End of Year

So I bit the bullet and signed up for a year with Artwork Archive at the apprentice level. This gives me room for 100 pieces in my online inventory - and I've already put 17 pieces there during the free trial LOL. I can always upgrade as needed but for right now this suits me just fine.

I want to add some notes to remind myself of things to do in the New Year as well - ie like start a new instagram feed in my own name, likely slangdonart. I don't foresee myself being a big user of ig but can't fail to recognize its value for getting work out there and known. I can envision taking one day a week to update my inventory, ig, this blog. I just don't want to become a slave to social media and have it cutting into my creative time to explore my art world. 

End of year is always a slow time creatively for me as the holidays pull focus but I do want to include some pieces that I have been working on recently. Besides two posts in a row without images is just one too many LOL.

Up first is my attempt to abstract the landscape from our much beloved family farm. I opted to use a very limited and muted colour palette. It's now at the rest and reassess stage. I will come back to it in the new year and see if it tells me what it needs to be completed.  

These next two are experiments with collaging some of my used palette papers onto 6 x 6 cradled wood panels. After sealing the panels I primed the natural wood with clear gesso so the colour of the wood shows through the open areas of the paper. Quite happy with the results and will definitely do this again.

Fall is Here

How quickly it seems the season changes. 10 weeks of the FYJ2020 course has just flown by. Later this morning will be the wrap up zoom call, which will be an ending of sorts but such an amazing beginning. I can't say enough about the value of Louise's teachings. There's just been so much to take in and the amount of exploration that still awaits is huge. So glad we have access for a full year! 

 

I've kept up with the videos with each new module but not necessarily the assignments and journaling that is so key to moving forward. But all in good time! I've been having a blast just through swatching different colour palettes, amazed at the variety of tones and colours one can make with just a couple of colours plus black and white. There's a part of me that would like to pick a short term palette to work with for a period of time. 

This piece to the left is baltic blue, yellow ochre plus B&W and I'm quite enjoying it. I've watched a lot of the series Shetland recently and find a wonderful beauty in the bleakness of the landscape. Such a drastic difference from my own surroundings. I also have a 'thing' for the simplicity of some of the cottages found in the UK. It all ties in with my connection with inukshuks I think, in that here is a marker that someone has been here, no matter how harsh the geography might be. Someone has been and left their mark. This is one of the many revelations that my journaling uncovered for me and that is key to why I want to make art. Can't wait to see what else I find out about myself LOL. 

New Season

Fall is definitely upon us! Cooler temperatures for the past few weeks have forced induced me to alter my studio time. No longer can I head out there first thing in the morning - well I can but I'm not a happy camper being out there LOL. 

I do have a space heater but that necessitates me closing the garage doors in order to be effective, and I'm loathe to give up the light just yet. So I am starting to make a plan for when I finally have to close my little haven down and relocate inside. A list, because I love lists, of things such as what art supplies need to be stored indoors (mostly just paint and mediums) and what kind of art do I want to make until I can get back into my studio. I know in my head it makes perfect sense to spend the winter working on my ancestry, and I'm sure I'll embrace that once again when it's time but the painter in me isn't ready to give up the reins just yet to my more pragmatic side!

In the meantime, here's a sampling of some of the pieces I've worked on since my last posting. Oddly enough, I've gotten back to my watercolour roots in recent weeks. Wasn't expecting that but I'm delighted that it happened. It's also got me dreaming of working on full sheets of paper which is huge, both physically and philosophically for me. Scary and exciting all at the same time!

Siddall Road (c) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart
acrylic on 12 x 12 in canvas panel

Cosmic Duet (c) Kate and Susan Langdon
mixed media on 12 x 16 in paper

Southwest (c) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart
watercolour on 12 x 16 in CP paper

My Second Process Post

I do love how something can be nothing until all of a sudden it isn't anymore. The following piece started off with no specific intention other than waiting for it to tell me what it wanted to be - and apparently that was some post apocalyptic hell hole! Definitely not on my mind at the beginning LOL. 

So it started with some mark making with charcoal on paper.

Then I added some paint in an analogous scheme of predominantly yellow with some blue and green added.

Wasn't really excited about that so I threw in some white spotches for some relief and smeared some of them around.

