Posted by Stephen Quirke on October 24, 2011 under Art, Drawing, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour | 
This is Sam. She is the grand-daughter of my good friend and tip-top watercolourist Mary Serrurier. Sam models for a group of painters and offered to sit for me. So one afternoon in between meetings in town we had a quick session. OK portraits are hard and this is what I did from photos that I took. This took much longer than the hour I had sitting with Sam. Maybe its a bit over-worked. But I am happy with this.
This is on Arches Hot Pressed and is 380x280mm
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Posted by Stephen Quirke on August 1, 2011 under Art, Drawing, en plein air, portrait |
Last night while Donovan was preaching from Acts 8 I did this sketch of the Peter Makapela’s friend.
Posted by Stephen Quirke on March 13, 2011 under Art, en plein air, painting, pencil sketch, portrait, seascape, Strand Pipe beach, watercolor, watercolour |
Yesterday I attended a breakfast talk in the morning and did these sketches of the guys sitting around me:
Once I settled down I got some good likenesses.
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Posted by Stephen Quirke on January 1, 2011 under Art, Drawing, figure, painting, pencil sketch, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
So we started closed out 2010 with the cousins in the Cape Town waterfront – throngs of people all peaceably enjoying company with friends to see in the new year. I returned to our table to find Margie and Tim drawing Torril – our friend from Norway so I sat next to her to do a quick sketch of Tim before he started moving.
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Posted by Stephen Quirke on August 28, 2010 under Art, Drawing, figure, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
OK so I have been dabbling in facebook. And if you think blogging sucks time out of your day, well, facebook is MUCH worse. much much MUCH worse. But… there is an up side. I have come across some amazing painters, some friendly people and one or two people who clearly have to get over themselves – mmm – delete friend. Anyway not to get too sidetracked…
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Posted by Stephen on June 23, 2010 under Art, Drawing, en plein air, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
Last week after hiking up to view the snow in the mountains above Franschoek we went down to the town for a coffee before driving home. I was frustrated at going up with palette and paper but no brushes so I sat and sketched the people at our table. In the end I only had time to paint fair Sinead before everyone jumped up and headed home:
At first I was not going to post it but have decided to put all work up – so
It is not too bad I suppose.
Here is a photo of our lunch spot. It was all too vast to capture on film:
Posted by Stephen on March 30, 2010 under Art, en plein air, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
Here are two painting of Sinead watching movies again – Adam – seems like we watch a lot of movies:
I had to keep asking her to hold her juice still so she accused me of child abuse. Then she sat curled up like this:
Posted by Stephen on March 29, 2010 under Art, en plein air, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
Here are two paintings of Sinead that I did not want to post at first – then I thought I should continue to record the journey – the rough and the smooth. I really must make a plan to get some better light on what I am doing. Here is the first:
And here is the second:
Posted by Stephen on March 22, 2010 under Art, figure, painting, portrait, watercolor, watercolour |
Here are two paintings I did last night of Sinead while she was watching a DVD. The light wasn’t great but I thought this was a good way to spend the time. It was an interesting story too. Here is the first one:
And here is the second:
The photos are shifted a little to the blue side but anyway…
OK – here is better one of the second painting:
Posted by Stephen on February 21, 2010 under Art, en plein air, landscape, painting, portrait, seascape, watercolor, watercolour |
We have just returned from a night-over in ‘Beddies’. Thats what the surfers call it “hey man I was in Beddies yesterday – and it was sick”. Betty’s Bay. We have friends with a cottage just below Luiperdskloof. We got there in the late afternoon yesterday and while the boys went off for a surf I sat and painted a watercolour. Actually it was from about the same spot where I had painted in the pouring rain last year and the watercolour had suffered the same treatment as I. W. Spider. Here is how it looked yesterday:
While I was painting the wisp of cloud over the mountain developed into a dense blanket obliterating any view above a few hundred feet.
The next morning I got up early and painted the from behind our friends cottage.
Their back-garden is a riot of fynbos and indigenous trees, with a small patch of Buffalo Grass – a broad-leafed lawn grass that is indigenous to the area. What a pleasant way to start the day. Later the wind picked up and though we went for a surf it was not very much. We went to Pringle bay, which is tucked away between the two peaks I paint on the far right in the mountains I paint from “The Pipe”. I wanted to do a quick sketch but was outvoted by the boys.
Later in the day I painted Rob, our host as he read the paper and chatted:
And then we went down to the break at Betty’s a last time to see if the break was working. There was a strong South Easter blowing on shore so no-one surfed but some of the group went for a walk down the beach which was quite wild in the wind. I found a vegetation covered dune and got my stuff ready to paint. I had to tape everything down but even so the wind kept lifting the paper from the sketch book to which it was taped. Julian took this shot of me painting:
Gives new meaning to “whatever blows your hair back” heh heh.
And here is the painting I did:
All quite rushed but there it is.
This is Sam. She is the grand-daughter of my good friend and tip-top watercolourist Mary Serrurier. Sam models for a group of painters and offered to sit for me. So one afternoon in between meetings in town we had a quick session. OK portraits are hard and this is what I did from photos that I took. This took much longer than the hour I had sitting with Sam. Maybe its a bit over-worked. But I am happy with this.
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