Stack of chairs

Friday morning at Leith School of Art and I walked into the studio and was confronted with a pile of chairs!
This was the still life for the day............

 After the initial shock, I began to be quite excited by the idea of tackling such a tricky subject. Life throws allsorts at me and so, why not chairs?

 The brief for the first drawing was a five minute sketch drawn blind. Graphite on A4 paper and not looking at the easel but focusing on the chairs.

The second drawing was not much better but I was beginning to understand.

The next drawing was done with the non dominant hand. In my case, my left. I had no control over what marks I was making and I found it difficult to connect my brain with my hand.

This made it very interesting when the next short drawing was done with my right hand. 

It was immediately easier and I felt my old patterns of finding structure, brain connected to hand and vision was more familiar.

The result was very curious. In everyones' drawings, the dominant hand sketches were the most boring.

Blind drawings had more vigorous marks, non dominant hand drawings were more lively and had far more interest. They also showed the feeling of chaos that the stack of chairs produced. 

The brief for the rest of the morning and the afternoon was to spend longer on a charcoal drawing, A1 size and focusing first on the stack of chairs and then focusing in on the one aspect of the chaos.


The right hand drawing was causing me trouble as it was losing all spontaneity until, with five minute before finishing, Ginny suggested rubbing out most of it and redrawing.
Nothing like a bit of pressure and time limit to focus the mind.
The result was a more complete drawing.






The drawing on the left was tricky because of the tendency to be fussy over perspective. My aim was to capture the detail of the chair back on the left and the detail of the shadows, which echoed the amount of pattern and detail. Not enough time to get it all in....

Summing up the experience.. What I failed to do was to capture the energy and sponaneity of the blind drawings. They both became too sterile and next time I hope to remember to think less of the result and more of the initial feeling.

Edinburgh Drill Hall

Yesterday was the final day of the project to paint the impressions of the Edinburgh Drill Hall off Leith Walk.



We started three Fridays ago with spending the day sketching and making notes on how to tackle the next two Fridays painting.

What struck me most about the venue was the enormous space everywhere. The floor space was vast and the roof, made of girders with large areas of light coming in, was almost too overwhelming to take in.
The cafe, was a totally different feel. Lots of brightly coloured tablecloths and red chairs, lots of people and bunched up together by the entrance.
The other thing that struck me was the light coming in from the door, compared to the darkness immediately between the entrance and the cafe.

Jane and Ginny having coffee. It was cold and so they were wrapped up and huddled around their hot drinks.

Getting the light on the balcony area was important and the yellow ochre of the doors compared to the underneath area. The lighting was quite extreme, from the light from above to the the dark at the entrance.

What struck me was the idea of the sky being very important as part of the building as well as the amount of floor space. The roof and the sky were one. Without the roof, the sky would not be seen so intently.

This led to the idea of doing three paintings as a triptych. Heaven, Earth and Humanity.

These were the first attempts the following week. 

I wanted to get down the main structure and see how they would fit together.

 Third Friday. Final paintings..


This was about bringing the paintings to a conclusion and I decided to make the space of the floor the feature but instead of space, I concentrated on the reflections and made the lower area more structured. A hint of the metal work of the roof and sky to show the light coming in.

 What impressed me most was the feeling of the metal structure towering over my head.The enormity of space and light was the reason to show the metal work darker at the top of the painting and melting into the building.

The idea of heaven became more about the structure of the roof.

 The two figures of our tutors having coffee, Ginny's striped skirt and the difference between Jane's complexion ( she is Greek) and Ginny's fairness, the splotches of red and acid green of tablecloths, all seemed to sum up the effect of people between the two vast spaces.

All three paintings have in common the door which is the brightest yet smallest part of the paintings. The entrance and connection which makes the whole experience possible. 

Leith.. Ink and Bleach

Today at Leith School of Art was a new experience. We were handed some blue ink, brown ink, a one inch brush, a stick and some bleach. There were two models. One in Japanese costume and one nude and they alternated betwen the main studio and the sculpture room.
First was a series of 3 minute sketches with ink, brush and stick on A4 paper. Then came some more 3 minute poses but this time using bleach to take away from the drawing in order to put back more correct lines.

I found this extremely difficult as I was not sure what I was doing and then the bleach made everything run so much that there was a real mess on the paper. I could not draw into the bleach because the lines went fuzzy, also the stick was unwieldy. The blue ink turned green and trying to do a life drawing with the tools getting in the way so much seemed impossible.

The afternoon was spent in doing a pose for an hour. Point of despair came quickly and I had to ask for help from the tutor, Jane. She suggested covering the paper with ink and drawing with the stick using bleach to take away rather than using the ink on white paper. This helped.

First of the life drawings using ink, brush and stick.


