Slow Progress on the Foxes

Progress has been slow on the foxes because I've spent time doing things with the family over the Christmas period.
I'm going to Scotland for a few days from tomorrow but I intend to finish all the pieces I've started before the end of January. Expect to see the bear, foxes, pheasants and a leopard all of which are in varying stages of completion.

I'm deciding what my artistic aims are for 2013 so that will be my first post of the new year.

Red Fox - Part 2

I'm working slowly on the foxes in between starting my Christmas preparations. I alternate working on the leaves with the fox to hopefully keep both fresh. My aim is to finish the top left corner next.
I am impressed with how well the pastelmat is taking both paint and pastel.

I decorated my tree on Friday much to the delight of Cody who likes to investigate the bottom branches. We are always careful to put anything edible on the top branches, it's amazing how far collie necks can stretch to investigate chocolate.

Red Fox and Cub on Pastelmat

I don't think I've ever neglected my blog for so long but I'm back now. I had a few days away demonstrating and then caught a horrible cold which developed into a never ending cough. I'm still coughing but starting to feel slightly more human.

I'm giving the bear a rest due to having 'bear overload' painting for four long days while demonstrating at the NEC.

This is mixed media on brown pastelmat, probably one of the largest paintings I've attempted as it will end up about 28 x 20 inches.
The fox cub is a mixture of soft pastels and pastel pencils and the leaves are watercolour. I'll add the detail to the leaves in pastel later.

Solo Exhibition at Sunnyhurst Wood Visitor Centre

My solo exhibition is now on until the 03/02/2013 at the Sunnyhurst Wood visitor Centre.

The  old Keepers cottage pictured above now serves as a visitor centre and art gallery. If you want to visit the winter opening hours are Thursday to Sunday 12.00 to 3.30pm and the exhibition is on the second floor.
Link : Sunnyhurst wood Visitor Centre

My paintings were hung by two exceedingly pleasant and helpful men, thank you Pete and Keith for all your efforts.

The light was not very good when I went to take some photographs but the above show two ends of the large room.
I took a mix of original work and limited edition prints, 33 pieces in all covering a wide price range. Each piece has been numbered and a list prepared with the title, medium and price so that viewers have something to refer to when walking round.

I had several photographs taken for the local paper so my one hope is that I don't look as awful as I do on my passport photograph. Watch this space I'll post the article when it appears.

Thank you also to Margery for making us welcome and keeping the Nuthatches supplied with nuts so that I could take some nice photographs.

I'm considering taking some pencils and going to do some drawing there one Sunday afternoon.

Second Attempt at a Grizzly Bear

The first grizzly bear had an accident with my airbrush which decided to splutter and spit blobs of paint out. The result was a bear that looked like he had a bad case of measles.
I decided to paint him this time using acrylic on prepared mdf board.
I haven't got very far yet as I've had a busy few weeks.
My youngest son graduates tomorrow and the ceremony is in London at the Royal Albert Hall.
My solo exhibition starts on the 3rd of November and I have to deliver everything to the venue next Monday and then I'm demonstrating at Art Materials Live at the NEC for four days in November.
Plus I have to fit in some blood tests and an opticians visit in the next couple of weeks. However once I get to the middle of November I have nothing else planned for the rest of the year so should return to posting on a more regular basis.

Do You Feel More Emotionally Attached to a Painting if You have Seen the Animal in its Environment?

 

.I'm currently working on a grizzly bear, mixed media on Arches hot press watercolour paper

Whilst on holiday in Canada I was lucky enough to see grizzly bears in the wild although not close enough to get good photographs. However a couple of days after seeing them in the wild we visited the British Columbia wildlife park. They had two young grizzly bears, a brother and sister who had arrived at the park when their mother was killed. I took a lot of photographs of the bears interacting and doing their own thing. Eventually I want to paint a large picture of them play fighting.
As I've never painted a bear I decided to start with one bear in a straight forward pose.
I was drawn to this photo both because of the bears expression and the lighting.
I'm not planning on adding a background although I might airbrush some blurry foliage later.

As I'm working on the bear I can remember the details of the day, but more than that I can picture the wild grizzlies in their natural environment. I certainly have a stronger emotional attachment to this painting than some of my others.
I had already seen grizzlies in captivity and one distant view of a wild bear on previous trips to Canada but this was the first time I'd watched one for quite a long time behaving in a totally natural manner which to a greater or lesser extent captive animals don't.
It's leading me to think that not only should I use my own reference material but in order to give something of myself to the work perhaps I should only draw or paint animals or birds I have seen in the wild.
That doesn't mean I'll never paint another tiger or snow leopard but perhaps less often than in the past.

