Month: January 2017

Gallimauphry Friday…

| foxstudio

blank-canvas

“Gallimauphry” is great 16th century French term for “a jumble of things” or as we might say “this and that”. You never know what I’ll post on the final Friday of the month.

I tried an experiment last night on Instagram. I’d toned this 24x4o” canvas panel with raw sienna yesterday and plan to post the work in progress. Instagram has become known as a must-see/must-do place for artists and buyers since it’s the most purely image-oriented social media platform. So I thought it would be amusing to post a blank canvas and see what happens. In two hours I had eight Likes and this morning, about twelve hours later, there were fifteen, which is about what I get, give or take, for images of actual paintings. A few more will probably show up before it moves down the queue. What I think is going on is that people like seeing artist’s studios and watching their process, but I still think this is amusing. So if you’re on Instagram and want to follow along or if you’re not yet and are going to sign up, you can find me here. Come on along!

relaxed
“African Lion” 13.5×9.5″ graphite on paper

In other news, my drawing “Relaxed (African Lion)” has been accepted into the Salmagundi Club‘s historic “Black and White Exhibition”! It was shipped off to New York yesterday.

 

In The Studio…Experimenting With Water Soluble Pencils And Various Papers

| foxstudio
cam-2
Stillman and Birn Beta paper (a little smoother than a cold press watercolor paper)

Every year in the winter, I try to set aside time to review my painting process and experiment with new media and supports, both for painting and drawing. Last year in January I had to swing into action for the “Wildlife Art: Field to Studio” group exhibition at the Flinn Gallery, but after three exhibitions in four years I currently don’t have one scheduled for 2017 so have time to mess about and explore ways to improve my work.

I purchased a set of Cretacolor AquaMonolith pencils last year, took them to Mongolia without much of a pre-departure tryout and wasn’t happy with what I did. Tough to test drive a new media in field conditions. I also had some Derwent Inktense water soluble pencils  that had been sitting around for a year or so with no time to play with them. I’d been using their regular water soluble colored pencils on and off for years. So a couple of weeks ago I sat down with all three and a bunch of different papers.

Cretacolor is an Austrian company. I’d already started to use their Monolith graphite pencils and I like them a lot. I use them now for my finished drawings. They and the AquaMonoliths are woodless graphite with a lacquer coating. The difference is that the latter are color and water soluble. Derwent is an English company, based in the Lake District, which was founded in 1832. Wood pencils were invented by them and we’ve visited the factory during a past trip to England (a definite stop for artists if you’re there). I’ve used a variety of their products for years, including their wood drawing pencils.

Once I laid down the colors I went back with a waterbrush (more on those in a future post) and did some blending. It’s a “hit it and leave it” for the most part. On most of the papers continuing to wet and push the color around makes a mess. I experimented with how hard and thick to lay on the strokes and found that I liked leaving them visible.

I’m posting them in the reverse order that I did them because of how Google and other sites will choose the header image and I’d like the “good ones” to show up. Fingers crossed. :0)

None of them are more than about 2×2″, so thumbnail size.

cam-3
Stillman and Birn Alpha paper (slight texture, a little on the thin side for adding water, but it didn’t buckle at all)

I had fun getting the rain effect in the top sketch.

cam-4
Stillman and Birn Zeta paper (smooth, almost a plate finish)

The pencils worked, but I like them better on a paper with more tooth.

cam-1
Pentalic Nature Sketch sketchbook (not thrilled with this first try, but I otherwise really like the paper so will experiment further; it does have some tooth and is off-white)

I’ve been using the Pentalic Nature Sketch sketchbooks for a couple of years, carrying a small one around with me and also to Mongolia. They’re reasonably priced, come in a variety of sizes including a 6×12″ which I like a lot. The paper is acid free and 25% cotton and really is multimedia, including watercolor if you don’t go too heavy on the washes.

cam-5
Strathmore 400 vellum bristol

I’ve been using this paper, along with Rives BFK, for my finished drawings that I frame for sale at my local gallery, Strawberry Rock Gallery in Trinidad, California. While it has a bit of tooth, it was the least successful and is off the list for now, but I really like it with the Monolith pencils.

Tales From The Field: “The Yak”

| foxstudio

 

1-yakHappy New Year! I’m going to change things up on the blog for the coming year, my tenth as a blogger. I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of traveling over the years to a variety of destinations. And do I have stories? I certainly do. So the first Friday of each month will be “Tales from the Field”, which will include Mongolia, of course, but also Kenya, Canada, Europe and the US. Then I plan to do a post on whatever I’ve got cooking in the studio or on location, followed the next week with one of useful tips and information on painting and drawing. The fourth Friday will be a “gallimauphry” post, a great medieval term for “this and that”… announcements, special offers, whatever has caught my fancy. There may be posts in between for news that just can’t wait.

To start off Tales from the Field, here’s the story of my encounter with a yak in the northern mountains of Mongolia….

I was on my way to Jalman Meadows, a Nomadic Journeys ger camp located in the Han Hentii Strictly Protected Area at the northern reaches of the Tuul Gol (River), which wends its way down through Ulaanbaatar and on west.

We had left the pavement behind and were traveling on earth roads through the beautiful late summer countryside, passing local herders and their livestock, along with their white gers, the quintessential Mongolian landscape. Driving along a slope overlooking a valley we came upon (top photo) these two young men and a couple of yaks, both of which appeared to be gelded yak/cow crosses, which are stronger for work than pure yaks. The intact bulls have their horns removed because otherwise they would be too dangerous to handle.

2-yak

They were keeping a careful eye on their charges.

3-yak

But clearly experienced in moving these big beasts along. The horses were as phlegmatic about it as they always are.

4-yak

We stopped while they crossed the road in front of us. I was sitting in the front seat of the Land Cruiser on the left side, the car being right-hand drive, and shooting photos through the windshield, but was able to have the window down next to me.

5-yak

The boys and their charges moved off down towards the valley floor and we drove on.

6-yak

There was a summer rain storm coming in and the light was spectacular at times. While we were stopped the riders and yaks caught up with us.

7-yak

Got more photos of them passing us, although this one was a little blurry, it was the best composed. Then things changed in a hurry…

8-yak

The bigger of the two yaks suddenly turned towards the car.

10-yak

And started to charge towards it, aimed right at the passenger door. The boy had been smiling, but became quite serious. I wasn’t going anywhere.

11-yak

Now he needed to really get his horse moving to catch up. I remember thinking that there was going to be collision with the car door and I would be looking right at those horns from a very, very short distance.

12-yak

But he got the yak turning away and started to grin again. At this point he was about 15′ from the car. I and the driver exhaled. There had been no time for him to start the engine and no place to drive to anyway. Best to just stay put, stay quiet and not move. So I just kept, rather fatalistically, I suppose, taking pictures out the open window.

13-yak

The yak was now turned away from the car and going in the right direction.

14-yak

And the rider herded him towards the other boy and his charge.

15-yak

Our yak encounter over, the herders moved their charges on down the valley with a pretty good story to tell when they got home.

jalman-meadows

And we drove on to our destination, Jalman Meadows, set high on a bluff overlooking the river and the mountains. You can see photos of my stay there on a previous blog post here.