Two of Chris

War Photographer

Towards the End of the Storm

making progress

A bit all over the place at the moment in terms of what I'm painting and how I'm doing it: a couple of nudes, one in monotone (playing with an interesting transparent black) and other trying to get a sense of sunset . . .
Am I missing the sea . . . and the cold windy days of a Swansea spring? Not sure if I'm going to go as far as detailed and lush with this one, or stick with something looser.

And the crying girl, who's got herself a dark and moody background and lost her torso . . . like the background, but I think I might give her the torso back (bet it wont cheer her up).

a couple of landscapes

both of Ormiston Gorge: a diptych in oils, and a mixed media (oil pastel and oil): just for a change . . .

In the Winter Sun

These two were finished a little while ago. Seems fitting that on a cooler day (is autumn coming) they see the light . . .

The first portrait stayed in the above form for quite a while; that was why I began the second one, to avoid messing up a good grisaille.

Chris

Lots of symbols in here, which I think I'll prob put in in a fair amount of detail. Interesting working in only two colours as well: zinc white (which is a bit more transparent than titanium white) and raw umber, which behaves quite apparently randomly in terms of colour temperature, depending on whether it's mixed with white or layered over white. Tres odd.
Very Swansea and again quite a few bits of meaning happening here too. Keen to keep the stormy clouds and the Welsh terraces quite rough though so not too obtruding.

A Couple of Camels

Playing with some different approaches with these beasts at the moment. Purple Halter II (above) was originally an anthill (can't you tell . . .) before I rotated it 45 degrees and started with this camel. I quite liked the unfinished look around the edges so am probably keeping it this way.

This one, Big Sky Camel was keeping with a blurry look to gentle down the big scary camel stare feel it could have had. The original cobalt background went, but the title stayed.

Life Drawing

Robert

Thanks to Mark and Homer, life drawing has rolled into action again, and most Sundays see Homer's studio quietly humming along to the sounds of classic radio, the scratch of charcoal and the glorious timer beeping that tells us 'really that 10 seconds you thought you'd just had was really 1 minute/5 minutes/ 10 minutes'. This latter sound usually draws the odd groan of 'I was only just getting somewhere' . . . and yet most of us, when given the option for longer poses, will invariably choose the 3 x 10 minutes rather than one 30 minutes: ostensibly for the ability practice, but, for some of us I'm sure (ie me), because we know a 30 minute hash will be so very much worse in all ways than a 10 minute mess.

We've had a great variety of models: all ages, shapes, stances and levels of experience, from first-timers who've decided to give it a go because they're dancers or artists themselves, to the very experienced girl from Melbourne (seems they have an association/register of life models) who rather non-plussed us all by asking if we preferred naturalist or classical poses . . .

The three sets below are the three most recent sessions, when I've started playing around with hard pastels and different types of line and block work.

More to come, and long may the sessions continue . . .

Robert

Robert

Robert

Fenja

Fenja

Fenja

Alex

Alex