More on the Clydesdale

Clydesdale
A Work in Progress

Copyright Laura Hardie 2009

I’ve managed to do a bit more to my Clydesdale but have decided to leave it at this stage and put it away out of sight while I concentrate on something else. I thought I could see a way forward with this drawing but still managed to pick fault with practically everything about it. Very frustrating – I rarely give up on a drawing. Technically I haven’t given up as hopefully when I go back to it I will see it with fresh eyes and all the problems I currently see will magically disappear.

Something I will say in its defence – it does look better in real life. The scan seems to have zoomed in on the reds and made it look a bit garish.

Clydesdale

Clydesdale
A Work in Progress

I’ve not been very productive lately thanks to some horrible bug that saw me laid low and feeling sorry for myself for a few days. I did manage to start a drawing before it hit me but have been fighting the urge to throw it in the bin the whole time I have been working on it.

It wasn’t working for me - the colours weren’t right, there wasn’t enough contrast, the composition didn’t work. You name it, I found fault with it. Thankfully, it didn’t make the bin and I can now see a way forward with this drawing when I get back to it.

If I’m being totally honest with myself I think I was being impatient – I wasn’t getting anywhere fast enough. But then this is something I know all too well. It does take many, many (and often many more) hours to finish a coloured pencil drawing but sometimes, just sometimes, I’d love to push the whole process along and get the results I am after quicker. Maybe it’s time to start one of those paintings I keep promising myself to do so I can switch between the two should I get impatient.

Happy New Year

Ben
10x8 Coloured Pencil

First things first, before I start my ramblings on todays post I’d like to wish you all a happy New Year and hope it’s a productive one for everyone.

I spent the first day of the New Year ‘spring cleaning’ – my studio included. Actually, I had intended on only doing my studio and decided that with it looking so clean and tidy I’d do the sitting room….. then it was the stairs….. then it had to be the kitchen….. the bedrooms….. the…….. you get the idea. Anyway most importantly, I now have a tidy studio with everything in its right place, which is what I set out to do.

With 2007 now at an end I find myself, like many others, thinking about successes of the past year and my plans for the year ahead and what I want to achieve. 2007 saw me working 95% of the time on commissioned work and the other 5% on my own work. This is a success in itself in that I had my busiest year yet with commissions – I am obviously being found one way or another which is excellent as I am hopeless at optimising my website with the search engines and people like my work enough to commission me. I also became tutor for the Coloured Pencil Course with the London Art College, which I’m really enjoying and have great visions for – what a perfect way to promote coloured pencils and work with students with a similar passion for them – maybe the ‘passion’ comes later. However, I didn’t achieve a lot of what I set out to do.

To be fair, this time last year I didn’t have a set plan – I had a new puppy to look after (an incredibly hyperactive one at that with bladder and bowel problems) which took up a surprising amount of time and I had commissions to tide me over for a few months, so there was no rush – right? Well, as it turned out - wrong.

I do remember being extremely tired thanks to our new arrival and didn’t - couldn’t - really think about goals. And when I did start to think about them seriously, it was just that – I thought! I a) didn’t write them down and b) obviously wasn’t committed enough to see them through. So this year I am going to write them down and not only that – thanks to Maggie Stiefvater and her ‘butt-kicking’ post on goals, I am showing all on my blog. There is good reasoning and truth behind her words – the more people that see my goals, the more real they are and it makes me accountable to them. With this in mind my goals for 2008, in no particular order, are……

1. Better time management – I’m the first to admit that I could have completed and achieved more in 2007 had I managed my time better, i.e. mainly more time in the studio and less time in front of the TV and computer – which leads me onto no.2.

2. More studio time and less computer time – I spend way too long on the computer although, in my defence, it is all art related. I have a long list of blogs (which keeps getting longer) I enjoy visiting, not to mention the forums and what I call ‘research’. A lot of it can be educational so I don’t feel too guilty - I just need to allocate a set time, no matter how hard this may be, to computer time.

3. Enter work into at least two exhibitions – I had planned to do this last year, and the year before if I remember correctly, but concentrated more on my portrait business and marketing it. Hopefully nos. 1 and 2 will see me with a lot more time on my hands to see this goal through. My favourite medium is coloured pencil so I have earmarked the ‘UKCPS Open International Exhibition’ as a definite and am currently contemplating others.

4. Complete a painting a month – I don’t do enough painting but enjoy it when I do. I’d like to develop my techniques in both oils and acrylics and try to stop treating the brush like a pencil, which I tend to do.

5. Print, market and sell my prints – Again another goal I had planned (in my head admittedly) for 2007. I’d like to move more towards this market, as I believe, rightly or wrongly, that there is a current trend towards purchasing prints rather than originals.

6. Draw and paint 35 horses by the end of the year – I half-heartedly started this last year although didn’t put a figure on it. The figure came after being inspired by an artist on WC who took it upon herself to draw and paint 100 cheetah - it was great to watch her progression and to see her confidence in portraying this animal grow. I originally considered setting the target at 50, almost 1 a week, but decided this was unrealistic and I’d more than likely be stretching myself to get this done – anyhow, I hope by the time I get to no.35 I will know a horses temporal fossa from its mandible.

