Month: January 2023

Painting, Watercolour

Nocturne II

Featuredby Jane HannahLeave a Comment on Nocturne II

Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
— George Bernard Shaw

Here is my second Nocturne and I find it quite light… hah-hah! Even if you have the best of intentions, sometimes it just doesn’t work as you had planned. What do I like? The sky and the glow of the buildings on top of the tunnel. I like the tunnel too. What I don’t like? The buildings leading to the tunnel and their insignificance. However, I wanted to put the emphasis on the tunnel and the buildings above… but they did not turn out as I wished. The joys of painting, sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. If I have the time, I will repaint this scene, as I believe that I could turn it into a lovely painting… “if” I put in the time.

Paper: Arches CP 9″ x 6″
Watercolours: Hansa Med, Yellow Ochre, Q. Rose, Cobalt Blue
Location: Prague photograph

Painting, Watercolour

Happy Burns Night!

Featuredby Jane Hannah2 Comments on Happy Burns Night!

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ‘twere ten thousand mile!
A Red, Red Rose
— Robert Burns.

Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns sits proudly atop the pantheon of Scottish poets. From ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to ‘Address to a Haggis’, his work is intrinsically linked with Scottish culture. His journey from humble rural beginnings to international renown tells the story of a man inspired by nature, class culture and love. It was his birthday today in 1759.

This painting does not look like much but it’s the technique that is so bloody interesting. Totally wet-on-wet, so this means that you need a high level of water control, which is excellent for practice purposes. It forces you to look at your paper and see if it has absorbed enough water or not, if it’s time for you to charge back in or wait a bit… it is kind of a dance with water, watercolours, and paper.

Paper: Arches CP 9″ x 6″
Watercolours: Hansa Med., Q. Gold, Alizarin Crimson, Payne’s Grey

Drawing, Painting, Sketchbook Molesine, Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Watercolour

The Lee Shore

Featuredby Jane Hannah2 Comments on The Lee Shore

All along the lee shore
Shells lie scattered in the sand
Winking up like shining eyes at me
From the sea
Here is one like sunrise
It’s older than you know
It’s still just lying there, where some careless wave
Forgot it long ago
When I awoke this morning
Dove beneath my floating home
Down below her graceful side in the turning tide
To watch the sea fish roam
There I heard a story
From the sailors of the Sandra Marie
There’s another island
It’s a day’s run away from here
It’s empty and free
From here to Venezuela
There’s nothing more to see
Than a hundred thousand islands
Flung like jewels upon the sea
For you and me
Sunset smells of dinner
Women are calling at me to end my tails
But perhaps I’ll see you, the next quiet place
I furl my sails
— A small tribute for David Crosby

Any artist will tell you, a complicated painting needs simplifying and a certain amount of study. I have this complicated painting to do and first of all the perspective is challenging. So I had to work on it. I found the horizon line first (where the eyes of the viewer “photographer” were) and traced a horizon line. Then with a ruler acting as a pivot, I found my two vanishing points. There are actually three, but I winged that one (the vertical one).

Then I drew the scene in small thumbnail size, about 4″ x 3″, and then painted in the different values with Payne’s Grey. Yes, I have used a pencil for this, as I think that it would be impossible for me to paint in direct watercolours. Some painters might be able to, but not I.

Now let’s hope that tomorrow the final result is somewhat good. We’ll see -)))

Paper: Moleskine Sketchbook 4″ x 6″
Watercolours: Graham Payne’s Grey

Direct Painting, Painting, Watercolour

Nocturne

Featuredby Jane Hannah3 Comments on Nocturne

Music : a short composition of a romantic or dreamy character suggestive of night, typically for piano. 
Art : a picture of a night scene.

Did you know that trying out a new way of painting is so bloody difficult? So difficult that I do not even recognize myself in this painting. I can’t find myself in it, even though I know full well that I am the one that painted it.

It’s funny as the same thing happened to me when I handed in my Master’s thesis. When I reread it, I could not find myself in it, as there is a certain “way” of writing that you must follow when writing a thesis… and I was not there. It all looked well and dandy, but nowhere could I be found.

So the same thing goes with painting. Learning a new way of painting is making me “see” differently and I have to apply the paints in a different manner. I could say that I am an apprentice of some sort. Again no lines were put down at the beginning, I laid down a wet wash throughout the paper, then right away added some mountains and reflections in the water. Then waited a bit for the wash to dry a bit, and added the forest. Then waited for it to totally dry and then added the foreground forest and reflections in the water.