Same Wolf, Different Technique

I painted this wolf recently using a mixed media technique and although it turned out reasonably well it wasn't quite what I'd wanted to achieve.
One of my favourite wildlife artists is Carl Brenders who uses a technique which includes the use of airbrush.
My airbrush was hiding in a dark corner of the attic so I rescued it, brushed off the cobwebs and tried to use it. Having been ignored for so long it flatly refused to allow any paint through the nozzle. However several hours of coaxing, bullying and finally taking it to bits restored function.
I started by painting in some of the dark fur in sepia watercolour then blocking in some colour using the airbrush. The next step was starting to paint in the fur using gouache which is the stage I'm currently working on.
I'm not sure how much longer I can resist completing the eyes.

Harrogate Autumn Flower Show

I spent last Friday, Saturday and Sunday exhibiting with Made in Yorkshire at the Harrogate Autumn Flower show.
A big thank you to Tracey, Ollie, the other exhibitors and the visitors for making it a really enjoyable weekend.
I didn't feel that it was quite as busy as previous shows and wondered if some potential visitors had been put off after the car parking nightmare at both Spring Flower Show and the Great Yorkshire Show. At those shows the grass car parking had turned to mud resulting in many cars having to be pushed or pulled from the field.
Or possibly with the bad weather this summer people are forgetting about their gardens until next year.
I had a reasonable show with my best selling prints being the three graphite big cats which are now available from my website.
Click on the title to visit my website or email me at gayle.mason@gmail.com if you are interesting in purchasing or want any further information.

'Stolen Moment'

'Snow Patrol'

'Arrogance'

 The weather was reasonable right up to around 5.15 on the last day when it started raining. By the time the exhibitors were packing up the light rain had turned into a cloud burst. Unfortunately the car was a few minutes walk away. After the first journey the ground water I splashed through met the rain hurling down somewhere in the middle and left me completely soaked from top to bottom.
It was a rather miserable journey home.

Painting a Little Owl in Chromacolour

I'm back home from holiday but still feeling jet lagged. We had a fantastic time but it is always nice to come home, and then start planning for next year!

I'll be demonstrating for Chromacolour at Art Materials Live which is held at the NEC in November. I'm painting some small pieces to leave in various stages of completion to give people an idea of my technique with acrylic. As  paint really slowly I thought if I had a few different pieces I could work on over the four days I could demonstrate feathers, fur, eyes etc
This is a Little Owl from my own reference photograph, 8 x 6, chromacolour on mdf board.
I'm using a mix of raw and burnt umber, ultramarine blue, paynes grey and white for the feathers.

I will work this to completion because I need it for my solo exhibition which also starts in November.

Snow in Canada

I spoke too soon about the weather, on our first full day in Canada staying at Waterton Lakes it was cold and wet and there was a sprinkling of fresh snow on the mountains. However it cleared up later in the day so we went for a drive as it was getting dusk. We were lucky enough to see four
black bears, one with a cub and one strolling across the golf course.


The weather was sunny again today although not very warm until later in the day.
We drove the scenic way to Banff and got some excellent views of Bighorn sheep.



We got an upgrade to our hotel room and ended up with a two bedroom loft suite complete with two full bathrooms, fully equipped kitchen and a lovely balcony with window boxes which a humming bird visited. Pity we're only staying here for two nights.

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Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks

Yellowstone was fabulous we saw two different wolf packs, the Mollies and the Lamar Valley and a Grizzly bear. These were a long way off but we saw many more animals 'up close and personal' including coyotes, bison, elk and mule deer and many species of birds including cranes.

Glacier National park has spectacular scenery but we didn't see as many animals and birds, the highlight being a young mountain goat with an older female, it's mum perhaps.

Today we are going through Glacier again and on into Canada.
The weather has been perfect so far, temperatures in the 70's and 80's.
If I have Internet access I'll try to post more often.



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Holiday Time

I haven't got any new artwork to share but I thought you might like this photograph of one of Chester Zoo's lionesses sleeping as though ready to pounce.

I'm setting off on holiday on Thursday, flying  to the US and then driving into Canada taking in Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper and Vancouver before flying home from Seattle.
The camera equipment is already packed, less important things like clothes will typically get sorted tomorrow evening.
I will hopefully be doing some sketching, I will definitely be taking photographs and hope to post some on here during my holiday. We are spending the first few days in Yellowstone so I won't be able to post anything until the beginning of next week at the earliest.
I'll be back for the Autumn Flower show at Harrogate with some new art to share.

