Door-yard roses

I must admit that I have never to date used the term "door-yard" and I am familiar with it only through Walt Whitman's poem When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd. However, a close friend of mine has a walled patio in France, with roses over the door, and he asked me to paint the scene for him. So, here it is, door, yard, and roses instead of lilacs. There is sage and rosemary too.

The first picture is the underpainting, and because of the complexity of the foliage and background, I reduced the original photograph to 16 colours in Paintshop Pro, and based the underpainting on that, choosing only 16 pastels nearest to the colours in the altered image.

The second picture is a development of more colours, still using pencils and Rembrandt, but also moving into Sennelier and Schminke where the colour was needed. The work is progressing in the main from top left to bottom right, although I went vertically down the left side to work on the door, the big pot, and the ground. I was surprised to see the profile of Julius Caesar appear on the pot...

The third picture has some more detail on the roses, after fixing. I am working on darkest darks and lightest lights to gauge maximum contrast; and a new palette of colours has been introduced to work on the sage leaves.

To be continued.....

Victor Richardson in the Pastel Journal

My article on Irish artist Victor Richardson is published in the December issue of the Pastel Journal, and his work was chosen for the cover of the issue. The magazine is on the bookstands, but is also available as a digital download from the North Light shop.

Ellen Eagle: Pastel Painting Atelier

A new book on painting in pastels is always a welcome event in publishing. It is even more welcome when the book is by somebody who is as thoroughly versed in their art - and craft - as Ellen Eagle. (You can find out more about Ellen on my blog artistsinpastel.com)
Ellen's new book is called Pastel Painting Atelier – Essential Lessons in Techniques, Practices, and Materials.It is published by Watson Guptill; and Crown Publishing,and costs $35 US or $41 Canada.
It is also available as an ebook. Publication date is April 23, 2013!

New work

It was not possible to bring a full set of pastels to France this year, so I settled for the most compact pastels that travel well - pastel pencils. These images that follow are paintings that I started in France, with the intention of finishing them on my return to Ireland with the benefit of a complete range of Rembrandt, Sennelier and Schminke.
So, what I am showing here has been done solely with hard pastel pencils. There is much more to be done.

I have always had a fondness for orchids, having grown them for a time, bit never anything as exotic as the tropical slipper orchids, such as this Paphiopedilum parishii. There is a version in oil on my Facebook page, in the paintings folder.

Every home has a collection of scent bottles, some quite exotic in their conception. They make challenging and colourful subjects for still life.

Our kitchen windowsill has a small Tiffany-style lamp sitting on white tiles, and lighting up the oil bottle. I wanted to highlight the contrast in this one.

The Little Gallery, St.Emilion

I have just returned from a few days in St. Emilion, posibly the most famous town  in the heart of the Bordeaux wine region - certainly very pretty, very popular, crammed with restaurants and wine shops (apparently over 80 at last count). 
However, my reason for being there was to hand over a pastel to Elena at the Little Gallery, who had seen my paintings at the pastel exhibition in St. Aulaye this August and who expressed an interest in displaying them. It was a great experience to have my work hanging with artists of the calibre of Roy Petley and Vicente Romero.
The photographs show me emerging from the gallery looking not too smug, I hope, and another where you can just make out my pastel of a pitcher with a hellebore in the window display.

Vicente Romero

I have already posted on Vicente Romero on artistsinpastel.com. I am returning to this artist because I had the pleasure of meeting him in Saint Aulaye in the Dordogne last summer. Our meeting turned into an interview, which evolved into an article in the Pastel Journal, and this has just appeared in the August 2012 issue.
The magazine is already on its way to subscribers, should appear in the shops soon, but it also available as a digital download at http://www.northlightshop.com/pastel-journal-august-2012-digital-download-v9088/?lid=pasjcnl071012&et_mid=566757&rid=2791283
Overall it's an excellent issue, including not only Vicente Romero, but also Ken Gofton on Michael Norman, Aaron Schuerr on Sheila Rieman, and a demonstration by Sarah Blumenschein on her approach to still life. Unmissable.  Incontournable.

Pitcher and moth

It is July 3 in Ireland, and since my last post it has not stopped raining. On the bright side there's no gardening to interfere with painting.

This pitcher is giving great inspiration. The honeysuckle was growing in the garden, and the elephant hawkmoth is a species I have raised from larval stage. I decided to combine the lot in a composition that is not outlandish, zoologically speaking - the hawkmoth visits honeysuckle in the evening.


First sketch. The layout and placement are sketched fairly loosely with pastel pencils. I have already started to develop the blossom.

In order to get an idea of the contrast and too allow for a dark background for the stamens, I have rubbed black pastel pencil in firmly around the flowerhead.



This is the completed sketch and block in. It needs to have the dark background added soon to finalise the colour contrast.

This image is showing me that the colour of the back of the leaves is too light.

This is a close-up of the pitcher. It has more colour than my previous treatments of the subject.

This is where I've left it for now. It will need some refining, but it can sit in the dark for a while, until  I view it afresh. The painting is on Clairefontaine's Pastelmat, 11 x 14 ins.