Paper: Arches Watercolour
Colours: New Gamboge, Q. Rose, Cobalt, Payne’s Grey

Direct Painting, Watercolour

Clarity

Featuredby Jane HannahLeave a Comment on Clarity

There are moments in our lives,
there are moments in a day,
when we seem to see beyond the usual — become clairvoyant.
We reach then into reality.
Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.
Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.
— The Art Spirit by Robert Henri

I painted this evening scene three times before I was happy with it. At least my horizon line is lower, and I could have lowered it even more. But it’s ok all in all. The scanned painting is not as nice as the real thing, it seems flatter.

Watercolours: New Gamboge, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Cobalt Blue, Burnt Umber, Payne’s Grey
Paper: Arches 15″x10″

Sketches / Drawings / Paintings

Five hundred seasons…

Featuredby Jane Hannah7 Comments on Five hundred seasons…

Sun warms the lizard’s back
and the humble back of the mountain.
A raven croaks from the top of a thermal.
The valley oak above the barn,
dying a huge branch at a time,
stands in calm mortability, content
with the warm light that has fed its leaves,
the dark waters that have fed its roots,
its acorns that have fed the woodpeckers
for five hundred rainy seasons.
— Ursula K. Le GUin

I have always loved being a student, and I remember in my very young years when school stopped in summer I would be one of the only ones that was sad. In retrospect, during the winter months, my family and I lived in a middle-sized city and in the summer months, totally reclusive… on a beautiful and wonderful lakefront. So my friends got to be divided in two… the winter friends and the summer friends.

This is a bit like this. Some of my winter friends are right out there in the past, and my summer friends seem to be closer to me. So weird in a sense, if you get what I mean.

This is totally unfinished as I am starting over tomorrow morning. The first mistake that I made was the horizon. The horizon, right smack in the middle of the page? No. So tomorrow you will get another version of this… hopefully improved. Even though I really like this.

Paper: Saunders Waterford 12″x9″
Colours: Hansa Deep, Cobalt Blue, Raw Umber, Payne’s Grey

Sketches / Drawings / Paintings

Travelers

Featuredby Jane Hannah2 Comments on Travelers

We came from the far side of the river
of starlight and will cross back over
in a little boat
no bigger than two cupped hands.
Thinking about compassion.
A firefly in a great dark garden.
An earthworm naked
on a concrete path.
I think of the journey
we will take together
in the oarless boat
across the shoreless river.
— Ursula K. Le Guin

I remember the first time that I biked with no hands… exhilarating to say the least. Well this painting is a bit the same. I painted this with absolutely no lines before… straight with watercolours. A feat for moi, for sure! So bloody difficult even if it does look easy… It certainly is a challenge, for someone who loves drawing and using “lines” everywhere. Hah-hah!

Paper: Saunders Waterford 12″x9″
Colours: Hansa Medium, Q. Rose, Cerulean and Ultramarine

Direct Painting, Painting, Watercolour

Westering

Featuredby Jane Hannah2 Comments on Westering

From sunrise the wind blows
always to sunset
going where the stars go
my breath the wind
this little boat my body
its ragged sail my soul
going where the stars go
— Ursula LeGuin, Final Poems 2014-2018

Painted the same image three times and it gave three different results. The aim was to create a morning atmosphere as this was an early photo scene. I am presently following Uma Kelkar’s amazing class, and she is making us work on morning landscapes, evenings and nocturnes. Can’t say enough good words about her as she is an amazing teacher. I am really not used to painting without lines, so this is a huge challenge for me. Which one do you prefer? I’d love to hear from you…

I’m still seeing the Lonely Mountain Erebor today…

Direct Painting

Lonely Mountain

Featuredby Jane Hannah2 Comments on Lonely Mountain

A dry-voiced chickadee
reproves what’s gone amiss.
From our crab-apple tree
she gazes critically
at autumn’s entropy
and quietly says this:
I am Chickadee,
and things have gone amiss.
— Ursula K. LeGuin

When I finally looked at my painting, I thought that this could be the Lonely Mountain Erebor in The Lord of the Rings. I have not painted in a while, because of an erratic schedule. When I was working, my schedule was the same, day in and day out. With retirement in tow, it is now all over the place, a haphazard array of classes, fitness sessions, drinking my coffee oh so slowly… the sublime gesture of it all! There and here!

This painting was done in direct watercolour with no lines before. Just to remind me why it looks the way that it does. Humph!

Direct watercolour painting… no lines.