Leisure Painting Classes

Returning to Art, I found some great classes at the Art Academy East in Dereham, Norfolk. The classes are simple painting classes and the technique is not so complicated either, which is great. All it needs is a little colour theory and look at the results...!


This one was painted with just two complimentary (opposite) colours, yellow and purple, with white for tone and an under-painting of Raw Sienna, a red-brown. So effective!

 

This one is painted with three colours: Windsor Blue (greenish-blue), Chrome Yellow, Raw Sienna. The under-painting is a hot rose-pink colour which give the painting a contemporary impression.

 

The challenge here is that yellow is quite a transparent colour. It took a few attempts to get the lemons to look solid but not to look like they were floating some way above the plate!

This is my own sketch of a misty scene at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen. There was no under-painting which works too because this is misty scene, the white underneath is already a good choice and shows through giving lightness to the scene...

 

Another landscape but this time with an under-painting - a really bright green. I was told this would create a very calm effect and it really does! The sky is quite greenish with Windsor Blue, already greenish, painted over green. The green shows through the shadows too.  It definitely unifies the colours.

 

A typically appealing image, a flamenco dancer. The colours here are Alizarin Crimson, Raw Sienna, Pthalo Green, White and a Yellow Ochre underpainting.  Raw Sienna and Crimson with white create nice flesh tones.

 

A water colour instead of acrylics. 

This used the three "earth primaries": Yelllow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Paynes Grey.

 

Another go at my own choice of subject. Two Snipe, photographed from Tower Hide of RSPB Strumpshaw Fen. The colours are Ultramarine Blue (hot blue, very purplish), Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre. The under-painting is very dark blue.

 

Creative skies!

Four combinations of colours. Red-Yellow, Red-Crimson, Red-Blue, Blue-Green.

 

Using a palate knife to make skies...

 

Xmas! 

Challenege here: to create the effect of shine and gloss.We were told to use high contrast by placing the white highlights and deep shadows close together.

 

Xmas - Splatter for snow! 

A warm choice of colours over a very dark under-painting: Raw Sienna, Crimson, Ultramarine Blue. Palate knife and toothbrush to create the forground.

 

Painting from the imagination... The Northern Lights. 

Just two colours and White: Bright Green and Purple.

Paper crafts

Looking back to 2009, I helped out with an exhibition about cultural connections between East Anglia and Japan. It was called "East Meets East".

As part of that exhibition there were a number of very large paper origami cranes all made at a party...

You can see them here too, atop the exhibition stand... Yes, they are quite big!

I thought I'll have a go at some origami for myself, only, on a smaller scale...

So, in the middle you see another crane. It is quite a complicated design. Definitly easier with large paper, than miniturised as here. Top-left is the bird design which can flap. Top-right is a crow which can stand or peck - but it looks more like a penguin to me! Bottom-left is another crow. This one can open and close its' beak. Finally, bottom-right is a peace-dove. I think the crane is the best!


This was also fun... There were a couple of designs in my book for butterflies...

Again, the simple one has movement. It can flap by pressing the body. Stationary, like this, it looks like little more than a peice of folded paper. If you flap it nervously, it really does to start to look like a butterfly. Amazing the illusion it creates - from something so simple!

Also, I really think the other butterfly looks just like a Swallowtail Butterfly - a rare creature, here in the east of England. All it needs is some black marking on the yellow paper, and it would be there!

Building an Owl Box

Today, I joined the Friends of Thetford Forest Park for the last session before Christmas.

To end each year we build something; sometimes bird boxes, sometimes bat boxes. Occassionally we service the hibernaculum in Thetford Forest near the High Lodge visitor centre, with simple boards hung on the wall for the bats.

We were building owl boxes on behalf of the B.T.O., the British Trust For Ornithology, who are to survey the population of Tawney Owls. They will spend a set time to wait and listen. If they here nothing they will play a recording of an owl call, in a controlled way to give comparable results to their survey.

The boxes were made from larch, a wood which has self-preserving properties and so does not require the addition of preservatives. This was the basic blue-plan...

A box under construction near completion. Note; the five holes underneath for drainage and the hatch on the side for checking, ringing and cleaning. 

Six boxes built during the morning...