Black & White or colour?

So, tell me . . . Now that I have done a coloured version of the wise old man, which do you prefer?   Personally, I can't make my mind up.  

Sorry - this is a short blog.  I am currently working on a new project that involves coloured card and paper.  I will post the results here if they are worth looking at.

Bye for now.

The Red Pen.

This loose watercolour figure painting is typical of the type of work that I have been doing recently.  It is similar to another painting on here called, 'Reflection', whereby the subject is busy writing on a piece of paper.  

In this version the person is turned around more towards the viewer.  His head leans forward, which presents interesting foreshortening challenges.  With not much to look at in the way of features,  the focal point moves towards his hands.  This was the real attraction to me.  I am a big fan of drawing and painting hands.

The skin tones on view on the hands, arms and face have a subtle mixture of warm and cool tones sitting adjacent to each other.  The blue shirt and grey hair give an overall cool cast to the figure.

Loose ink Elvis

It is good to get back to painting for myself,  after a long period of commissions over the Christmas period.

I was looking through some old You Tube videos of a young Elvis Presley in action.  I knew the exact pose I wanted and I also could visualise how it was going to look.  I wanted lots of movement and energy in the painting, so I opted for Indian ink and my trusty painting tool, the plastic fork with one tine.

Using the fork as a painting tool allows me to be very sketchy and loose.  I added two  shades of blue watercolour for his denims and a little red and yellow ochre for the skin tones.  The whole painting took around three minutes to complete.  Freeze framing the video gave me the exact pose that I was looking for.  Perfectly balanced, he wound up to a big finish for his song.

The film was Called Loving You.  His second movie.  Hope you like my interpretation.

Loose portraits.

I thought I would add a reference photo along with one of my loose watercolours.  In this way you can see that I choose a focal point in most of my loose portraits.  Once that is established, there is no need for too much detail to be added, even to the point of dispensing with facial features, like the mouth in this case.

This is titled 'Wonder' and hopefully you can see that there is enough in the little girl's expression to justify such a title.  Makes me 'Wonder' how minimal and loose an artist can be in his / her attempt to get the message across.

The ref photo is from Barbra Tester, a member of paint my photo.  A site that has supplied me with most of my ref photos.  www.paintmyphoto.ning.com

A site well worth joining if you are an artist.

Just back from a wonderful holiday in Canada.  Myself and my two grandaughters, Jessica and Niamh attended a family wedding in Ajax Ontario.  If you are reading this, Grace, Herve, Louise, John, Nicole, Steve and all the other people we met - thanks so much.  We had a ball.  I did some silhouette cutting and caricatures whilst I was there.

Today's painting is called Rasta Man.  Another loose watercolour portrait.  Hope you like it.

Merry Christmas

I know that it is early to send Christmas greetings, but I promise to post this painting again in December.  In my home there are no watercolours of mine hanging on the wall.  A couple of oil paintings, but no watercolours.  Last year when the Christmas decorations were going up I painted this happy picture of a little girl hugging Santa.  The finished work was stuck to the glass on my internal door.  When the decorations came down - the painting came down too, and is keeping my other watercolours company in my storage box.
I am thinking of taking this one along to the printers to be transformed into a proper Christmas card.
Hope the sun is shining where you are today, but let me be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas for 2012.

The green hat

A mixture of two of my art journeys here.  This is obviously a profile, but this time I have created a loose watercolour instead of my usual silhouette cut.  The green cast of light on the lady's face was very tempting when I saw the reference photograph.
Lots of washing away to create lost edges, but her facial profile was kept sharp to create a focal point.

Sleeping child

This simple little watercolour of a sleeping child is another example of a minimalist style I have been using.  The profile of the lower part of her face can be seen only by the shape it creates on her hand as she supports her head.  I thinks its cute.
Kept the colour range to a minimum too.

Glance from the east

I have posted this image recently in various locations but it is a favourite of mine at the moment, so here it is again!  I began this watercolour by laying on various washes to establish the veil around her head.  I ignored the skin tones initially, but began to gradually add one or two colours from the veil onto the woman's features - including the cadium orange on the right side of her face.  Complimentary colours were to the fore again, much the same as my 'Claire' portrait from a little while back.
Plenty of juxta-positioning of warm against cool too.  It all adds up to another bold watercolour portrait.  Who said that watercolour paintings are 'wishy washy'?

Can you see the rat?

Like the title???  Nothing to do with the gentleman in this painting.  When I posted this on PMP  (Paint my Photo), someone commented that they could see a rat sitting on the table below the map that the guy is holding.  This is not the case of course.  The dark shape is in fact his thigh and a small part of his shorts on view.  Can't help but see the rat all the time now!
I have added a detail of his face so that this distraction is removed.  This is another study in light.  We all know that when painting with watercolour the white parts are nothing more than dry untouched paper, but there is a trick - a subtle one - but it works nicely.
Whites appear whiter when there is a bold darker colour placed next to it.  In the same way, the bold colour appears even bolder when placed next to the white.  'Sparkle' is a term I have heard often in watercolour critique - and that is what I tried to achieve here.