All about the black and white..

Ok, I have my friend the super talented artist Georgina Bown to thank for yesterday’s work. We met up to discuss a sculptural light I want her to do for me; and she told me to get working on paper and DRAW (she likes my drawings, not such a fan of the paintings 😅). ‘I’m just not set up right in the studio to do that’ I say.. ‘Sounds like an excuse to me’ was her response.

Challenge on. Hooked the easel out the way, unravelled my giant roll of Fabriano paper.

So this is about 80 x 80 cm, a mix of charcoal, ink, gesso, water and white pencil. I had so much fun, doing big expressive marks and lathering the ink on. Then I get thinking.. I really really want to do some figures, while I am just playing.. I grab a picture taken by my 8 year old of me swimming on Christmas morning..

And I get sketching, conscious all the time of the need to ignore the tendency to slim myself down 😅(I probably did anyway!)

then I I get moving on the other side of the paper, because it’s a huuuuge long piece and I’ve only used a tiny bit on the far right) and I just do a bit of North Berwick harbour from memory. Some things, I’ve painted so often I don’t need to check references for a sketch.

Such a relief to actually produce something after being in an endless loop of putting systems in place for the last few weeks. Can’t wait to get back in the studio and do more but ended up learning how to use Quickbooks for accounts today instead 🙈 I’ll maybe sneak down tonight, in the mood to do some portraiture now! No idea what I’ll do with this piece, I’m quite loathe to sell it which is most unlike me.