Art

Earnsdale Near Tockholes, originally uploaded by David Pott.

A low raking sun provides plenty of wonderfully bright, warm and colourful highlights contrasting with cool, dark areas of shade.

Lever Park Study 1, originally uploaded by David Pott.

Just a quick colour study - perhaps I’ll work it up into a bigger painting.

Earnsdale, near Darwen, originally uploaded by David Pott.

This was a watercolour sketch completed on site last month. Its impossible to get a ‘finished’ painting when outside. Nature just changes so quickly, the clouds are constantly changing and, on this occasion, the sun was setting so quickly that anything more complicated would have needed photographic reference.

Steve (1), originally uploaded by David Pott.

Here in Bolton we’re lucky to have access to a free figure drawing class. Here’s the first of two studies of Steve, our model this week.

"Grasmere" Landscape Painting Commission

I’ve been lucky enought to pick up some commissions for paintings recently. So far they have all been landscape commissions (as opposed to portrait commission which are my other favourites). Some artists are notoriously reluctant to agree to commissions, sometimes for quite snobbish reasons (not wanting to pollute the purity of their art). On the contrary, I find commissions to be a welcome relief from the ‘what shall I do today’ question. A commission gives focus, purpose and usually a time limit to the day - all useful drivers for a wooly headed artist!

Watching the TV after School

Here’s a page from one of my sketchbooks. Its so difficult to get catch children sitting still. Sometime you have to catch them during one the rare times of day when they are (relatively) still and quiet.

My sketchbooks are full of very quick and usually unfinished sketches like this. I do feel very jealous of people whose sketchbooks are full of mini-masterpeices on each page. I never seem to have the time to complete my sketches and as a result my sketchbooks are full of half-finished drawings and unidentifiable squiggles.

Seth Godin has a great blog entry called I Need to Build a House, What Kind of Hammer Should I Buy?

I guess many artists are guilty of over-emphasising the importance of the equipment they use. It reminds me that you only need three primary colours plus white, some basic brushes and a length of cheap hardboard to paint a masterpiece.

We focus on the technology of creativity (the pigments, binders, supports, brush types and yes, blogging) and on the techniques (scrumbling, anatomy, cross-hatching, glazing, perspective etc) until it becomes an excuse not to create.

I stumbled on Sydney Padua’s blog today. Sydney is a London-based animator who with a geekish knowledge of cat anatomy. He’s recently been leading some courses in cat anatomy for animators and has published some of his exquisitley drawn course notes on the web. They’re fabulous - lively, brisk and full of cat-like energy and inquisitiveness. Animators like Sydney have to observe their subjects even more intensely than we artists - every gesture, every nuance must be right.