Saturday 21 September 2013

#30: Pine cone

I find this kind of subject absolutely fearsome, because whenever I have to deal with this kind of repetitive complexity, i.e. little units that repeat, but not exactly, I quickly lose track of which bit it is that I am working on. Here I think I managed reasonably well, though I greatly simplified it and the drawing does not remotely contain all the detail I could see.


When I was a kid, ladies would often sit and knit or crochet in conversation. Nowadays we buy our jerseys in clothing stores, and we have cell phones, so the knitting ladies making idle and pleasant conversation have been replaced with people rudely ignoring the conversation while frantically typing text messages, or privately laughing at something they see on the little screen. 

I wonder why we bother to have friends in real life at all. Anyway, I made the above drawing while idly chatting in a pleasant conversation with colleagues - my version of doing the knitting lady thing. Or perhaps drawing while chatting is every bit as rude as texting? 


Tuesday 10 September 2013

Black-collared Barbet

A sketch of a Black-collared Barbet (Lybius torquatus). Ballpoint pen and coloured pencil on printer paper, about 20cm x 20cm.


Wednesday 3 July 2013

Self-portrait

As always with self-portraits, the rather menacing expression is just an effect of staring intently into a mirror...


Sunday 12 May 2013

#28: Blue bottle and tomato

Oil on canvas board, 20 cm x 15 cm.



A friend gave me a lovely blue bottle, and I couldn't wait to paint it. Clear bottles are common, so are green ones and brown ones, but blue ones are rather hard to come by!

With such richly coloured things, one is always tempted to use too much colour, ending up with something way too garish. In fear of that, I erred in the other direction, and my painting's colours are not nearly as rich as the bottle. 

I added the tomato for some extra colour. And I liked the curious bump on it - vegetables (and bottles, for that matter) all have their own unique personalities, well worthy of portraiture. 

Sunday 5 May 2013

#27: Autumn leaves

Autumn leaves collected while enjoying a morning walk. Oil on canvas board, 15 cm x 20 cm, and still sticking to my limited palette of black, white, red and yellow.




Sunday 21 April 2013

#26: Apple and glass

Bit of a failure, I think, but the apple looks better than they used to.


I have forgotten how to paint glass, so I had a mighty battle with the thing. I used to struggle quite a bit with this cultivar of apples; I seem to be getting a bit better at it. 



Saturday 13 April 2013

#25: Squash and egg

Another small panel, 5 x 7 inch, painted with a limited palette of red, yellow, black and white oils. Not entirely successful, but then, they never are.


The photo didn't get the colours quite right, but it's not too far off.