Atlantic waves

A painting from earlier this autumn. It's not the view from my vindow, but on the other hand the view of my inner eye.

Atmospheric watercolour

This painting is highly inspired by the artist Morten Paulsen. He made a demonstration at the watercolour workshop I attended, where he showed us a tecnique to activily make use of the characteristic of pigments that make a line at the edges when they dry. So this painting is very similar to Morten Paulsens motives and style.

Tranquility

                                                                 
Long time since blogging, the reason is simply that I haven't had access to internet on my PC the latest months and I have been too lazy to do something about it. I have, meanwhile, been painting regularly during the latest weeks and months. I have also been attending another watercolour workshop at Gerlesborg, Sweden. This time with a Norwegian watercolour artist, Morten Paulsen. As a result, I have been painting a lot of nature scenes this fall.

Fantasy flower

I have painted this early in the mornings before I have to go to the office, one bit at a time through several days. I tend to spoil a painting if I rush to finnish it, and so I need a lot of time, most often many days, to work on a painting. I used an earlier drawing I have made for inspiration for the flower, but from there the painting developed itself, and for some reason the flower wanted to grow right out of a branch. So then it turned out like this. I might still work a little bit more on two of the petals at the right which need a little bit more contrast. The painting is relatively big, about 40x60 cm, painted on Arches 300g hot pressed paper.

Sunrise at the pier

Unfortunately, the photo doesn't show very well the nice effect of the sunlight around the cloud that actually makes this painting. At first, I was about to throw this one as I couldn' get the foreground interesting. So I just took a bigger brush and made a couple of bold strokes - and all of a sudden a pier and waves hitting the rocks appeared.

Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm, Arches 300 g, 17 x 26 cm

I am exploring watercolour wet in wet these days. I want to combine the softness achieved by wet-in wet tecniques with hard lines and undefined shapes to create contrast and tickle the imagniation of the viewer.

Arctic afternoon

Arctic afternoon, Arches 300 g, 22x33 cm

More winter landscapes. It comes from my choice of colours as I am more fond of the blue range of the colour scale than the green summer colours. I have used Arhces 300 g paper in the last postings. To learn more about the quality of Arches paper was an important lesson and experience at the workshop I attended.So now I use only Arches.

This painting is, as almost always, from my head and just "happening". I didn't plan any cottage in this painting, I was more occupied with creating a nice effect with the sky. But the painting needed something more, so I added a cottage and a flagpole to make a contrast against the background. I made it with a clever tip I learned at the workshop - by using masking tape: you put a little piece of tape on the painting, rub a line with the back of your painting brush or something similar upon the tape, and then rip it off - and you will get back the white of the paper. But  - it only work with paper such as Arches, otherwise, big pieces of paper may easily be ripped of.

Nordic winter watercolour

I made this painting when I came home from the workshop. I think I have loosened up quite a bit as a result of the workshop.

Summer by the nordic coast

Last week I attended a watercolour workshop by Bengt Jacobsson, a Swedish artist. It was such a pleasure, and I learned a lot during those four days. It was an introductory workshop for beginners, which was very valuable for me.

It took place at Gerlesborgsskolan by the Swedish coastline, as you may see in the painting.

You can read more about the Gerlesborgsskolan here www.gerlesborgsskolan.se , they offer a lot of watercolour courses during the whole year.

Here you can se the work of the artist and teacher Bengt Jacobson www.jacobssonart.se

A small artist

A simplified version of an oil painting by Tom Browning called "Budding artist".

Values and shapes in a painting

I would like to recommend a new book from my bookshelf. It is called "The simple secret to better painting" by Greg Albert. I find it very useful as it has some really good and simple tips of how to make good compositions and designs with regard to shapes, values, etc.

The book also has many examples of watercolour paintings. And I have again been doing the exercise of copying an other artist in this blog posting. This time it is the artist Jack Reid I have been copying (the painting was untitled). In the book by Greg Albert it is presented as an example of having interesting shapes in a painting. In addition, I think it also shows very well the importance of having a variety of values in order to make an appealing painting. For me it is very educational to copy others like this, and this has been an important reminder of the value of values in a painting!

Water colours!

A few days ago I made this colourful painting by looking after Frank Webbs watercolour painting called "Cascais".

Watercolour icebergs

Yesterday I went to an exhibition to see the art work of the Swedish watercolour artist Anna Törnquist, http://www.annatornquist.se/akvarell/. I love her style and also her sense of humour in her paintings. At the exhibition there were a couple of painting of icebergs that I fell in love with. I became so inspired that I wanted to have a go myself on an ice motive. I have used only a painting knife here, and I really enjoy this way of painting. I have been working on the floor, using the whole body working with the painting knife. I feel this is more "my" way of painting - really a joyful day of painting!

Watercolour doodles and exercises

 I havent't been painting so much lately, except for some excercises. I bought a watercolour dvd by Peter Saw wich a really enjoy. All though it is not quite my style of painting, I find it a great tutoring dvd. I have learned to paint trees and stones in small "doodles", as he calls it - just small and simple excercises not meant to take a lot of time nor to become anything but an excercise. Paper quality matters, as you may see. The above is painted on quality paper, the one below on poor sketching paper.

