Category: Art

Sleeping Beauty Castle

chateau backdropI’ve visited Château d’Ussé in the Loire, the château that inspired Perrault to write The Sleeping Beauty, but for our pantomime version Wendy the producer wants something nearer to the Disney Castle. We haven’t got the headroom for anything so lofty so for my backdrop I’ve gone for an impressive entrance with a suggestion of a hexagonal shaped castle going back into the perspective.

We’ve got a great team with the girls from the chorus singing one of the numbers from the show as they rollered over last year’s village scene with magnolia emulsion. Once that had dried, I scaled up my rough onto the eight canvas-covered flats, using the cross pieces of the framework, just visible under the canvas, as my grid.

My team followed my outlines, paint by numbers fashion, and by the time I’d finished drawing out at the right hand side, I was able to go back to the now dried out tree silhouettes on the left to add a bit of comic strip style definition by painting black outlines and a few suggestions of foliage.

First Snow

snow sketchSnow settled yesterday evening, the first covering that we’ve had during a mild, wet winter. It brought more than the usual one or two siskins to the feeder this morning: six or more.

Snow is a strange thing to draw. In fact you hardly draw it at all, it’s mainly the white spaces that are left when you’ve drawn everything around it.

Sage Advice

sage sketch

Nostell Priory Lake: A pair of mallards makes careful progress over an expanse of ice between two areas of open water. After a minute or so the female decides that it will be quicker to fly.

Focus on Teapots

teapotWe spot our friend Roger in the cafe, so naturally the conversation comes around to photography. Focussing on a teapot, I ask him how I can get over the problem that when I use my bridge camera, a Fujifilm FinePix S6800, on macro setting I have to get in so close that the proportions of my subject get distorted: the spout looks jumbo sized.

teapotsYou need use a bit of zoom, suggests Roger. That works, the spout is now in proportion with the teapot, but, with my shaky hands, I’ve got a problem: the zoom magnifies any camera shake and the smaller aperture of the lens means that the camera will be selecting a longer shutter speed, again increasing the risk of blur.

FujiFilm FinePix S6800I tell Roger that I’m considering upgrading to a camera with image stabilisation and he tells me that my camera probably has that as an option. He drills down through the menus and sets it to always use sensor shift image stabilisation. It’s a well hidden option and looking back through the settings menu, I can’t now see where he found it.

Depth of Field

rosemarysageBut it works. I hand-held the camera for this shot of rosemary in a stone trough in the courtyard. Introducing a bit of telephoto to a macro shot results in a smaller depth of field than I’d get at the wide angle end of my zoom lens, throwing the background out of focus and giving more emphasis to the subject.

I use the photograph of the sage as reference for my sketchbook page for today. I’m reading a couple of books on botanical art so I decide to try drawing in 4H and then HB pencil before adding the watercolour, lightest shades first, which in this case is the pale yellow of the stipples on the leaves.

lemon yellowsI’ve just replaced the Winsor lemon in my pocket watercolour box. As Winsor lemon is no longer available I went for cadmium lemon.

herbThis green-leaved herb looks like marjoram or oregano. I cropped my original photograph to show this detail because I couldn’t get in this close with the macro. There’s a limit to how far you can zoom in before the auto-focus ceases to work. A red box marked ‘AF’ appears centre screen. I found that I had to zoom back out a little before the auto focus would work successfully.

 

Soaring Around Town

peregrine, meadow and loosestrife.2 p.m.: Peregrine flying past the town hall, over Wood Street, Wakefield, heading in the direction of the cathedral.

4.30 p.m.: Two weeks or so after the shortest day, the light already seems to be lingering longer in the afternoons. It helps that today has been a lot brighter than the wet, overcast days that we’ve had so much of recently.

The purple loosestrife seed heads were drawn with a dip pen, using Winsor & Newton peat brown ink.

Passers By

hatmancava girlAs storm Eva lashes across Britain, shoppers are hurrying along. I try to memorise costume and colours, making mental notes in the tens of seconds that they’re visible.

The man in the woolly hat is suitably dressed to face the elements, the woman with sparkling wine isn’t as she hastens to get her shopping packed in the car.

Butterfly buns.
Butterfly buns.

Astropad

astopad testHere’s my first faltering attempt to use my iPad Pro as a graphics pad for my desktop iMac. This has the advantage that I can see what I’m drawing on the iPad rather than having to look up at the iMac’s screen, as I do when I’m using my regular Wacom Intuos graphics pad. I’m using an Apple Pencil as a stylus and a program called Astropad to hook up the iPad to the iMac.

I’ve still to work out how to make adjustments such as brush size without reaching for my mouse and heading for the main screen but at least I’ve got to grips with the rudiments of drawing at my first attempt. It should be possible to set it up so that I can manage the whole process of drawing in Photoshop or Manga Studio using the iPad. The iPad has a long cable but it’s also possible to draw using a wifi connection.

Link: Astropad

Shady Characters

party peopleThere were so many healthy choices at the buffet at Judy and Don’s silver wedding celebration yesterday. Needless to say, I was still tempted by the mini-quiches, pork pie and sausage rolls. Well it is Christmas.

group by the barMost people were sitting but it was the characters standing at the bar who I found most interesting to draw.

light and shadeEach individual had a different way of standing. Some added gesticulations to a story they were telling, others stood listening, holding a drink in one hand and, in the case of some of the women, a bag in the other hand. Little touches that help sketch a character, rather than the standardised party person that I might draw from memory.

conversationI drew in line only but it was the shapes that fascinated me as I drew, so today I added washes of neutral grey to emphasise the overall shapes rather than the outlines.

Hands at the Hairdresser’s

handhandsWaiting for a haircut gives a chance to settle down and draw, which isn’t something that I’ve much chance to do on the run up to Christmas, a week from today.

gull and birch

A Restless Cat

pc and birdsVisiting our friend Diana gives me a chance to try to draw PC, a seven year old black cat who leads quite a busy life.

pcHe came in as we arrived, had a bite to eat, gave me an imperious look, groomed himself, flopped down and rolled about a bit then made a request to go out again before eventually settling down in the corner behind the television.

pc

pcMeanwhile the birdlife of the cul-de-sac flew over or perched on the rooftop opposite; starlings, collared doves, carrion crow and black-headed gull.

Sketches with a Lamy Safari with an extra fine nib filled with Noodler’s brown ink drawn in my little yellow Moleskine.