Not sure where to go from here so I put it aside for a day or two to 'ponder'. Of course, that led me to the other day when I decided it was the day to make a bold move and transparent orange was on my palette LOL. So first I turned it upside down, decided on a high horizon line and glazed the top half. All of a sudden there was excitement! 

I loved that you could so clearly see the previous layers but in a whole new way. So I wanted to glaze the lower half with blue. I chose prussian blue rather than the previously used phthalo blue which gave it the much darker look. This immediately made me think of the wildfires we have been seeing in the news with sadly increasing regularity. Hellhole was the first name that came to mind but I'm not sure if that will stay its name, yet.

Hellhole - mixed media 11 x 15 inches on paper
(c) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart

From this to That

Almost a month ago, I started an experiment. 

I wanted to do a painting starting from a given reference but then only use it as a jumping off point with no expectation of where the journey would end. Each day I would sit down with it and just go with whatever struck my fancy. 

To begin, I was inspired by an image that is part of Windows 10 library of images that appear rotationally on my lockscreen. It is of an iconic tree, in a lake near the mountains in New Zealand. I wasn't wedded to my rendering of it and that was tremendously freeing for me.

I started with charcoal and added colour with Inktense blocks on 12 x 16 Arches HP paper. The second day involved throwing a lot of gesso around as a veil, then adding back some random marks with charcoal. Some days I would work on it for only 15 minutes or so, other days there would be a lot more contemplation involved. I worked on it daily for about a week and then life intervened and my creative voice went quiet for a spell. 

When I took it up again, I still had no idea where it would end up but distance told me it needed some life put into it and so I glazed the whole thing with green gold and that really seemed to bring things into focus. It still took a few more days but then suddenly and very quietly I knew it was finished. I've never felt more like an artist than I did in that exact moment. 

I won't bore you with the in between and quite frankly ugly bits but here is the beginning and the end. I will definitely be doing this again.

"Underneath a Tree"  mixed media on 12 x 16 HP paper
(C) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart

Learning From Others

I do like doing studies of other artists' work. I find an image that appeals to me and then try and dissect how they achieved it. Sometimes it works out and I'm pleased with the results and I file the technique away in my mental toolbox. Even when it doesn't work out, I usually learn something valuable along the way or maybe go off on a completely different tangent. It's similar to mixing colours for me - I see a hue I like and then try to see if I can replicate it using what I have. 

That's what prompted this little study. I had seen the image on p interest and was immediately drawn to the bold colours and clean lines. First thing I learned - drawing precision and perspective is key! It's really not noticeable to my eye here on screen but in my hand I can see the left side of the biggest house is not quite right.

Study of Cathy Horvath's Fall Lodge Folk Art

I decided to start out in my usual comfort zone of working small, my natural inclination, so this was drawn on 5 x 7 watercolour 140 lb paper. I don't have much experience with, nor confidence in, my ability to handle reflections so that was my first worry. I decided to include them in the initial drawing, that way I wouldn't get it all drawn and painted and then screw it up with horrible water lines LOL.

I then decided I much preferred the square format so I taped it off at 5 x 5 inches. The colour was added using water soluble markers - some full strength, some watered down before applying. Yes, if you look really closely you will see some small blooms where impatience got the best of me sigh.

I don't think I will try another one but if I did I might choose to work in acrylics.  

Project Completed

I purchased this really neat picture frame sometime last year and knew I wanted to use it to display my own work. It's a system where 16 8x10 inch frames are joined together to form what looks like a mullioned window. I was just waiting for the right piece to go in it.

Then John Lovett, a brilliant Australian artist whose work I just love, posted a piece of his recently that sang to me and well, I had to attempt a study of my own. My version was painted as a 5 x 7  and then with the magic of technology I was able to scan it, enlarge it and print it out into a 16 8x10 grid. And this is the result. I'm pretty chuffed with the results as it now hangs above the gorgeous table Taylor Made custom made for me earlier.

My study of a John Lovett piece for my own personal use

Notes to self - in case I try this again with another piece, be careful where the centre of interest is placed. Unfortunately under one of the mullion bars is the majority of a brilliant orange red clump of foliage that is stunning with the turquoise of the water. Too bad most of it doesn't show now that it's in the frames. 

