Acrylic Painting Workshop at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, October 2012

Yesterday I ran an hour-long acrylic painting workshop at the Affordable Art Fair.  Having never been to the fair at its Battersea site, I had no idea of what the set up would be, who would be attending, and what materials they would be able to use!!  I arrived half an hour before the workshop began and was relieved to have a team of very helpful people on hand to help with setting up field easels and laying out palettes and acrylic colour, kindly provided by Jackson's Art Supplies.  I brought with me a few objects to paint - plastic fruit, patterned fabrics and a broken bowl.  I wanted to keep the subject matter very simple so that the attendees stood a chance of completing a painting in the hour.

I had not expected the majority of the attendees to be children, and having only really had experience of teaching adults in the past, this was a whole new experience to me.  However I found the children to be incredibly respondent to advice, intelligent, and totally engaged in their work.  Just as much if not more so than the adults!  It was really lovely to have a couple of mothers and daughters attending and working alongside one another.

As anyone who has ever attended an art fair will tell you, they are pretty chaotic affairs, and so I really felt that the workshop was a wonderful diversion from the mayhem. Those who took part seemed to use painting as a way of switching off for an hour, and engaging with the process of picture making.  The workshop was surprisingly serious, and very quiet! It was a wonderful experience and one I hope to repeat in the future.  I hope that some of my students will be back to the fair exhibiting their work with a gallery next time...it was certainly better than a lot of the work I saw for sale!

Lessons learned from a weekend painting in the Lee Valley

Lesson one: The Lee Valley is a VERY good location to visit for the inexperienced plein air painter, who happens to live in North London, and not so bad for the inexperienced painter from South London either.  Me and my painting partner in crime Becky caught the train to Cheshunt on Saturday, less than an hour away from home. The station is 0.2 miles from the very affordable, very comfortable YHA Lee Valley, looked after by the nicest human beings that walk this earth.  And the hostel is located within the Lee Valley park, a thousand and one acres of fun, apparently - but not only that, but a series of pretty and interesting scenes, from the canal, to the marshes, to the cornfields.  This is great if you are laden with heavy painting equipment, such as a field easel, paints, supports, folding chair etc - literally everything is a few steps away from everything else.

Lesson Two: Painting should be treated as a hobby and never a profession.  What I mean is, always adopt an open minded, almost playful approach to your work. Experimentation is key to development in your practice, and remind yourself of this fact even when you are seemingly producing something laughable.  Once we parked ourselves in front of the scene in the photo above, I produced a number of very quick drawings, and then set about producing a collage.  The theory was that the number of vibrant and scribbly marks in my drawing were unreadable in terms of what they were of, and I thought that through collage I could re-establish a stronger sense of design, an arrangement of flat shapes across a surface.  Sadly my collage turned out to be just as unreadable, and actually made me laugh out loud at one point.  But still through the crap drawing and the crap collage, remained in my mind was an idea for a more accomplished painting, and one I  intend to do once I can return to my studio.

Lesson Three: Staying the night helps. Removing yourself from the everyday, the chores, the grief, the heartache, all of that crap, allows you to just enjoy yourself. A painting weekend is an intense yet enjoyable experience, and one that needs no other distractions.  It IS exhausting so make it as easy for yourself as possible.

Lesson Four: The problems faced with painting out of doors seem to be a little easier to deal with than the problems you might face in the studio.  Becky made a really good observation yesterday - that dealing with how to transport wet paintings, finding a scene that would make a good painting, avoiding strong winds and keeping a relatively clean palette are infinity more pleasant problems than not knowing what to paint, questioning whether there's any point to you painting anyway, and not knowing how to justify large chunks of  time during your 'working' week being spent in the studio, even though it earns you very little or no money.  Somehow throwing oneself into an environment abundant with subject matter just means you get on with it, and even better if you're kept company, it somehow stops one from becoming too self indulgent or serious!

Lesson Five: Never attempt finished works of art. As soon as I gave up on that idea, I produced the paintings that my friend said on my return were the most frame- able.  These were the least self conscious works, the most assured and immediate.  Working in series in quick succession once in the right frame of mind seems to work well for me personally. I suggest you give it a try if you haven't already, and if the fancy takes you!

