a new year

and a resolution to keep posting here  – and already I find myself downloading 64 photos – enough for two or more posts ..

cold cold early January walks around town and along the river, after what seemed like weeks of grey in December.

I made a start at a drawing a day, but didn’t stick at it, I have had a lot of paintings on the go. This is using a whippy long cherry twig from the garden, it’s a great less controlled way to draw. the object being a piece of porpoise vertebra off the beach. I have a cabinet full of curiosities to draw in fact.

I also drew my right hand with my left hand

and vice versa and then attempted to draw both hands at once! my hands get into a worse and worse state, i have really arthritic thumbs so i can’t knit  any more. Can still draw and paint though!

at christmas I was given these Koh-i-noor watercolours, so I did  a bit of painting

mostly trying to paint daughter as she sat reading or scrolling. It’s a treat to have a model.

I love the challenge of watercolour with no pencil scaffolding

it needs a little forethought and you can’t change much

but that’s kind of the point. A cure for perfectionism and fussing.

When I got home to my studio I found the perfect pre-worked canvas that had been waiting for inspiration.

the Marimekko curtains volunteered their pattern, but not the black and green background colour.

Trying to replicate some of the watercolour’s looseness

using a wider brush and the palette knife

gestural and unfocused

I admire so much Caroline Walker’s fast and loose faces which convey so much emotion. Not quite there yet!

But no more fussing, it’s done.

 

Lucy and Scott went off to Florence for  Hogmanay to stay with a friend who has been doing a residency there, while I looked after Nonna.

My studio assistant. That paw! it is very insistent.

some photos arrived over the wires and I was instantly over-excitedly working on this one with Lucy in the dress I made her for Christmas. I love the very Italian chair and the shape her pose makes.

and the pattern of the chair’s upholstery.

so I worked in various media – watercolour in an A4 moleskin notebook I recently found in a drawer –

on my ipad (ugh)

and with the ink and twig on an old A2 pad.

when it came to oil painting I went right back to 10 x 8 inches, on a prepared (also had been waiting  for ages for an idea to use it) panel.

I had got so drawn in by trying to catch her expression I pulled out again and left it just a suggestion.

the legs and feet loose too, scratchy drawing with the tip of the palette knife into the wet paint ..

I found the studio assistant taking a break …

We had sunny frosty days. Much the best for walking.

looking for otters in town.

below the railway embankment, behind the last few houses in Cupar.

and back by the river. Nonna did not fancy a swim.

Though when Lucy put a coat on her Nonna got too hot and plunged in, coat and all!

Lucy sent me this from Florence, she’s paired the Japanese silk and cashmere dress by my old friend Akira at Mina Perhönen, which I gave her recently, with these shiny gold trainers belonging to her friend. The source of my next painting….