Just a doodle

Playing with my paints!

Shari's class

Signed up for an online class at Craftsy with Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. This is my rendition of her sketch of the Flatirons near Boulder Colorado. In doing this I realized just how long it's been since I painted a landscape LOL. Overall this was quite successful. I have a few more modules to complete but I'm looking forward to incorporating what I'm learning into my own reference images.  

Painted on 9 x 12 140 lb cold pressed paper but my scanner bed is only standard letter size so the quality of the scan is less than optimal.

EDM2015 - a yard ornament or statuary

I wanted to do something different for today's look. These toadstools were a gift to our family from dear friends many years ago. I wanted them to be the front and centre, hence the background tree is graphite with a bit of help from my smudging fingers, just to provide an anchor to the sketch. 

   Okay, happier with that look.

Hmm, I always see much more clearly when I post things here. The right side of the biggest toadstool needs more of a shadow. Will fix that tomorrow - I'm done for today!

EDM2015 - something hot

White hot sand!

Bird's eye view II

Several months ago, I had done a small watercolour sketch of Abbeydale for Nan and Tom's summer party. That led to a request for a bigger version incorporating part of the hamlet surrounding them.

It took me awhile for my brain to get the perspective right when working only from satellite photos but I'm finally happy with the outcome. The preliminary sketch looked like this-
 

I've scrubbed the name out since it didn't make the final cut anyway and for privacy sake because it includes friends' names. The final piece is a combination of pen, watercolour and watercolour pencil work.

Online Courses

"Fungi"   8in x 3in watercolour on Arches 140 lb CP paper

I so enjoyed the 'Beginnings' course from Sketchbook Skool that I have not only signed up for the second one called 'Seeing,' but I found another online course called Sketching Now -Foundations being taught by Liz Steele. I came across Liz' blog on my own  one day when I was wandering through the art blog corner of the internet a couple of months back.

Funny how things go though - she is also one of the instructors for Seeing. Liz was an architect in her previous life and it was her building sketches that drew me to her work. Plus she's a teacup afficionado and I like that quirkiness factor about her.

Seeing starts a week today and will overlap for a week or two with Foundations but that's okay. It's to be a slower paced, 12 week course with one week building on the next, that should take me through to the end of January by which time I imagine the next semester of SS will be up and running. And winter will be over before you know it!

See, this is my master plan to get through my least favourite season as quickly as possible.

Another revisit to 2007

It was during this time period that I started to realize that I couldn't paint and learn at the same time. Learning is left brain for me and painting is definitely right and the structure of J's classes was she would demonstrate for ~10 minutes, we would return to our seats and try and emulate what she had done and then it was back up to the front for the demo of the next stage.

Needless to say while I was learning, I was not overly joyed at my output. It is satisfying to me to go back and see what I can do to resurrect some of these early works. Not all are salvageable but I'm pleased that they're better than they were left originally and that definitely shows me I've learned some things along the way. Gosh after the bad grammar and poor sentence structure I'm glad no one but me is seeing this.

Okay here's where it started

2007

And here's what I was able to do with it. I could've done more with the branches but I didn't like it to begin with so this is as much time as I'm willing to spend on it LOL.

2014

I didn't have the original photo to work from so all additions are made up by me. It's funny, the 'darks' are what makes a piece for me and yet because of the way things generally work In watercolour - moving from light to dark - that's the thing that's missing from so many of my early pieces, because we never/rarely got that far in class!

If I find I pick this up again to do the darks on the tree branches I'll post an update here.

Another forgotten piece altered



2007

2014

Dug this piece out of my orphans' drawer to see if I could improve it. It was from a class with J done in the winter of 2007. She has an amazing ability to put blobby brush marks together and have it make sense, a skill I still lack to this day. At the time, I was just thrilled that my birdhouse looked three dimensional! 
However, after playing with some glazes to cool certain areas down, I was able to create some depth of field and I think it's somewhat better. At least there seems to be some order to all the chaos in green rather than the messy jumble in the original.

My orphans' drawer is populated with lots of these pieces so I will likely be doing this again and posting them here so I can compare them.