getting some things ready for the Hawksbury Art Fair

RAS Portrait Course week 5

continuing on with Robert as our sitter this week

RAS Portrait Course week 4

Robert was our sitter this week and again we started with some 1minute and 3 minute sketches in various positions, followed by a longer drawing and then one pose for the rest of the session. We will repeat the same pose next week for those that want to finish their paintings.

Graeme

This week at the regular Saturday afternoon  monthly portrait group at Richmond Art Supplies, Graeme, who is usually a regular attendee as an artist, switched roles and became this month's sitter!

RAS Portrait Course week 3

We had Elissa back again this week and started with with 1 minute, then 3 minute, a 20 minute and then some longer poses, again using watercolour...  different papers can produce different results

RAS Portrait Course week 2

This week I arranged the model, Elissa who is an art student who also models and we worked through a series of 3 minute head studies, a 20 minute one and a  longer pose where some drew, or painted with oils or watercolour.

RAS Portrait Course Week 1

RAS Portrait Course, Week 1,  started with a little uncertainty, phone calls had not been returned... I was not sure that it really was going ahead, how many might be there? what to bring? and what about a sitter?
My plan was to start with short, 3 minute head studies which I think would be a really good way to warm up and  focus on the structure of the head and not details and with a variety of angles you don't get in a conventional sitting, follow up with a longer drawing and then do a painting for the rest of the session.
When I arrived, Christine who oversees the RAS there said that a model hadn't been arranged, but she managed to grab a member of another group who was just leaving... who could only stay for half the session.
Not quite as I had hoped but we still did manage, short sketches, a longer sketch and a short painting... and I sat for a study for the rest of the session. Not very many in the class but hopefully it will pick up. This week we used oils, but there was a consensus to give watercolours a try next time.

I have been asked by the Royal Art Society of New South Wales to run their Wednesday afternoon Portrait Painting course this term at their location in Lavender Bay. I don't have any art school training and so I considered this for a while before deciding to go ahead with it.

The confidence that I can do this comes mainly from the three Portrait workshops I have done with Susan Cesarini, David Kassan and Evert Pleog, the numerous portrait demonstrations in front of live audiences (about 17), and the  portrait  and life drawing groups I attend regularly, the involvment with online forums such as Wet Canvas all building on the desire from a young age to follow this passion. I may not have reached yet the standard I want to achieve, but I do feel I have something I can contribute to others development in most areas regarding portraiture.

 My idea of this course will be more 'What they don't tell you in Art School!' than a formal academic approach, and the goal of the course will be to enjoy the experience of developing and improving individual skills and confidence in the art of Portraiture.

The principle medium used will be oil paints but the course will not be limited to one particular method or style and the intent will be to build competence, confidence and originality in being able to portray a likeness in a variety of mediums and methods.

The focus will be on developing confidence to paint 'alla prima' with short poses but will also include developing a more finished result over longer poses.

Some of the topics to be covered will be

Materials, Paints, Grounds, brushes etc.

Structure of the head, how to depict with painting and drawing.

Alla Prima Painting in oil paint.

Building up a painting over more than one sitting.

Using other Mediums, Pencil, Pastel, Watercolour.

A tribute to my friend Alan Chipperfield who passed on the other day. Alan and I had been getting together on Monday afternoons for several years now for the practice of painting portraits.

It started when I was told of this elderly gentleman who wanted to learn to paint portraits, and I soon found was that what he really wanted to paint a surprise portrait of his son, the internationally renowned architect Sir David Chipperfield. 

We discovered that we had many things in common in our backgrounds, and Monday afternoons developed into a regular painting sessions along with cups of tea and coffee and discussions of everything under the sun, and which stopped for very few things... Monday afternoons were for painting!

Alan's house was a heritage house circa 1812, and he operated his antiques and restoration business from there, and as there was nowhere inside suitable for our painting we always worked outside which was not easy but that is the way he wanted it.

He was a remarkable individual, growing up in England in the 1930's, evacuated during the war as a child, becoming a successful businessman before emigrating to Australia and spent the last decades of his life working with antiques.It would take a couple of books to describe him, and fortunately there are a couple of autobiographical books that he did write. One of them is titled “A face in the Crowd' describing his life up until his move to Sydney over 25 years ago.

Here are some photos. my portrait of Alan, Alan working on portraits at the back of his house, some of his antiques and upholstery and what he did it on... never a person to spend money unnecessarily!

A Hot Day with Tea

 

Yesterday at 44C in Richmond was a bit on the hot side! Alan had suggested that I drop round to Price House as Sonny, a Chinese friend  who had sat for us at one of our 'painting practices'  was coming over, and with some photographers as well...  we weren't sure what for!

Sonny is from China, and she imports some special teas from a certain region of China, where tea cultivation, preparation and drinking is an artform with similarities to our western love and appreciation of wines! It turns out that her husband (who is from England) had recently participated in a tea making competition in China... against some highly prepared commercial contestants, and against all odds had won!

So there was a small photographic crew from a Chinese TV network following Him around doing a documentary of him and his teamaking in Australia. He prepared a special tea for the four of us, with tea I think from some of the ancient  (1800 year old) tea plants, which had been stored in a dried mandarin, which we drank from some of Alan's antique cups and the whole event/ceremony and chat was recorded by the film crew.

The film team was sweltering in the heat (it is winter over there) but fortunately the Historic old house feels like it has air conditioning... even though it doesn't.

I don't know if any photos will turn up from this unexpected event, but I do have a photo from the charcoal drawing I did of Sonny when she was sitting for us

 

 

A Time for recycling

I have been life drawing for over 15 years now, and apart from the instant rejects after a session, I throw a lot out every now and then when I look through them.
Even so I have huge piles of drawings... which is one of the reasons I mainly keep to about an A3 size for most of my regular life drawing sessions. This last week I decided on a more ruthless cull and was going to gesso over most of my A2 works and lots of the A3's but discovered that many of the sketches took on a new lease of life if I just trimmed them to an A3 size... they seemed to have a new impact!
Anyway after a lot of cropping I saved about 120+ drawings still have a huge pile to recycle for the coming year!

Pile of A2 and A3 drawings to recycle and some of the trimmings from the cropping

 a pile of A2 drawings to be recycled

and some of the salvaged drawings

New Showroom and Gallery

Alan Chipperfield a very unique and special friend of mine. He is 85 years old and lives in historic Price House in Richmond NSW (circa 1815), which is also the showrooms and display area for possibly one of the best antique and antique furniture restoration businesses in Sydney.

Alan works daily on restoring antiques to their former beauty, but he is also multi talented, plays the piano daily, is an avid chess player and has a razor sharp mind. He and I get together once a week to work on  painting portraits... just one of his many goals!

He is also extremely proud of his sons, one of whom is a world renowned architect and the other a journalist.

Recently Alan decided to convert an old dilapidated storage shed  into a Showroom and Gallery, and wanted to display some of my paintings in it.

It's almost finished, the. lights went in yesterday.

Brian Jones Memorial Exhibition

A special exhibition was held last Sunday at the  Hawkesbury Regional Gallery,  to commemorate Brian Jones's life, and his contribution to the Hawkesbury area. The paintings were by Brian Jones, and some of the  works he had donated to the Friends of the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery ( and also my portraits of Brian). Friends and colleagues were able to gather together to honour and remember him. Speeches were given by Hawkesbury Councilors Paul Rasmussen and Christine Paine, and Artist Greg Hansell among others.