 Below is another doodle of a rock.

 Here is a more me-ish doodle, the first appearance of an eye.

Drawings

Two different drawings of the same figure. One loose and very quick pen drawing, and another a little bit more elaborated, but still very quick, pencil drawing. It is interesting how the medium changes the expression.

I am fighting against my own impatience when it comes to painting, though. I like the quick and spontanous way of expressing my self on the paper. But I still don't master the watercolours and the different paper qualities well enough to be able to control such a way of expression. So, I have to fight my own desire to paint in a quick and bold way as it very often ends up with a disaster! There is so much to learn about painting tecniques, different paper qualities, amount of water held in the paper, how the different pigments flow. Luckily, this summer I am going to attend to workshops! It is in Sweden, at Gerleborgsskolan www.gerlesborgsskolan.se . It will be 4 days in July and 5 days later in August. I am looking very much forward to it!

Woman with headscarf

 After struggling the last week with nothing working with the watercolours, I made this quick version of a woman with headscarf today; loose pen drawing and than more or less splashing paint on.

In the version below, I wet the paper first. I usually don`t do that, but I wanted to explore more soft settling of the pigments. I also tried to use more skinlike colours on the face. But for some reason, I find it more difficult than using the blue/purple shades I often use for faces.  Hm, I like the more spontanous one above better.

A new portrait appearing on the paper. No preliminary sketch, as I haven`t used a model nor a reference photo. That`s what I like the best - to see who will appear and what mood they are in!

Back to portraits

I was practicing on painting negative shapes - painting the bakground rather than the form itself - when this figure showed up.

Watercolour iris

Today I have been struggling with some wet-in-wet exercises - nothing worked out right. The exercises is, however, from a highly recommendable book, with lovely photos and good tips: "The essence of watercolour" by Hazel Soan.

At the end of the day gave up the wet-in-wet exercises and decided to just paint a flower, after inspiration from a nother very nice book, namely "Painting flowers with impact in watercolour" by Julie Collins.

So, then I finally managed to paint this iris.

Squirrel III

Here is a third version of a squirrel. I wanted to achieve a more loose style on this one.

Squirrel II

Here is another version of the squirrel. I started out with some pencil marks as I planned to make a more neat painting. But it didn`t last many minutes. I find it so much more fun to let the paint and water run and dry its own way!

This one is also painted in my sketch book, with only 160 g paper. What was fun to watch was how the paint was flowing and drying on this smooth surface. Normally I don`t paint on smooth paper.

Here is a close up photo of some lovely colour fusions on this smooth paper quality. I think I will try to paint another squirrel on high quality smooth paper to see what happens!

Squirrel sketch

I have been working on some paintings of squirrels the last days. I have been using a small photo from the newspaper as a reference. This was the first one, a sketch where I drew a very loose pen drawing and then quickly put on some paint. It is from my sketch book, so it is not watercolour paper. I will show other versions of watercolour squirrels later.

Smile

Say hello to this guy! :)   He cheers me up and makes me smile. It is, as you may see, another version of the drawing in the previous post.

Loose pen drawing of old man

This year, I made a new year promise, which was to draw a drawing or paint each day every day to improve my skills. Each day I don`t draw or paint, the deal I have with my self is to give 5 Euro to a poor person as well as put 5 Euro into the piggy bank here at home. So it`s a win-win situation!

In the beginning, I drew very neat and nice pencil drawings. But that takes time. Because I don`t always have the time nor the patience to draw neatly, I started doing very quick pen drawings. I hold the pen loosely at the top of the pen and avoids lifting the pen from the paper while I draw. The result is like the present drawing, and I have to say I am both quite excited as well as surprised by the results! I really like what is coming through my hands in this way. What happens when I hold the pen in this loose way is that I also loose complete control over the line. But that is what makes both the act of drawing this way, as well as the result so enjoing; I don`t know exactly how the result will be, and the line is far, far much more interesting than the neat and "good" pencil drawings I normally would try to achieve.

So, the present portrait is an example of this way of drawing. I made it yesterday evening in a minute or two by having a look at a photo from the newspaper. Other times, I draw a quick drawing of the news reporters while I watch the news on tv.

Yellow roses

More roses. I LOVE roses and can`t wait for summer and growing roses on our balcony. It is still four months to wait here far up in the north, though... In the mean time, some flowers are appearing on the paper.

Watercolour roses

Yesterday I was sowing flower seeds in my little mini-mini inndoor greenhouse, and today I can allready see the first tiny sprout appear. I am looking very much forward for spring to come! So, today I have been painting these roses. In some months I will have them blooming on my balcony!

What`s going on?

What`s going on between these two persons and who are they? Father and daugher? Husband and wife?

I drew a pen drawing from a small reference photo that I got from a newspaper. As I drew it in a small sketch book, the paper quality is too poor for the use of watercolour. Maybe I will elaborate the study in a bigger format and on quality paper later on.

New watercolour portrait

Again a new portrait from my imagination coming through on the paper. A small format this time, 15x21 cm. What should the title be?