Girl with sculpted hair

Having been influenced recently by the very talented artist Emma Petitt, I embarked upon my third portrait using her ideas.

I mostly use reference when I draw a face, unlike Emma and found a girl in a Sunday Supplement.
I began by prepping my background and drawing the girl with Derwent charcoal pencils.

The picture is quite large, 20"x16".
I used PaperArtsy Fresco chalk paints throughout. Also PA Grungepaste .
As you can see, there are some collaged additions too.

The next stage really scared me, as I had never painted dark skin tones before.
It got worse before it got better, and I did wrestle with the paints before I was happy.
I actually used a metallic paint on parts of the skin.....Copper!
I finished off with lots of drippage and some treasure gold on the numbers and around the frame of the picture.
I saw lots of bits that I would have liked to improve, but, I love her now!

Mint, Sage, Claret and Gold.

Over on the PaperArtsy blog right now is the challenge entitled Mint, Sage, Claret and Gold.
I have almost resisted the temptation to sing the well known song about herbs, substituting the words for this title!
I loved Darcy's intro piece with all the colourful stimulation, and have really enjoyed all of the contributions from the PaperArtsy blog team.
I was particularly enchanted by the book cover by Anneke de Clerck. I got out my gelli plates and had a play.
I used the recommended PaperArtsy fresco chalk paints, except that I substituted Gold for White Fire!
I created an A4 master board of background shapes as Anneke showed us, and used Emma Godfrey stamps from EEG14 to add greater depth. I stamped the flowers using some of the paints an also in Black Archival ink.
As we have the first dull day in ages, my colours don't really sing, but, in real life they do.
I love this technique that Anneke used and can see great potential for more master boards, and, am I allowed to use the "C" word........yes? Christmas cards!

Therefore, I am entering my work into the PaperArtsy challenge.

First Life Drawing in 51 years!

Last night I attended a Life Drawing Class in Chesterfield. I stumbled upon the advert for it by accident on Facebook.
It is something that I last had a go at in 1967, so, maybe it was time to have another go.

The class was run by John King who has a studio in Chesterfield and used to be a lecturer at the local art college.
I liked his relaxed approach and he immediately made me feel welcome.
I had managed to work myself up into a headachey state but felt very positive.
He began by introducing us to some artists work and suggested that, if we wished, we could try to work in their style.

Our first task was using Graphite sticks, to sketch very quickly, four poses on one large page. This was right up my street as I work quickly and I didn't have time to worry about my work. Think that they were 2min sketches.

Then two more quick sketches.

Next, using a small piece of charcoal on its side, 2 more quick pieces.

Then, the lights were turned off and John lit a huge spotlight and asked us to concentrate on just where the light fell onto the model and try not to draw outlines. Really liked this. 2 more quick sketches using White Charcoal.

This one, with the same idea was a 10 minute sketch.

Next, we had a small piece of card to print with and some black ink. These took about 10 minutes.

And finally, using the ink and card we drew the model and then, with the spotlight we added the light.
All interesting stuff. I shall be back for more next month, I loved it!