Art

Discover Challenge: Portraits

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28-H&N

For this week’s Discover Challenge Michelle asks us to “…share a portrait.”

I loved this challenge as it took me to the bottom drawer in the studio once again to re-discover drawings of mine from many years ago, some from my schoolboy days in the sixties. The feature portrait of course is of my wife and daughter, just a few months old in 1976, who now forty years later has a beautiful baby daughter of her own.

After delving through the files and folders here is a selection of the portraits
some of whom you may well recognize.

…and just one more for my daughter.

24-James Dean

 

journey’s end

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vandusenscape iv

landscape from the immagination 31.7.16

So here we are at the end of July, the last day of World Watercolor Month, and the end of my journey through Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination. As a finale I thought I would revisit one of the images you may remember from my post, “encapsulating the essence,” a drawing of the Sino Himalayan Garden at VanDusen Botanical Gardens here in Vancouver.

Van Dusen ivc

I made a monochrome print on Arches watercolor paper (11″ x 15″); took this to the studio;
mixed my bowls of color and let the washes do their work.

vandusen      vandusenscape ii

Worldwatercolormonth Day 31

vandusenscape iii

I wonder what August will bring…

a mini retrospective

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“A studio is not only a place, it’s a state of mind” Tony Smibert

On July 1st I set out to work my way through Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination, and as those of you who followed my progress know, yesterday I completed the project that I had set myself. July was also World Watercolor Month thanks to Charlie O’Shields, so this was the perfect fit.

It’s always fun to look back sometimes so I thought today I would give myself a little
mini retrospective for the month of July.

My thanks to Charlie and to all of you who joined me on the journey, and of course a big shout out and thank you to the great Australian artist Tony Smibert whose books are a source of such great inspiration to so many.

Tony dedicated his book to his two children, so I would like to dedicate my “retrospective” to my beautiful granddaughter who is really the greatest inspiration of all.

“become an original”

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loti29i

landscape from the imagination  29.7.17

Having worked my way through Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination throughout this past month here is the final paragraph of the book, which will explain the origin of today’s painting, my “original” variation on the book’s last exercise.

“I hope this book has encouraged you. There’s room in the watercolour world for you to take any technical and aesthetic direction you choose. So become an original! Work with the medium in your own way. Adapt, absorb, modify and utilize my suggestions or anyone else’s in any way that works for you!

Great final words in an inspiring book from which I have learnt so much.
Thank you Tony.

simple is best 2

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loti28iv

Evening Light II 28.7.16

Back to the drawing board today with a second visit to the third and final exercise
in Tony Smibert’s book Painting Landscapes from your Imagination.

loti28v

Worldwatercolormonth Day 28