limited edition prints released

Three limited edition prints are now on sale through my website.

new website

I have been absent for a wee while, mainly due to it being busy in the day job, blogger’s block and a building a ‘proper’ website for my work. So, finally here is my new site where I’ll be posting updates about work in progress and pieces for sale:

http://www.shonamcquillan.com/. Would be ever so lovely if you kind folk could do me the honour of updating your links or bookmarks. Thank you.

11.20pm | an optimum time to start work

Started working up the final image at 11.20pm last night. This is how it was looking by midnight:

…and by about 6.30pm tonight:

PS…. Stonehenge paper is sexy

seeing not looking | an exercise in observation and restraint

All too often, I draw and don’t pay enough attention to what it is I’m actually drawing. I look, but don’t properly ’see’ what I should be. So, true to form, a good kick up the bum and a stern talking to myself pull me back to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and reference images. No grids, no measuring, no agenda. Just freehand observation. Seeing an eye, not as an eye, but as a series of contours, shapes and tones. Seeing the mouth in shadow and light making a form. Trying to almost remove myself at times from thinking about the whole and concentrating on its sum parts. It’s a tricky switch in the brain to flip to not see that whole and to not make assumptions as to the next mark on the paper; you have to be disciplined as you work. It’s something I’m often bad at doing and, therefore, it’s something I need to keep working at.

Restraint came in the form of starting out with an HB pencil and spending considerable time with just this tool. On many occassions, I’m to eager to start whacking down darker tones with softer grade pencils and end up pushing areas too far. So I restricted myself to just two pencils at complete extremes: the HB and and a 9B.

So, this is the result so far. I’m fairly pleased with it, and it may form a study for something else. Or maybe it’ll just stay as it is.

confessional

After reaching the point of no return with an earlier piece, I gave myself a good talking to and started working on being a little more tentative with the pencils. Working in layer upon layer, I stopped myself getting too harsh too early on. This isn’t a perfect piece at all – there are many flaws, but it was great to practice even if it was on shoddy cartridge paper! I have ordered some particularly yummy paper, so might try something like this out on it when it arrives:

Confessional (study), coloured pencil and graphite, 2009

wandering and wondering

Sunday was spent recovering from Upfest and getting a bit of artsing in. I plumped for working in colour, which presents its own challenges on watercolour hotpress paper. It looks a bit odd now, and I haven’t decided what will happen next. So I am, indeed, wandering and wondering…..

UpFest 09

I toddled over to Bristol yesterday to catch this year’s UpFest – and found it to be well worth the trip. I managed to cram six venues into the afternoon – five of which featured live painting.

Tobacco Factory

A mixed-use venue for the arts, the outer space of which was given up to the live art event. Fantastic mix of graf artists, with pieces being developed at varying rates. What was so good to see was how they were working – to see them act, ponder, plan, reflect and react. Stencils, pencils and paint in abundance and a relaxed atmosphere to boot.

This has to be Dale Grimshaw – whose work I went completely gaga over even more when I saw some of it in View Gallery later in the day.

in the beginning…..

I’ve had a pretty packed weekend, so spent time in the wee hours of Sunday morning and later that afternoon starting the next piece. Hands and feet are my other nemesis (faces being the original nemesis), so I spent a fair bit of time tweaking the preliminary drawing to get them any where near acceptable. They’ll probably get tweaked again. I’ve pretty much let the idea develop as I went along, without having too much pre-planned, so it won’t be surprising if I change elements again before I get onto the detail. Shonky shot courtesy of my iPhone:

howsyerfather

So far, I’m not doing too badly on my promise to crack on with stuff. Finished today (under the influence of a teeny hangover) was Howsyerfather (shonky photo, but haven’t had time to scan yet):

No time to rest……..

a little progress is a good thing

Felt the need to switch from the last piece for a short while – there are revisions I want to make and rather than get too fixated on them, I thought I’d start another piece to allow me to explore something else whilst reflecting on the other. Another work in progress:

It all felt a bit shonky yesterday, but I’m pleased at how it’s come on today. I was fortunate to have someone honest and constructive enough to give a little feedback on yesterday’s progress, for which I’m grateful and duly took on board, and have had some really supportive comments today. Working in isolation, this means an awful lot to me, so thank you to those that took the time to speak out. Today’s work has already given me ideas about how I’d like to change the other piece slightly, and it’s been sweet to test the feeling of drawing on the Hahnemuhle watercolour paper (as in the above piece) in quick succession to the Bristol Board. Conclusion: I think I prefer Bristol Board for pieces which require larger detail, and the tooth of the Hahnemuhle for more dinky detail. I like this learning process. I like it when I discover something new about how I work.