Isadora Duncan - beginning a portrait

I have had little time recently for making art. My real life art teaching at college began last week & I have also been working hard on preparing & launching my new website & e-course.

Today, the heavens opened in Gloucestershire & finally, I had time to retreat into the sanctuary of my studio. I already had plans to continue the series of portraits I had begun making, drawing inspiration from early photographs of creative people & others within their circles. I love this portrait of Isadora Duncan, her beautiful almond shaped eyes & long white neck. My process is always to begin by making a number of preliminary sketches to help me understand the pose, the dimensions of the face & the expression of the subject.

I usually make my preliminary sketches on scrap paper & will often use recycled paper in the finished piece. This drawing was made using a roller ball ink pen.

I then used Conté crayon to add tone & was pleased with the way the dark background lifted the face forward. I'm sure there'll be many more sketches before I move on to making the final piece, but feel that I have begun to become acquainted with Isadora. 

The new website & e-course info can be viewed here. I'd love any feedback on the new site!

Other portraits in this series can be seen by clicking here.

Leonardo at Bristol

There are not many displays of under a dozen exhibits that I would drive over 40 miles to see, but I made an exception for the latest exhibition at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
On show until 10th June, 'Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci' is the main attraction & for good reason.

This exhibition, although light on exhibits, contains examples of all of Leonardo's major areas of work. He thought of himself as a scientist first & an artist second. Two of the examples are meticulous anatomical drawings, one of arms & the other of bones of the foot. Others include designs for clothing & sculpture.

I loved this drawing of Leda (below) & was fascinated by the techniques used. Leonardo had made an under drawing of black chalk & then a fine drawing of ink was made on top of this. It was amazing to see the marks made by his hand over 500 years ago.

This was my personal favourite, Scenes from the End of the World. Click on the photo to see clouds raining fire & skeletons rising up from the ground- an interesting subject for the leading scientist of the age!

I came away inspired to find out more about Leonardo & become more prolific as an artist!

 The drawings are part of the Royal Collection & are being exhibited as a Diamond Jubilee Celebration.

Emerging out of the dark

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

These two drawings were made by covering the paper with a layer of charcoal, then lifting out & drawing back in, to enable the figures to emerge. I was pleased with the somewhat sculptural effect it created.

Feathers

I attended a drawing with mixed media & technique workshop at the Bristol Drawing School. The workshop was tutored by Ruth Wallace. Five hours drawing - bliss!

Many of the techniques involved painting the surface of the paper, sometimes adding a further layer of charcoal or ink and then, scratching out or lifting this off to reveal the original layer. This was an exciting way of working and very useful to be able to draw by creating a white line.