A2 Fine Art exam: an oil painting triptych

These are the three paintings I created (that sounds too nice, 'slaved away at for 15 hours until my hand was actually in agony and needed post-paint brush holding rehab' is more appropriate) in my A2 Fine Art exam. In my 'Snapshot' project I looked at my old favourite Degas, Vuillard who was a genius at using patterns within his work, and Sickert who challenged my use of colour.
My best friend Emma is an excellent model and is the subject in all three compositions. I worked in oils on 10X14 inch canvases, choosing proportions which were a little bit thinner than usual as I noticed Vuillard often used such shapes to great effect.
There are things I am not happy with in the first and the last but that comes with the territory of exams when you don't have time to let the paint dry between layers. I did have lots of fun representing the patterns though. My favourite is the centre piece, I like all the different textures and surfaces within the composition and it also shows Emma in her most natural element as she is a book reading obsessive and will sit like that engrossed in her current book quite happily for a long time. I also still have to show you my coursework final piece, so I'll be posting that soon.

'Morning Walk'

OK so the photo is slightly bad, I think the colours in places are a little inaccurate and have lost their vividness (can you tell I'm a perfectionist?) and I put the round corners in editing the photo, but this is one of my recent paintings. I chose the topic 'The Society Portrait' for my Fine Art coursework which I decided upon because eventually I want to bea portrait painter. I was inspired by John Singer Sargent's paintings in the Tate Britain over the summer and so chose him as one of my three main artists. The others are Degas and Renoir as I'm still smitten with Impressionism! The original in this case was actually painted in Sargent's Impressionist period after he visited Monet.

As he is a relatively new artist to me I have had to do more research on him and also study his technique which is why I did this piece. The rules go that you are allowed to reproduce a work as long as it is a different size and as the largest piece of oil painting paper in the college shop wouldn't cover this, my work is a long way off which isn't particularly helpful! I had a book to work from so I photocopied that and created a grid to transfer the general shape and keep everything in proportion. It was really interesting working out the layers of paint and what went over what to create the final effect and I really enjoyed creating the work- I find nothing more satisfying and peaceful than painting in oils.

Unfinished as yet

Wishing I was back at the seaside with no exams. 16 days and then I can relax.

D&G devotion

Well for my fashion exam work I'm looking at Dolce & Gabbana, particuarly the rose prints in their beautiful ss10 collection. Today I drew the D&G LBD I got for my birthday- isn't it kind of fabulous that my education justifies my spending habits! ;)
I drew the outline in pencil, coloured the mid section with water colour paints and did the rest with ink and a paintbrush. I love the lace but it took a lot of concentration to get the pattern right.

Time for tea

The above drawings are from my Fine Art coursework, but right now, at nearly 11pm, considering that I've been up since around 5.15 this morning if most definitely time for bed!
But I did have the mose lovely, lovely day in London and have lots of exciting things to tell you all about tomorrow!

Bag lady

As Carrie Bradshaw once said; 'I'll be a bag lady! A Fendi bag lady, but a bag lady!'
I am most definitely a bag girl- even on the worst day a fabulous bag swinging off my arm makes me feel so much better.

This colourful floral print one is from Accessorize; it has little beads and such sewn on one side and the most frivolous pom poms tied round the strap. I admit that when I bought it, which is quite a while ago now, I thought 'I have no idea what this will go with!' but it's actually incredibly versatile and it's snuggly pinkness makes me happy.

The top picture shows a soft pastel drawing of it I did just over a year ago.

Are you a bag person?

Is it cake time yet?

I am just not good with deadlines- I certainly get the work done but I'm also a perfectionist who frets so they just don't make me happy, but now Fine Art is done.
Time for a weekend of girly chats over tea and cake, heading to my job (which I love so that's also lovely), hoping an Amazon DVD order arrives tomorrow and making minor changes to fashion work.
The above acrylic painting was handed in today- well I have been studying cafe scenes so pavlova with all the interesting textures involved seemed appropriate. :)
What will you be doing this weekend?

Using those little grey cells

It is now half term and with my lecturers on a trip the week after I now have two weeks holiday! Except is not such a holiday because my next lecture in each subject is a coursework deadline! So I've got a mixture of exciting days and college work to look forward too:

I now have my very own canvas to put a ground on:
The following is a work in progress, but I shall try not to spend too much longer on it. Though the bottom 'sketch' is obviously missing chunks at present the task is to do something quick, and as a perfectionist this is quite a challenge. The subject is Emma in the Debenhams cafe in the Bullring, Birmingham.
I got a shiny new 'ArtPen' today so that I can do quick drawings in cafes; I don't think the staff would like me to take my unsealed ink pots and bamboo stick in somehow.

This evening is the start of the Poirot weekend on ITV3! I've long quite liked the show but recently I have become very fond of watching the hour long short stories in an afternoon- I wonder how long it shall be before I have watched them all! There are still two whole days to go! Don't worry though I remember some of them rather too well to watch them again when there is art to be done so I shall leave the sitting room every so often. :]

And the little grey cells need substenance! (For those wondering what I am talking about, the fictional detective Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie novels, played by David Suchet above, often contributes his talent to those 'little grey cells'- the cells in one's brain that are very clever and logical but are rarely put in use by most of us.)
Now in the supermarket I happened to be in the frozen desert aisle and was thinking about the fact that there had only been raspberry pavlova and not strawberry pavlova in stock around my birthday and so when I saw the dish below I was delighted- except, silly me, I had pavlova on the brain, or at least something meringue, but gateau, of course, is cake. Whoops.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Painting Emma

I have recently been dragging Emma round cafes (Off to the cafe we go) and feeding her cake (Brum days) to keep her happy. :) I would not like it said that I treat my models ill and
she has been very good so thanks sweetie!
Well this is the painting I did today, working from a photograph: It's quite small scale and created with oil paints which are horribly slow to dry so it was interesting trying to get it to the car in the rain! The setting is the Debenhams cafe in the Bullring (Birmingham, England). Outside it was all lovely and white with the snow which looked rather pretty, if a little eerie in the photo- I really like it as a background, adding to the picture rather than distracting from the subject.

It's got to be cut down once it's dry but, I'd love to know what you think.

All wrapped up

Today has been a rather stressful day for my mum, as I have been wrapping presents! I'm very happy making things pretty with ribbons, but apparently my (lack of) wrapping skills are cause for concern. But I just love giving things and that includes the presentation. I'm a perfectionist in so many things, but still presents look a little scruffy round the edges despite earnest efforts. Along that theme, I drew my Luella bow hair clip toay:
So are my readers messy wrappers or neat ones?

A little artiness

I'm currently busy getting into my projects at college. Luckily I really like them both. I'm in a really arty mood today (even more than usual). A couple of images from my summer project for college:
In the project I tried to experiment and go out of my comfort zone of precise drawing. So these ink (the second also involves watercolour too) drawings are very minimal on the detail for me. I had to make myself stop and leave them alone.

It's a Johnny loves Rosie piece from a trip of London, included in a little Luella ss09 homage of mine.

Well I said I was going to draw the hair piece and post a photo of said drawing. Now silly me completely neglected finishing the piece before I handed it in as part of said summer project. I promise to complete it on its return :) That netting is not the most fun thing to accurately draw..

Header

I decided it was time I got a page header and made these this afternoon. It was a tough choice (I'm no good at decisions!), rose madder is my favourite pigment, but I went for the Prussian Blue. They are soft pastel (my favourite media) and ink.

Any thoughts?