 My drawing suffered as a result of trying to use the stick, which seemed to have a mind of it's own. It was two feet long and slightly bent.

I was also experimenting on putting the figure to one side of the paper instead of in the middle. Trying to work on composition as well as the form.
The left drawing did not work so well but I am more pleased with the ones on the right.

This was more successful as I got used to the materials.











However, when using the bleach, my drawing went completely off track. Shoulder problems! Tired to use bleach to get rid of bad drawing but made a great mess instead.

 This one was a nightmare as the model was practically in silhouette and I did not know how to start so left out the bleach!
Told by tutor, Jane, to persevere.. ( Leith School of Art motto)

Result was another mess.












After lunch was the hour long drawing. I chose the Japanese girl thinking it might be easier. Wrong!


A1 paper and too much to think about. Her Kimono was highly patterned and she was sitting on a chair on a patterned rug.
The angle of her knee made it look as if she were standing and as I was drawing the ink and bleach was running everywhere.

Hopefully, it was beginning to get somewhere after half an hour. Detail was out of the question and so was any attempt at pattern. Feet turned into a blur and despair took over once again.

However, at the end of the day, I was very glad to have had such an interesting experience and might even try it again..

Still Life at Leith

This is a collection of still life drawings done at Leith School of Art.

First was a collection of drawings done with pastel on coloured paper, A3 size. The still life was in two rooms, the first was in daylight and a collection of many objects, randomly arranged. I found it difficult to get the composition to work as there was just so much stuff to choose from and too many colours. Working out how to mix the colours with the most appalling quality pastels of rough grey paper was a challenge.

The next drawing was done in the main studio which has rather no daylight and rather an inefficient lighting system. There was a long table with an array of fruit, candles and material spread randomly.

The lack of light was difficult and getting used to such a lot of objects and again, having to choose from so much, I found difficult.

I chose to sketch the candlestick with fruit to learn how to draw flames, which were so bright compared with the rest of the objects. The task was to show the extreme contrast which was pushed more and more in order to make it work.

The fruit on checked material was a challenge in composition and also because there was virtually no light on what I was doing. Everytime I went outside to spray the drawing with hairspray, I was shocked to see how bright my colours were.

This was a day of drawing and painting still life to convey the jumble and chaotic nature of objects.

First were quick, small paintings in acrylic to show the relationship in colour of how to get the composition to work. This was done using a big brush and to see how colours work next to each other. 

The next task was to draw with a stick and ink on A2 paper. We were allowed diluted ink and a big brush to add tone and then white paint to use in order to rub out the marks.
This proved quite tricky as, first, the stick was incredibly difficult to get a mark where I wanted it, and second, I did not understand how to use the white paint.
The idea of using white was to think of it as a rubber and use it to cover any marks that were not wanted and then draw over it.




The next brief was to cover A2 white paper with random colours. ( acrylic paint.) Then we had to draw the objects with pastel over the pre-prepared paper thinking of the marks and the colours showing through as part of the composition.

The following week was a still life painting with acrylics, to take two seeks over it and start by painting with a big brush, showing the chaos of the objects, balancing the colours and to be prepared to paint over whatever had been done. This is an important idea at Leith. Being able to keep working at something, rebuild constantly.
"Kill the beloved" is a phrase often used. Don't give up and start again. Keep repainting, redrawing and persevere.
First I covered the paper with random colours so as to not start with a white surface. I was very near the objects and, as they were on the floor, I was looking down on everything. Again there was the problem of how to choose as there was so much. Working out the composition is always the most difficult for me.
The elipses are not accurate but I was concentrating on how to get the lamp to work in the whole picture and what to focus on. The blue of the middle bottle was the brightest thing I could see and the yellow of the lamp was a challenge to balance in terms of composition. I made the peach material more yellow to join it together and to get the shine on the blue bottle I used cerulean blue with a little white, then put a more purple blue next to it in order to make it shine more.

The blue paint next to the lamp was the idea of Jane Courosopolis ( tutor ) to see what would happen just by putting a different colour there to balance the whole thing.

This seemed to hit a note with me and I intend to more of this. I really like the freedom of using colour in order to emphasis another colour.

Figure drawing at Leith School of Art

Friday was the first day of term at Leith and I had not picked up a brush or pencil since before Christmas.
 A1 paper, stick and ink, two minute poses.
The stick did not work, the ink was diluted and I was in shock!

After the break we had a succession of quick poses with two models who were alternately moving and keeping still for two minutes or less.

A4 paper with pencil.

The afternoon was a longer pose. Charcoal of A2 paper. 

What i noticed was ho I lost the spontaneity of the quick poses but really enjoyed the time to get the solidity of the form and proportions. Trouble with the shoulder and trying to draw the subtleties of the right shoulder and the twist of the body.