their bronze and marble sculptures. One really caught my eye called Arritino- here's my sketch

I really liked the pose and the way the figure was looking up into the light. I got home and worked this study up in charcoal and conte crayon

This is quite small at 8x8 inches- think I might work up a bigger study or jump straight into an oil painting

Ryan

Oil life sketch

Here's the first part of a three-week project we're doing at night-class.

Becka (sketch)

Oil on paper 6x10 inches

We had an interesting approach to our colour pallette. first we made a 'parent' colour Yellow Ochre and titanium white. Then we mixed this into a range of primary (yellow ochre, Alizarin crimson, Ultramarine blue and Lamp black) and secondary colours (derived from mixing our primaries 50:50).

Then we were limited to this pre-made pallette for sketching out our composition idea for a final painting. This took 25 mins so have ready made colours helped from a speed point of view!

Over the next two weeks we are painting the final image

Ryan

Happy Birthday Rabbie Burns

250 years old- and still looking pretty good!

Hears a drawing I did while digesting my haggis, neeps and tatties. It was Burn's night, celebrating the 250th birthday of Scotlands National bard. Caught up in the spirit of the year of homecoming and a' that, I raised a wee dram for Robert Burns.

Auld acquaintance

Pen and ink on paper

8x10 inches

The drawing is obviously based on the famous Alexander Nasmyth’s portrait of Robert Burns that hangs in Edinburgh's Scottish National Portrait gallery

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_az/4:322/result/0/1962?initial=N&artistId=3547&artistName=Alexander%20Nasmyth&submit=1

Ryan

Self portait in soft pastel

A quick self portrait! Done while watching the football so about an hour

Soft pastel on Murano paper
15x12inches

Working on another abstract classical piece so did this while waiting for paint to dry!

Stormy seascape study

Stormy Seascape (study),

Oil on canvas

14x10 inches

Trying to improve my seascapes, I realised that I needed to study the movement of the sea a bit more. My coastal scenes tend to focus on calmer sea, and the sea in itself is rarely the focal point. It took about an hour and a half. I'm reasonably happy with the way it turned out and I definitely learned a fair bit from the techniques side of things. The one thing for me is that the pallette of colours doesn't really work here in Scotland as the blue and browns in the rock are too intense. The colours here are much more slate blue/grey for the sea and the rocks locally are a lot darker.

Next I need to try to put some of these techniques to use on original stuff from local scenes.

Quick Self portraits in charcoal

Self portrait

Charcoal on light grey murano paper

16x12 inches

Wanted to get some drawing practice in so decided to have another crack at the portrait and since I'm the only one who's willing to model- it's me again!

This one was done in about an hour and a half

This one took about 30 mins- considerably faster sketching, again charcoal on light grey Murano paper

16x12 inches

Portraiture really is one of the hardest disciplines there is. Trying to acheive a likeness is tough work, but a great challenge.

I'm waiting for some oil paintings to dry on the easel and enjoyed getting some drawing practice in meantime!

Cheers

Ryan

Early morning light over Bass Rock

Early morning light over Bass Rock

Acrylic on canvas paper

16x12 inches


I think the summer (what little we had here!) is just about over, so glad I managed to get out for this plein air sketch. This was from a clifftop walk down by Dunbar called Belhaven bay. All in all took about 2 hours.I was excited by the yellow band in amongst the purple/violets/blues going on in the sky.


Ryan

Cliffs at Dunbar, a plein air sketch

Cliffs at Dunbar, a plein air sketch

Managed to get down the coast at the weekend again (the sun is being very kind). Found a great spot on the beach at John Muir country park near Dunbar, a small fishing town on the East Lothian coatline.

Really enjoyed this one. Was using Acrylic again for PA this time I was armed with some retarding medium and a water spray gun to stop it drying out too fast. This worked much better than the PA I did at Newhailles house (previous post) as I felt much more in control.

A cool thing that happened was the breeze kept blowing sand into my paint which really added to the painting!! A Scottish artist I really like must do this, as this is the effect he gets and I wasn't sure what he was doing. His name is Davy Brown, if you want to google.



Finished Sketch

Cliffs at Dunbar

12x8 inches

Acrylic on board

(~1 to 1 hour 30)

Cheers
Ryan

Life Class sketches

Life Class sketches

I just did another Life class through the National Galleries of Scotland- which have been really excellent.

For the first 1/2 hour we go up into the gallery and look at the master paintings, with our tutor pointing things out. Then we have a 2 hour life class working on the techniques discussed.

There is a great exhibition of on at the moment of drawings, which were the studies for major paintings. Edgar Degas, Seurat, Raphael, Poussin all are represented here. I was taken by a sketch by Poussin done in ink and wash, the finished painting was also on display. (will try to get a link)

Here were my attempts in this medium- quickly done ~5 mins each. We used sharpened willow sticks to dip in the ink and draw. The wash of diluted ink was applied with sponge. These unusual implements really made you consider line and mark-making. First one on the left I put down to learning the marks made by the tools!! I think they improved!


15x12 inches

Ryan

Recent life studies and sketches

Recent life studies and sketches

Study of my right hand

Staedler pigment liners on paper

9x12 inches

Sometimes poor TV focusses you on doing something more interesting!- Did this waiting for football to come on in about 30mins. Better fun than the game (my team lost obviously!)

Maria sleeping pose

Soft pastel on paper

23x11 inches

Another one from the night classes I'm doing. Model was very slender (yes her leg was this bony!)

Fiona seated

Charcoal on paper

23x17 inches

One from another life drawing group I've been going to organised by the National Gallery of Scotland, led by the artist Damien Callan. This has been a great series of life classes, with a suberb artist and teacher. Having the class in the National gallery is amazing as for the first 1/2 hour we go up into the gallery and are looking at the Titian's, Ruben's, van Dyke's, Rembrandt's, Velasquez's, Degas.....
Damien talks at these master paintings giving us pointers, then we go back and try it out- superb! Highly recomended if your around Edinburgh.

Tonight I went to see an exhibition Damien is having here and was really taken by the loose expressive style. You get a real sense of movement and animation in his work that coupled with vibrant colour make for a striking image- please visit the link below:

http://www.chameleon-arts.com/exhibition.html

Fiona with headscarf

Charcoal, sanguin & white chalk on sepia paper
12x15 inches

Another quick sketch (20mins) from the Damien Callan class

Have been doing loads of life drawing for the last 8 weeks which has been great, need to get back to painting though!

Ryan

First post of the 2007!

First post of the 2007!

It's a New Year so I'm starting a new sketch book. I try to carry one around as much as I can, capturing scenes figures that catch my eye. I though I'd start the year by posting some of the sketches I did last year that haven't made it to the gallery yet, though a couple shown here have been used for other studio paintings.

All are drawn with Staedler pigment liners of various thickness. I try to not only get a fairly accurate sketch down, but also try to indicate tones and textures and sometime add written notes to remind of colours time of day, weather etc. This information is very useful in allowing me to work up ideas into paintings and are often more insightful than photographic reference notes because they are my take of the scene as it was when I experienced it. These (particularly the figures) are all captured very quickly plein air, as conditions and people don't sit totally still for long unless you pay them!

At last the days will be getting longer and means I can get more sunlight and painting done fantastic.

I have also enrolled in a series of Life Drawing/Painting workshops and night classes so I can brush up on my figurative work

Ryan