Showing posts with label potter's pink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potter's pink. Show all posts

7.11.08

Bunchy and the blob




Is it just me or does this look vaguely gynaecological in an upside down kind of way? Maybe it's just me...

Painting 'muscles' are now firmly back in action and performing at max warp. As I have a deadline for this set of work, I don't have the luxury of not being able to do it; I knew the first piece would be a struggle, but now I'm firmly on a progression of ideas, and as usual after a break, I've developed a few new themes and ideas. After the last post about Bunchy, I was able to complete her within two days - the colour laid down, and pencil work begun on the nearside ear.





Caroline mentioned Potters Pink, which I remember buying when it first came out a few years ago - in fact, I posted about it when this blog was only a few weeks old, back in 2005, when I was using it on a large painting (in my old, tiny studio, where I could barely move). I remember not being terribly impressed with it's wash abilities; it had a curious mix of chalkiness and stickiness from (presumably) too much gum arabic. Which is why I used my own pink mix for Bunchy; it had enough white in it for the dullness I was after, but a bigger proportion of normal watercolours for it to spread well.
A few hours of pencil work - (just normal H type ones; as a rule I only use coloured pencil on my commercial work, to bumpy the colour up, as is required). One more artwork down...






And another one on the way. As my washes take a while to dry naturally, I'm needle felting inbetween to save time - which seems to use different bits of the brain; sculpting and flat painting feel different inside my head when I do them and it takes about five minutes to settle back into whichever technique. But I've decided not to let my painting slip this time, so I'd better get used to it.





All four paintings are in exactly the same sized frame and circular mount - I've really pushed the limit on the composition here; when I was fitting the mount, I thought for a few horrid seconds that she was going to spill out of the aperture...but she just squeezes in nicely. Another fraction and it would have been like me trying to get into last year's trousers.