I Hate Maracas!

I am struggling with part of the first project - the still life. Having put together the objects, I started sketching, but I cannot get the maracas right. I have placed them on either side of the bongoes, one is handle to the front, the other reversed. The first sketch had the maraca on the left standing in the air! A combination of badly drawn maraca, and then trying to squeeze the shadow into too little a space, instead of just putting part of the shadow in. I did not actually notice what I was doing until after I had finished and stopped to look.

Then came the second attempt, from a different height. I did not get this one so well centred on the page, and the left hand maraca is still pointing upwards, whilst the right hand one has developed a bent end. They are also completely out of proportion with one another.

At this point I decided it was time to stop drawing the whole thing, and instead to concentrate on just the maracas until I am happy with the result. The one on the right with the bulbous end to the front I am finding much easier to draw. The left hand one, looking up the handle I am really struggling with. If I succeed in getting it to lay down, it looks as though I am looking at it from the side, and not from the tip of the handle. When I get it so I am looking up the handle, it then looks raised upwards. I am looking and seeing, but failing to transfer that to paper. I have tried looking at it with one eye, using my stick of charcoal as a line to run through the middle of the maraca to get the angle, then putting a similar centre line on the paper first and building the maraca around it, but still the result is wrong. A friend who draws and paints has suggested that I get a piece of card to use as a viewfinder and frame the maraca in it. Then close one eye, which will give me a 2D image which will be easier to draw. So I am going to try that next.

Prog Rock Strikes Again!

It seems at the start of every practical course I go to a Prog Rock concert. At the start o

f drawing it was Keith Emerson, and this week at the start of the painting course I saw Yes in Bristol. These events always leave me really wanting to capture on canvas t

he excitement, the emotional high, the lights and the colours. My drawing tutor suggested just taking the colours I felt and colouring a sheet of paper with them, with my eyes closed. The problem with this is that I don’t want to do this in an abstract form, I want to use realism and actually paint what I a

m seeing - the stage set, the musicians,

the instruments and the lighting. By the end of the drawing course, I did do a piece which I simply entitled ‘Keyboard Wizard’. Though it is actually Keith Emerson, bathed in a red spotlight on stage, stretched between two keyboards. I was pleased with the result, but felt it would still work better in paint than in coloured pencils and felt pen.

This week seeing Yes, just brought back the wanting to explore this theme, particularly as they had a stage of set with hanging formations which seemed almost like dragons wings from where I was. They were plain white, so could be lit with spots and patterns in all the colours you can imagine throughout the show. A friend took a few photos, and has let me have copies, and has even agreed to let me use them for drawing and painting from.

The ideas I am going to try out bring to mind something David Hockney once said: “All painting, no matter what you’re painting, is abstract in that it’s got to be organised”. This seems to me a perfect example of the quote, as I want the final result to be based in realism, but to make it work, it will require moving those floating pieces of scenery down to be at least partially behind whichever band members feature in each picture. Of course the other challenge in these is that the basic background colour is, more often than not going to be black, which was a lot of careful shading in in the drawing course as it meant colouring in the background around the objects. With acrylics or oils, I would imagine ... though I have not yet tried this ... that you would start with a black background, and when dry put the colours on top. All things to work on and experiment with.

My acrylic experiments so far have only consisted of getting a feel for the medium and the way it works, though I have to say it is more fun than the same experiments were in coloured pencils and ink. Also, doing this in the last course, I found I was just left with scribbles of colour, and very rarely could actually imagine a specific image or object to work up. This time I keep see possible images, and have worked them up, this adds to my confidence, as until now I have been firmly of the belief that unless the object or a photo of it is in front of me, then I cannot draw it.

I have been going around the house deciding what object to use for my first project of still life, the suggesting kitchen utensil just really is not a subject I find I even want to look at. I am also not one for just scattering objects, I have spent most of my life taking photographs, so I automatically think about the composition. So, far there are bongoes, being played by a drawing manikins, and a little mechanical person dancing in front of them. Still needs something more added, perhaps I will raid my husband’s collection of percussion.

Another day another course!

I have read through the Painting 1 course material, contacted my tutor, played with acrylics and set up my learning log. E-mails are rushing in from the library, as the books I've ordered are arriving from all over the area. Though there are a couple of them already sitting on my shelves as they were needed in other courses.

I have purchased two of the books. Drawing and Seeing, and the slim book about perspective. Me and perspective on cubes is not a match made in heaven. But then, I have during the drawing courses found I prefer curves to straight lines, so maybe there is something in that. I always think I can see more of the top of cubes than I actually can. It seems like a mental block, in that while I'm looking at it I am convinced more is visible than really is. What seems strange is that if it is a circular or oval object, then I get it right. But then again, I would rather be drawing people than objects, and I do not find foreshortening anywhere near as difficult to get my head round ... though it is not always easy to actually draw.

The things I enjoy drawing most are people, reptiles and amphibians ... a slightly odd combination, or a possible future in fantasy art by merging the subjects! I will just have to see where the future takes me.

That's got the log started. More later.