Viewpoint where I made my first oil sketch for the weekend

1st Oil Sketch

Sunday Subject Matter

1st Sunday sketch

Tiny sketch (6 x 5) on unprimed linen panel, very absorbent surface

Final work of the weekend, which has been growing on me since I painted it.

Lesson six: If you go for a curry at the Indian in Cheshunt and you like your curry hot, make sure you ask for extra chillies as they make then pretty mild otherwise.

Final lesson: Probably best to think carefully about how you intend to carry your wet work at the end of the trip.  Spent Sunday evening with my man promptly developing a new way of carrying wet canvases, which we will never patent and earn our millions from. Talk about wasted opportunity...

hello i'm back

A slight interlude - almost a month away from doing any work! And it's been getting to me...so good then to have 2 hours this afternoon to start on a new drawing.  I really want this one to dance, was really inspired by Conrad Shawcross' industrial machine replicating human movement in the Titian inspired exhibition 'Metamorphosis' at The National Gallery that I have had the idea to try and make my drawings dance, so that they too also replicate human movement.... I also want to try and depict differences in speed, slow passages of drawing and fast passages of drawing..... and I can also see this potentially in paint, too. All very exciting. Off to cycle surgery to fix my bike. x

My inked up woodblock

Woodcut print and drawing finished today!

Just finished a couple of works on paper - at last the woodcut print has got printed.  I have used Old Holland paints mixed in with block printing medium, using a palette I might use for a painting, paired down.  Because it was the first attempt I didn't want to be too careful or precious about it, so kind of slapped the paint on fairly randomly, with the exception of the Rose Dore on the roses.  What do you think of the first attempt?  I am going to be asking everyone what they think so please let me know!  It's the only way I might be able to make these prints better!

Having another look at it though, I am pleased with the results as a first attempt. Decorative, simple, strong design, a nice palette, and the subtle results you achieve with a woodcut are lovely, the grain shows through in areas.  All round satisfied and can't wait to give it another go.

Secondly, finally finished another drawing, which looks like this, according to my ipod.  A proper photo will be snapped for the website proper this evening, or tomorrow.  Again, any thoughts are warmly received! This one may be looked at again tomorrow just to make sure I am happy with the overall tonality of the piece, but I do like the shadows and interplay of light and dark in this drawing.

Opportunity for Painters and/or Sculptors - Artist's Residency/Colony in Serbia

I have been asked to find an English artist to attend this year's 'Artist's Colony' at Poganovo Monastery in Serbia.  I went to this in 2006 and know all about it so if you wish to have more information please email me! Lisafreemanart@gmail.com

The monastery is on the Bulgarian/Serbian border, situated among wonderful nature - stunning mountains and very pretty streams etc.  It is a haven for artists who like to work in peaceful surroundings.  The deal is that your accommodation and food is paid for and you get to stay in a village house within walking distance to the monastery.  You are expected to go to the monastery each day and paint - most art materials are available there but you may wish to bring some of your own paints and brushes.  It is asked that in return for food and accommodation that you leave 2 pieces of work that you have completed during your time at Poganovo, which they will keep for the village gallery's collection.  I had an amazing time at Poganovo and really really recommend this to anyone who is free and has a spare £200 for the flight to either Sofia or Belgrade!

Please get in touch before 13th July to express interest - sorry for the short notice!!

More information on Poganovo is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poganovo_Monastery
http://www.b92.net/eng/travel/culture.php?nav_id=35213
http://www.serbiatravelers.org/en/destinations/50-southern-serbia/467-poganovo/

Just finished this drawing - at last!  Took a while longer than I had anticipated but I am pleased with the results.  All done with a trusty Staedtler Mars Lumograph 3B pencil (for all you artist supply geeks!)  Am definitely pleased that I completed this with the photographic reference, because I believe it really helped me to describe a strong light source much better than if I had laboured over this in front of the subject, and I was much more able to really focus on the forms of the plants, rather than roughly sketch them.

I think that these drawings are artworks in their own right, but I am still really looking forward to receiving my wood carving book in the post and contemplating portraying this drawing in a wood relief.  I'd really like to spend some time thinking of a good title for this but for now it shall remain 'Flower Study'.  It's on my website here: http://lisafreeman.co.uk/artwork/2715941_Flower_Study.html

I am relieved to have found a frame in my studio which will accommodate the drawing so it won't get crushed within a week....providing no one drives their bulldozer over the frame!