Rob Adams a Painter's Blog painter's progress

April 24, 2011

Unseasonal Weather

Filed under: Kent,London,Painting,Watercolour — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Rob Adams @ 2:50 pm

Well, Spring is racing towards Summer an an astonishing pace, at this rate Christmas will be in July. Painting wise it has brought some unusual sights. Apple and other fruit blossom in full bloom with the trees so advanced that they are almost in full leaf. Usually the trees would just have a first flush of green, but not this year. Not altogether happy with my painting at present, I seem to be in a transitional stage with my oil painting, not quite sure of my direction. What I want to do is add boldness without losing clarity and good drawing, but alas as with any gain something has to be sacrificed and I just can’t decide what. On the plus side these times of being becalmed in the doldrums some times herald a step forward but I will have to keep bashing away for that to happen. Anyway, here are some of the battles fought to a standstill in the last week or so!

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Spitalfields, London, watercolour, plein air

This was almost the last of the grey days. Michael Richardson and I traipsed the streets trying to find a good subject on a record breakingly flat day. The cloud cover was quite this but entirely uniform which it made it very hard to find anything with much tonal interest. On the plus side we spotted several potential painting spots on our travels. This is the doorway of  Christchurch Spitalfields by architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. The area Spitalfields was originaly named Hospital fields as it was the site of a large early hospital founded in 1197AD. This was a tricky one to draw as it would have been nice to sit further back but the size of the portico made that impossible. One advantage of the flat light was that I had plenty of time to get the drawing as good as I could.

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St Pauls, London, watercolour, plein air, Millennium, bridge

Back across London to paint this at the end of the day, the steps lead up from the riverside to the new Millennium Bridge. This was a very quick sketch. I might return though as the subject might be good with better light.

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penshurst, place, kent, oil painting, plein air, garden

Here you can see the weather has burst out into an early summer, but seen under an April sun that gave the whole scene an almost other worldly cast. I tried to catch the feeling but a lot to do in a complex scene like this. 14 in by 10 in. I still have to put some movement in the sky but that will have to wait ’til it’s dry.

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Penshurst place, kent, oil painting, plein air

After all that architecture I needed some respite so I settled on this. Great fun to paint with it’s subtle greens and deep shadows. I dab in the blossoms with white which dries a little as I paint the rest, then a put a touch of fresh colour on top, this keeps the colour clean and brilliant in hue.

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Penshurst Place, blossom, oil painting, plein air, kent, garden

A final one, this was a wee 10in by 7 in done very quickly, but I just couldn’t resist another before going home!

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The Shard, London, thames, oils, plein air, river, bridge

Another Brass Monkey expedition, the weather again was fantastic. The challenge here was to get the hazy tones right which I did OK but the drawing and composition slightly suffered in my haste.

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Michael Richardson, London, Thames, Wapping Group

Here is our vantage point. The tide was unusually low which brings great possibilities for unusual views. Michael Richardson, immune to distraction, paints away while I flit about taking photos. The terrain means backing away to take stock of your progress could be hazardous!

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Telegraph Hill, london, newcross, watercolour

This was done from a sketch gone wrong. The view is from Telegraph Hill in South London where a large Semaphore tower stood in Napoleonic times. The light was gorgeous but due to rushing I messed up the first wash, so I re-did it as soon as I was home while it was still fresh in my memory. Off to Dorset next so I hope for some good subjects, but as I am visiting good friends I will I suspect be lured from painting duties by pleasant society.

April 20, 2011

Windows in Perspective part 2

Filed under: Drawing,How to do,Perspective — Rob Adams @ 6:28 pm

I have split this into 2 parts so if you have come straight to this one then you need to go here for the first part. In this part we will see how to build on the same method to put windows into the facade of a building. Once you understand the basics then I’m sure you will be able to think of ways of taking it further but I want to only cover the very simplest cases in this post. at the end of the last part we has a row of posts… but what if they were drainpipes?

 

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

Well here is where we left off, now to make a few windows. The tops and bottoms of the windows are easy as you see by the green lines, just decide the vertical spacing (I’m having 2 rows) , make the divisions on the first pole and join them back to the vanishing point. If only the rest was as easy!

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

What I want to do is divide the space between the poles into 4 and use the centre two divisions for my window opening. So first divide one of my spaces into two by drawing the purple cross and then mark the centre back to the horizon with the red line, then I split the wall into two with the blue line.

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

Then I draw in the other two little purple lines to divide again. The blue lines show the resulting divisions. As you see an added bonus is that it has made upper windows as well!

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

Here it is all filled in, I’ve removed the previous construction so we don’t get confused with too many lines. Next we need to add identical windows to the next section.

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

I’ve put back in my centre line by drawing the purple cross and running the red line back to the Vanishing Point.

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

Now the tricky bit, I have drawn the first turquoise line from the bottom left of our first window through the point where the red line crosses the second pole and onwards until it hits the green line of the window top. Take your time to make sure you understand this. What you are doing is taking the rectangle made by one of the windows and the righthand bit of wall and making an identical rectangle on the other side of the second pole. Then I have only to duplicate the lefthand but of wall by drawing a line from the top right of the window through the same point on the second pole to hit the green line that marks the bottom of the windows. Then you can mark the blue lines in that make the window sides.

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perspective, drawing, tutorial

As you can see as before you can then continue to do the same thing to fill in the rest of the windows, until your patience runs out!

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