Posted by Stephen Quirke on March 17, 2009 under Art, en plein air, figure, my work, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour | 
I woke up this morning thinking about the figures I did on Sunday. I realised that I had not applied any of the lessons I had read over and over in Charles Reid’s watercolour books. He offers a set of steps for painting a face and a figure. And in the rush of it all I forgot them all. But that is the beauty of learning and time. For now we get to have another go at it. And we have the capacity to reflect on the last one.
And there is nothing like a good nights sleep for seeing the learnings. Although I must say we have had our first rains and the Clicking Stream Frogs (Strongylopus Greyii) have gathered at our pool and are chorussing as I write. They have such a sweet subdued clicking sound. But last night there was a strident little fellow who kept intruding into my dreams.
But I digress…
Here is a painting I did of my daughter Sinead last year, while she was sitting doing her homework:
It is almost completely ‘alla prima’. I was sitting across the table from her. So how do I account for the difference between this and the pictures in my last post? This is what I think:
- I know her well and we were both relaxed about the ‘sitting’. On Sunday I took my stuff out and started painting so felt about uncomfortable about what the sitters might think (for the first one anyway).
- I had contracted with her to sit. I felt relaxed about our agreement.
- She had agreed to try to sit still. My subjects on Sunday all moved around – a lot. Which is OK. I want to get better at contour drawing at speed and interpretting changed positions back to what I had drawn. Claudia the artmodel tells a story about a woman who started drawing her on a train after a long day of modelling for artists. She graciously held her pose up to the point where she jumped off the train at her station – an interesting vignette. But most of us move around a lot – even when we try to sit still.
- I had swotted up on the process I would use. On Sunday I threw all of my learning out the window. Well not all. I tried to mix the colours on the page, following Charles Reid’s approach. I remember my first ever teacher, Nicholas Galloway saying ”that isn’t how I taught you to do a wash…” And maybe that is what Charles would have said about my first two faces.
- I was OK with failure. I was relaxed about what I would produce. Well, on Sunday I was too.
- I had a little more time. Even for my last one on Sunday Neil leapt up towards the end because the sun had moved and he was getting frazzled.
I can’t wait to have another go at this.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on March 6, 2009 under Art, figure, illustration, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
Here are two paintings I did of my daugher Sinead who turned 15 yesterday. The first is a painting from a photos and sketches I took to prepare for a drawing I did in our church. While Gavin the minister preaches I sometimes illustrate the talk on big sheets of paper with big fat khoki pens. Which is both nerve-wracking and exciting. The first time I did it, my first lines were wavy because my hand was shaking so much.
The first picture is of the woman from the story in Luke 7:38 Luke says she had “lived a sinful life”. She wants to slip in and pour perfume on Jesus feet while he is having dinner at Simon the pharisee’s house. In his presence she is overcome with emotion and kneels at his feet crying, washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. Jesus was so loving. He protects her from the indignant reproach of Simon with story. Then he says to her “your sins are forgiven”. I think it is such a beautiful story. Here is the drawing:
I joined two flip-chart pages together for the sheet – so it is about 800x1200mm. I had to correct the light a little to take out the folds in the paper.
And here is the picture which I entered in the local “miniatures” exhibition.
When my friend Marilyn saw this picture on submission day, she said “this woman has a hell of a hangover” which I thought was hilarious.
Here is the other picture I painted of Sinead at the same time, from a photo I took at Paternoster, up the West coast. She was drawing in the sand with a stick.
Both of the watercolour paintings are 250x250mm on Arches Cold Pressed. It is fun working at that size. I bought a big maginfying glass but in the end I did not use it much.
In fact both of these pictures won awards, one of them came first which I also thought was quite cool.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on March 1, 2009 under Art, Mvuu, figure, landscape, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
Most of the workers at Mvuu camp live at home upstream from the camp and they get a ride by boat to and from the camp. Here is a painting of the guys on the ferry home. It seemed quite precarious but such a cool way to commute. Something to think about next time I am stuck in traffic on the N2.
There is a LOT of green and I started putting in too much detail, though I think the bush supports the boat so I will do it again taking more time on the greens and darks. Also I think the colours in the men and the boat are bit too washed out.