7. Visit more exhibitions and galleries – At least one a month. I live in Edinburgh and am surrounded by galleries so have no excuse not to. I often leave exhibitions totally inspired to try something new, which is reason enough, and yes, wishing it was my work on display – a goal for 2009 perhaps?

8. Backgrounds – I’ve mentioned this before in my blog and want to look more at including backgrounds in my work, maybe include the animal within its environment and surroundings? I do prefer the plain background approach and very often don’t include one at all when doing commissions. Paul Emsley summed it up for me when he said “I leave the background as a fairly nebulous space instead of depicting a particular environment. A non-explicit background, while directing the focus to the person or animal, infers a sense of stillness and timelessness, and it enhances the feeling of mystery”. Although I’m sure I wont be doing intricate and highly detailed backgrounds, it’s definitely something I want to look into this year.

9. Keep my blog up to date – I’m always promising this but I mean it this time – promise. I’m hoping the fact that it is one of my goals and is written in black and white will spur me on.

10. Build up a portfolio of work and prints – I couldn’t decide what to end with for no.10. I’d like to become more computer savvy and technical minded as I find myself relying on the computer more and more for my business and don’t know enough about them – Photoshop especially. And there’s photography – I have a top of the range camera I don’t know how to use to it’s full potential so know I am missing out on some fantastic reference material. Taking time to master the computer and the camera is something I want/need to do but am not going to make them priority this year. Instead I have gone for ‘building up a portfolio of work and prints’ in preparation for my goals in 2009 – how is that for forward thinking.

So there you have it, my goals for 2008 and a rather lengthy blog post as well. Now all I have to do is print them off and stick them where I can see them daily – I know just the place.

A WIP - Part One

I love trying out new supports to work on when I can - cue Ampersand Pastelbord. I have various sizes and colours of this sitting around waiting to be used and thought it was about time I tried it out.

For those of you who may not have heard of Pastelbord it is, and I quote, "a clay and gesso coated hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish comparable to a sanded pastel paper except more durable and more versatile." Sounds like it could eat my pencils but I was eager to try it out all the same and see what it could do. And why not have my efforts shown as a WIP. So here it is.....

Stage 1: Adding the darks. I wanted to start with an acrylic underpainting before adding any pencils - this would/should reduce the number of hours spent using coloured pencils. Was pleasantly surprised with how the paint took to this surface and really liked the effects achieved when doing wet in wet. Also found the washes stayed wet for longer which gets a big thumbs up from me.

Stage 2: The underpainting finished. At this stage I know I should be thinking about a background and have this washed in but, as is usually the case when it comes to backgrounds, can't decide what I want to do so leave it as it is for now. I do know I want to do a lot more painting on Pastelbord.

Stage 3: Adding coloured pencil. Start with the eyes, as always, and work on her nose and mouth. I was right, it does eat my pencils! Not sure yet if I like working with coloured pencils on this support.

Stage 4: Adding yet more coloured pencil. Nose and mouth area more or less finished apart from the inevitable tidying up here and there at the end. Building up the colours on her face and ear - not having to do as many layers thanks to the underpainting. STILL thinking about a background, even when I'm not working on it!

Stage 5: Latest update. This is the stage I am at now - working my way down the neck area. Next step is putting in that background.

Galleries

Odie
A work in progress - coloured pencil

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I never make time (that word again) to go to more art galleries. There are at least 45 art galleries in Edinburgh, according to the Yellow Pages, so have plenty to choose from and no excuses not to visit something on a more regular basis.

I really enjoy going around a good exhibition, often coming away full of inspiration, and so found myself browsing the Internet to find out who and what was showing this month. I managed to drag Gav along to a small local gallery as I recognised one of the artists exhibiting as being someone I went to college with all these years ago, be it a couple of years above me. I enjoyed seeing his work - more contemporary than traditional - and would have loved to have caught up with him personally but he works and lives in Dundee.

One thing I always hope to see being exhibited more are drawings - it's all paintings. Anything coloured pencil would be good but I wouldn't be fussy as long as it wasn't paint all the time. The gallery owner I spoke to yesterday never accepts drawings saying they don't sell and there isn't a market for them - not very encouraging.

As I only have a half finished portrait to show in this post, Odie (who by the way has the cutest wee face), I thought I'd let you see the ref I'll be using for my next 'me piece' that I'll be working on between commissions. It's one I took of Zara on her first birthday, waiting ever so patiently for her biscuit.

Working on Ampersand Pastelbord with paint and coloured pencils this will be a first for me - an experiment - and all going well hope to show it as a WIP right here on my blog - ugly stages and all!

A Collie and Google

My website has been up and running for just over a year now and, I am happy to say, have had a lot of interest in my work because of it. In fact 90% of my commissions come via my website. How people are finding it however remains a mystery to me as I can't find it myself when I do a search! How Google rank websites is beyond me - even more so than Photoshop - and it seems that no matter what I do to increase my chances of it appearing on the top pages it's not happening. I'm just not technically minded, never have been and fear never will be, so maybe expert help is needed but where to start and who to trust. Something to think about.

Something that didn't involve any technology whatsoever was my latest commission of a beautiful Collie called Maggie, completed using coloured pencils. If only everything in life was as straight forward.