ian

This is an oil sketch of one of my fellow life drawing colleagues, Penny.

Occasionally you get a boring back view and decide to sketch those around you – the pencil sketch from which this is derived, is below.

Me … 3 sessions pushing oil around and glazing/thinning with poppy oil.

Study Hals, says Sargent, and only when you’ve learnt all you can from him, move on to Velazquez. Hals epitomises that “drawing with a brush” which we see in Sargent. Hals work is formulaic: a limited palette with a focus on tonal accuracy and capturing the gesture. These are the building blocks for Sargent and vital in understanding how he worked.

I tried to go back to such basics with this oil sketch of one of our models, Gustavo. Worked up from a 15 min graphite sketch it is painted wet in wet with a traditional palette, with no effort to hide the brush work. Indeed, the idea is to emphasize and celebrate the limitations of the brush…

Study Hals. I would say I’m just starting the journey…

I’m not sure about iPad painting. There are instantly a number of limitations with it, the main one being (with the sketchbook app I use at least) that the degree of precision available when using a pencil or brush is just not there with the iPad.

But it does offer the excitement and anticipation of a new medium; it is also fun to play with. In any event it is here, and I suspect there will be a lot of iPad masterpieces emerging out there, just proving me wrong.

I will be exhibiting with a number of members of my life drawing group at the Grant Bradley gallery in Bristol.

It is entitled Cornucopia and will be taking place in February 2013.

Check out the site, which has a number of images by the artists.

I have two paintings in Rocio Bucheli’s Gallery in Broad Street, in Bristol.

The exhibition contains contemporary affordable art and runs until 5th January 2013. A list of all artists, exhibits and details can be viewed at the R E Bucheli website.

I have sung the praises of alla prima painting on this site, but this oil portrait, for a change, is an attempt to work up a painting using more traditional techniques.

I set in a warm pink ochre ground, did a grisaille underpainting, then added (fairly opaque!) layers, finishing with a glaze.

As with the other pictures this is based on a short 15 min life drawing.

Although it is now early Autumn I have just finished this piece and called it Midsummer… (in memory of something we rarely see any more, with this perpetual rain!)

As usual this has been worked from a life drawing. The model is the same model I used for the Golden Gown and exhibited at this year’s Clevedon Arts Club Open and Clifton Arts Exhibitions.

Visited the private view of the Clifton Arts Club 104th Open Exhibition at the Bristol School of Art next to the RWA.

There is some high quality work there. I was fortunate enough to have the following two paintings selected:

David Gamble, another regular at Will Stevens’ life class in Bristol, came away with a selector’s prize for his portrait of Mark Watkin.

Well worth visiting, it is on from Saturday 14th July 2012 to 28th July 2012, daily from 10.00 – 4.30 pm, entrance free.

One of our life class regulars, Chris Hibbard, was the source for the pencil sketch below and the alla prima sketch derived from it…