animal paintings by John Hopkins

This week the art group invited another professional artist to give a demo at the weekly meet. He came to do a landscape in watercolour, and the whole group was amazed by his technique However what really knowcked out some of the members was his animal portraits in watercolour. Such realism, and detail. He doesn't appear to have a web site but I couldn't not post a couple of his paintings. So here they are:- Animal portraits by John Hopkins

We have re-booked him for another demo later in the year such was our enjoyment of his technique.

 

Stop press: I have just googled John and found his web site, if you want more paintings and info on John then pay it a visit.  I am not really a painetr of animals but there are a couple of examples in my on-line gallery if you would like to compare my poor efforts with those of John Hopkins.

Thanks for your time.......

animal fur in pastel pencils by Bob Elcock

As this is going to be about my art group as well as my paintings, thought I would mention a great demo we had from Bob Elcock recently. Bob has a wonderful technique using pastel pencils which allow an artist to realistically simulate animal fur. He also uses the technique for portraits. According to Bob the pastels he was demo'ing are of a particular hardness and all well matched which allows building up a multiple layer from short strokes. He does of course also make use of the sides of the pastels in a painterly manner, but it seems that it is the multiple strokes which allow the "fur" to look so realistic. I have tried this with other well-known brands and found that the original colour can be lifted with some of the "harder" shades and tints, making it difficult to achieve the desired effect.

It is not really my cup of tea as an artist but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening.

Bob was a really marvellous demonstrator bringing a touch of humour into the proceedings, and had the audience listening for his every word, we will definitely be looking to book Bob for another demo soon, maybe a landscape this time.


If you are based in the UK and are looking for a great day out, Bob will be at the Patchings Art Festival this June. By all accounts this festival promises an artist with demos by guest artists, daily workshops, a chance to buy art and crafts goodies.

Just to finish this post I am including a portrait (watrcolour) which I did some time ago. I do so much abstract and semi-abstract work now I thought it would be good to remind myself of some of my figurative work from time to time.





Thanks for looking, will be back soon with more art talk.

sunset at sea

Just back from my art group with another pastel in the series of sunsets. I do enjoy creating these and each one offers a slightly different challenge, however I am beginning to feel like I need a different challenge.

I came across this image on a greeting card by artist Anne Cherry, see more of her art work here , the original was in watercolour and I was trying to understand how to achieve a similar look in pastel. Of course I have interpreted rather than copied Anne's painting, I hope it is an acceptable work.

The group's next demonstration in two weeks is a watercolour. It has been some time since I painted in this media and look forward to it immensely. I hope to be inspired to try something in this media after the demo. The last watercolour demo resulted in a very different style of watercolour from my usual offerings. It will be interesting to see how this demo affects my work.

A major departure for me, as a blogger.

This is the first post in a new blog. I have tried to include several interests in my one and only blog but I feel that it detracts too much from the original point of the blog.

To explain. I post most of my work with collage and other craft techniques on Artyfax - an artists blog , it actually kicked off as a blog about painting and the "trials and tribulations" of a leisure painter but as I have spent more of my time creating ATC cards and other craft pieces, I have neglected the original objective. Of course you could argue that they are simply alternative forms of art ( and I am not detracting from either) but I am certainly more aware of the background and skills involved in painting than in the other areas. I am also involved in an art group and would like to involve this more closely in my blog. So what to do? Starting a new blog seems to be the best way forward.

I would also like to introduce any new readers to my on-line gallery ( getting a little old in the tooth, I am afraid) which contains some of my older paintings and drawings. It does however offer a way for those new readers to get to know a little about my background. I will try to update the gallery to show off some of my more recent work including some pastel landscapes which I seem to be enjoying at the moment. A couple examples of these are shown below for your perusal.....

OK I have said enough for now, I will be adding more asap - thanks for looking
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