Saturday 25 April 2020
Straw Bales
There is still no new photography to post as the lockdown enters the final week of April. Currently, I am searching back over pre-lockdown material and re-processing photographs from a 2013 trip to Scotland. I hope to start posting some of the Scotland material in the next week or so. In the meantime here is some more surfaces and textures photography. This time the subject is film covered straw bales taken in early March. I was attracted by the stretched lines of the film covering and some of the folds, including a loose strand that was flapping in the wind and catching the sunlight:
Friday 17 April 2020
Meadow Lane Bridge
After a diversion into some of my artwork, see my previous post, I am back to some pre-lockdown abstract photography. This time it is the colours and textures of the old Meadow Lane Bridge on the canal in Nottingham. I believe the bridge is a sandstone construction although I can't find a reference to confirm this. Given the likely age of the bridge and geology of Nottingham it would be a fair assumption though.
These are some of the results:
These are some of the results:
Wednesday 15 April 2020
Southwell Trail Artwork
Posting some of my artwork was one of the ideas I had to keep my blog going during the coronavirus restrictions. In normal times, I would be continuing with my long running Southwell Trail photography series capturing the spring blossoms and the new greenery on the trees. Instead, the camera hasn’t left the bag in weeks and I have turned to indoor activities including my artwork.
I must admit to approaching this post with some trepidation as I am only at the start of my art journey. Much of the output to date is based on tutorials and I am very much at the copy and learn stage, with lots going in the bin! More recently though, I have started applying some of the learning to my own subjects often using the Southwell Trail photography as a reference. These are some of the results.
Graphite Drawing
Graphite drawing was the first type of art that I completed. I find drawing more intuitive than other forms of art and learnt a lot from following Smoothie77 on YouTube and Patreon. These are two small sketches (16x11cm), the first is the Old Goods Store at the entrance to the Southwell Trail and the second is a snow scene drawn from a photograph taken when the ‘Beast from the East’ struck in 2018:
Watercolour Painting
The medium that I find the most difficult is watercolour painting. There are so many ways it can go wrong including paint consistency, wetness of the paper, working from light to dark and choosing the right palette and colour combinations. However, when it goes well watercolour is massively rewarding.
When selecting examples of my work to show here, I am hampered by potential copyright issues so I will show a repeat of the Old Goods Store composition completed in gouache. Gouache is an opaque medium that can be used in a similar fashion to watercolour although, dare I say, gouache is a little easier to work with.
Moving away from the Southwell Trail, is this tonal study of Newark Castle complete after my first plein-air painting session. I found it easier to deal with the scene without the distraction of choosing colours:
Digital Art
In addition to the traditional drawing and painting, I also dabble in digital art using a variety of different apps. In fact, there are so many options within these apps it is hard to build a coherent strategy. Sometimes I try simulating different painting methods but mostly find myself experimenting with different brushes, as the following examples will show.
The first example is a summer trail scene complete in Procreate using a ‘sable brush’. This produced a chalky, perhaps pastel-like finish:
This next example was completed in ArtRage using simulated oil paint squeezed from the tube and then worked with a palette knife. The scene is one of the fields off the Southwell Trail just after the summer harvest. The strong sunlight created a golden glow under heavy clouds which I tried to reflect in my choice of colours:
I must admit to approaching this post with some trepidation as I am only at the start of my art journey. Much of the output to date is based on tutorials and I am very much at the copy and learn stage, with lots going in the bin! More recently though, I have started applying some of the learning to my own subjects often using the Southwell Trail photography as a reference. These are some of the results.
Graphite Drawing
Graphite drawing was the first type of art that I completed. I find drawing more intuitive than other forms of art and learnt a lot from following Smoothie77 on YouTube and Patreon. These are two small sketches (16x11cm), the first is the Old Goods Store at the entrance to the Southwell Trail and the second is a snow scene drawn from a photograph taken when the ‘Beast from the East’ struck in 2018:
Watercolour Painting
The medium that I find the most difficult is watercolour painting. There are so many ways it can go wrong including paint consistency, wetness of the paper, working from light to dark and choosing the right palette and colour combinations. However, when it goes well watercolour is massively rewarding.
When selecting examples of my work to show here, I am hampered by potential copyright issues so I will show a repeat of the Old Goods Store composition completed in gouache. Gouache is an opaque medium that can be used in a similar fashion to watercolour although, dare I say, gouache is a little easier to work with.
Moving away from the Southwell Trail, is this tonal study of Newark Castle complete after my first plein-air painting session. I found it easier to deal with the scene without the distraction of choosing colours:
Digital Art
In addition to the traditional drawing and painting, I also dabble in digital art using a variety of different apps. In fact, there are so many options within these apps it is hard to build a coherent strategy. Sometimes I try simulating different painting methods but mostly find myself experimenting with different brushes, as the following examples will show.
The first example is a summer trail scene complete in Procreate using a ‘sable brush’. This produced a chalky, perhaps pastel-like finish:
This next example was completed in ArtRage using simulated oil paint squeezed from the tube and then worked with a palette knife. The scene is one of the fields off the Southwell Trail just after the summer harvest. The strong sunlight created a golden glow under heavy clouds which I tried to reflect in my choice of colours:
Monday 13 April 2020
The Path
With no new photography from the Southwell Trail due to the coronavirus restrictions I am going back to some images taken in early March. The subject was a path running across the fields from the trail towards Kirklington. After lots of rain in February the path had started to dry out with a number of cracks appearing in the mud along with streaks of sand that had been collected and shaped by the running water.
The series is a bit unusual and might not be everyone's choice of viewing or subject but they continue a theme of photographing surfaces and textures which has dominated my photographic output in the early part of 2020:
The series is a bit unusual and might not be everyone's choice of viewing or subject but they continue a theme of photographing surfaces and textures which has dominated my photographic output in the early part of 2020:
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