Red Maine Coon - Finished

'A Cat's Tale'

Mixed Media on hot press watercolour paper.

I was planning on adding a few more steps of progress along the way, but unfortunately my deadline didn't leave me time to stop and scan the stages.

Work in Progress A Red Maine Coon - Stage 1

I've decided to do a work in progress in a bit more detail, highlighting some of the stages I go through to create a portrait. This will be a fairly large mixed media work. There will be no background other than a shadow to ground the cat so once I've drawn the outline and main fur clumps on my paper I start to select the colours.
I'm working on Arches hot pressed watercolour paper.

1. Selecting the Colours
I make a fairly quick initial selection of pencil colours I think I can see in the cat and draw a small square of each on the edge of my paper. I remove this edge from the finished portrait but it helps me to see how the colours work on my support.

2. I compare my selected colours with the reference and discard any that don't work.
Tip - For a red cat I discard any pencils that tend to look yellowish as they end up giving the orange/red fur a greenish tint.

3. I select the colours for the eye and  complete it before moving onto the surrounding areas of fur.

4. If you look at the tail you can see I'm putting down a base of watercolour before adding the coloured pencil.

Maine Coon Cat on Colourfix

I've been working on this maine coon cat in between other things which is why it's going so slowly.
It's approximately 16 x 12 inches on colourfix paper.
I've been using an under painting in watercolour and then adding detail in coloured pencil using the same method that I did with the spaniel but I'm finding it a very different experience to working on watercolour paper.
I thought it might be useful to compare my findings using the colourfix against using a hot press watercolour paper.

Pro's

• The coloured paper provides a midtone which means fewer layers are needed to create the fur.
• Little work is needed to create a subtle background.
• White fur shows up against the darker paper.

Con's

• Both the watercolour and the coloured pencil sink into the colourfix requiring constant touching up.
• The rough surface of the paper eats the pencils and destroys brushes, it is advisable to only use old brushes.

I can get fine detail on both surfaces so that isn't an issue.

On balance I think I prefer working on watercolour paper so it will be back to the Arches hot pressed paper for my next work.

National Exhibition of Wildlife Art

'Ruffled Feathers'

The National Exhibition of Wildlife Art opens on Friday and runs to the 29th July at the Gordale Garden Centre, Wirral.
 My painting 'Ruffled Feathers' will be on show together with another 439 2D and 3D works of wildlife art.
You can see a list of all the selected artists here, and there will be an online gallery available to browse from the 13th of July.
If you are interested in wildlife art it is well worth a visit, plus as an added bonus on the 13th, 14th and 15th there are several free wildlife art demonstrations running from 11.00am to 4.00pm.

Link: NEWA

Monty the Spaniel - Finished

'Monty'

I have completed 'Monty' the spaniel and have the first giclee prints available.
The total worldwide print run will be 350 but I'm splitting that into two print sizes.

Large Print
Total Available 99, numbered 2 to100
Image Size approximately 9 x 12 inches
Mounted/Matted in polar white to 16 x 20 inches
Price £40 plus post and packing £4.00

Small Print
Total Available 250, numbered 101 to350
Image Size approximately 7 x 9 inches
Mounted/Matted in off white to 11 x 14 inches
Price £25 plus post and packing £3.00

They will be available from my website from next week but if anyone wants one now or more information please email me gayle.mason@gmail.com
Next week I'm going to give write a post about how I get from the original to the print.

Spaniel Continued

I've continued to work on the spaniel. I know his fur is looking a little bit too neat but I'll rough it up at a later stage.
I intend to paint quite a lot of the bodyas I want to avoid the 'floating head' look.

Spaniel in Mixed Media

I started a painting of a spaniel while demonstrating at the Patchings Art Festival.
First of all I added watercolour using a barely damp brush and then picked out detail in coloured pencil. The size is approximately 16 x 12 inches and it's on hot press watercolour paper.
I found that the addition of the watercolour really speeded things up and also created a really soft fur effect, I'll be using this technique again.

Thanks to all who came to talk to me at Patchings and also those that bought my work. It was lovely to see old friends and make some new ones. It was also nice to come away inspired after seeing work from so many talented artists.

Patchings Art Festival

I've been to Nottingham today to set up my stand for the Patchings art festival which starts tomorrow.
The festival runs from the 14th to the 17th of June and is open between 9.30 and 5.00 Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 9.30 to 4.30 on Sunday.
If you are visiting the festival come and say hello.

Link : Patchings Festival