The painting is 760×570 mm which is a full sized sheet of Arches Cold Press (185gm)
Posted by Stephen Quirke on February 23, 2009 under Art, Mvuu, en plein air, landscape, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
This morning I sat and did this painting just outside the camp at Mvuu. (Mvuu is the Chichewa word for a “Hippo”. It sounds like the blowing sound the hippo makes when it surfaces). In spite of the hippos grunting as they wandered around the camp and a visit from the hyenas I had a deep sleep. So when I sat down to paint I was rested and calm. I climbed a termite mound and sat in the shade of a tree. What a pleasant experience. The Shire River is just behind the bush to the right of the picture. I climbed to the top of the mound and took some photos, but there was no space to sit and paint.
Earlier that morning, Samuel our guide on a walk in the reserve had told us that the termites build the nest to house grass cuttings for a fungus garden to produce food for the queen, who lives for up to 18 years. That is a long time. And she is really just an egg factory. As termites hurry around they touch every other termite they contact and swop body fluids. And they do the same when they take the queen her dinner. The body fluids keep a running ratio of workers to soldiers and other roles and the queen automatically produces the kind of eggs to keep the ratios balanced. So if the wall is breached and a whole bunch of soldiers lay down their lives defending the repair party, the body fluid mix will show it and the queen will lay “soldier eggs” and refill the ranks of the royal guard. And all of this was going on as I sat and painted and looked out for wild and dangerous animals. Such is life in the African bush.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on February 16, 2009 under Art, en plein air, landscape, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
I am currently working with an organisation in Lilongwe – Malawi. I have spent most of the time working but yesterday I took a walk around. Just over 20 years ago my wife and I came here with bicycles and rode around the country. We had so much to learn about travelling like that. But we had a real adventure. We spent the first weekend camping at the Lilongwe Country Club. Yesterday I went back to the country club. It is o beautiful, I just wanted to sit and do a painting. I have a little Windsor Newton kit with two horse hair ink brushes, which I have cut off to fit into the bag. It was great just to sit in the afternoon sun listening to the crickets and the birds. When I got out my kit I saw that I had not brought any watercolour paper. But I had a photocopy of a consulting text which had one open page behind the title page. So I used that. It was a bit fragile when wet, but felt a bit like Arches hot pressed. This is what I did:
This is the cricket pavilion at the club (not to be confused with the insects I mentioned earlier). And as I sat I reflected on our cycle trip and our journey since then. I like to be alone like this. In my work I am prone to interaction fatigue. But I would also like to have had Aura with me, and my children. So this picture is for Aura.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on January 24, 2009 under Art, en plein air, figure, landscape, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
Kogelbaai or Koeelbaai, we just say ‘Cool bay’ is one of my favourite beaches. There is a small beach there, tucked away under the cliffs, that not many people knew about called ‘Caves Beach’. There is a good wave there for surfing if you know what you are doing. But the coast line is frequented by Great Whites so – I don’t know so much.
Anyway it is really beautiful and Cape Nature Conservation are trying to keep it wild. I like to go and paint there on Saturday morning before my family wakes up.
Here are two the pictures I did sitting at the beach there:
This is a large rock with a cross on the top, in remembrance of someone who drowned there (which seems to be all too-regular an occurence).
And this is a picture painted from the other side of the cross rock from the painting above. That is Cape Hangklip in the background. (literally Hanging Rock).
Here is a picture I did in my studio, of the caves beach from a photo taken from the top of the path leading down to the beach.
That is Table Mountain in the distance, with Devil’s Peak on the right.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on January 19, 2009 under Art, Uncategorized, my work, painting, watercolor, watercolour |
I love painting in watercolour. When I have time that is what I do. And I want to start making part of my living from this. I have started a blog to support my marketing effort in my other life. And in December 2008 I thought it would be cool to put some of my work out there.
I have tried a few different approaches to blogging my paintings – At first I had the same username as I use in my other life. But it got messy because the same links appeared on all the blogs. And I could only have one user address. Setting up another user on WordPress took me some time to figure out and I went to another blog platform. But I didnt like it there and now I am back, with a new user name, blog address and blog name. And I think I am getting it figured out.
I am keen to sell my work and have set up a site on etsy, as I have seen other artists doing. I have yet to register as a seller, as I need to understand more of the implications. But I am keen to do that too. I would like to sell prints and originals maybe.
In the meantime, I want to build up a history of posts and a log of my work. On my previous blog I had a gallery, which was OK to get my work up quickly but I don’t think I will do this here (now that I understand blogs a little better). Perhaps I will set up a website with my work.
But now I have some serious pressure mounting from my other world. Yep, a third life. So I will post the work I have so far and get it out there. I fully intend to be painting full on by the end of the year when this third rat is satiated and put to bed. To mix a metaphor.
So welcome to the start of this part of the journey.
