Nude a week 21: Woman adjusting her hair

Quick sketch Pastel on dull sand coloured paper

This was a quick pastel sketch using the paper showing through the flesh. Drawing in  sea green and dark brown pastel, highlights with very pale cadmium red and light red. I did this three months ago.  I like the strong highlight on the right thigh.  I like this drawing, it did not quite fit the scanner.  There is more of her left leg on the drawing which is on A3 paper.  The pose is comfortable and relaxed.

PS our daughter Lucy has started a blog about her sculptures.  Be sure to see it at
https://mellersh.wordpress.com/

PPS:  I recently completed a wedding picture for Claire and Robin Hardy.  It shows the lovely couple coming out of the church, just married.  To the left is the wedding poem written by my husband Nick.  The garland above their head is of hops and crab apples.  The picture was painted digitally using Corel Painter then printed on canvas.

Nude of the week 20:Start of digital season with an ipad "pen" sketch and e-book cover designs

A quick sketch done on my ipad

This was done on my ipad using the Brushes App.

 More digital work - book covers done with Corel Painter

These are covers for three interesting e-books which I have been working on for the past week or so. They are books written about the first world war by my father in law. He fought and was wounded in the trenches on the Western Front as did the poet Siegfried Sassoon.  You can learn more on the e-books page of our Njeanius blog.  Click here for the e-book page.

Nude of the week 19: Woman with a bowl of fruit

The nudes I have put up so far are all quick poses.  I began this one with very light pencil strokes and then watercolour.  I really like the way her hair emphasises the line from the nape of her neck over her shoulders and down her back.

The watercolour is painted with a big brush, freely, wet on wet, the slate colour shadow under her arms goes its own way.  The strong yellow wall picks out her lighter profile. First I painted her profile and when this was dry, I carefully painted the wall with clear water, then flooded the deep yellow paint on the wall area.  I squeezed the paint brush hairs together to drip the deep yellow onto the clear wet area.  I painted this area with the paper flat on the table.  I really like the effect of watercolour floating on clear water in this way.  The scene reminded me of the Gaugin paintings in Tahiti.  Click here to see them.

PS: There's a new thing up on the Njeanius blog run by my husband Nick and me.  It's Nigel Pascoe reading "This England" by Shakespeare with nice photos of the New Forest.  Click here to see it.

Nude a week 18: Man on stool, watercolour

Man, watercolour, sitting on a stool resting his elbow on his knee

I like the yellow light on the arms and chest and the head in shadow with the man looking down at the floor.  I like the loose painting which was done very quickly with a big brush.

My ebook cover work

This week I have been working on some ebook covers for books on the first world war by my father in law.  All artwork done digitally. Here is the first one: a biography of Sassoon, more about this next week.

Nude of the week 17: Standing woman with tattoo.

Standing woman dark brown pastel with tattoo

Here I`ve used the soft smudgy quality of the pastel with my fingertips in the halftones. This is a quick study of Alexandra.

Nude a week 16: A seated nude painted on the Ipad with a video replay of the painting

Jill side view. Short pose. The model leans forward engrossed in activity at the left.  The left leg is stretched forward steadying her.  I used a limited palette of 5 or 6 colours.  Also the eraser was used to make the pen lines. For this painting I used the Brushes app.

Here with a short pose, I think of first the main sweep of the pose and put it in.  I take in the negative space of the wall and its shape.  I chose colours and their complimentaries.  I'm aware of patterns like the large pattern on the lower left.  For this picture I was thinking of flat colour and not the nuances of flesh colour.  You can watch the process of painting re-played at high speed on the Ipad.  Here is a video we made from the replay. Apologies for the quality, we have yet to master the process of recording the video on the Ipad.

The wall was not the orange colour shown.  I painted it using the complementary of the blue-greens of the blanket on the lower left.  I limit my palette when I see the possibilities of  a lithograph and I saw that here.

PS: To complement my blog my husband is putting up a blog with a Poem a week,  It is here at this link http://njeanius.blogspot.co.uk/

Nude a week 15: Nude on a fresco tile

A lime fresco of a seated nude painted on a roof tile.

Here's a back seated view painted as a small fresco on a roof-tile about 11 inches by 5 inches (28x12 cm). It was painted as a lime fresco using pure pigments. The colours used were ochre, burnt umber and Prussian blue, used in a translucent way. The colour of the pure lime plaster shows as a soft white mainly across the shoulders and buttocks. All three colours are used wet in wet making subtle cool and warm flesh tones. All painting is done while the lime plaster is wet.

Frescoes should not fade or darken. The colour is fused into the wet plaster. As the plaster dries it binds the colour and the colour becomes permanent. Frescoes can last for over 1,000 years.

I originally painted this picture in Grass Valley, California. You can see more about my fresco work in an earlier blog Jeanie paints frescoes.  Below is a picture of the sort of roof tile I used and another example of my fresco work - a picture of a camellia flower from the lovely tree in our garden that is flowering at the moment..

For those who want to try frescoes there is more info and a chance to buy instruction DVDs at www.frescoschool.org/

A fresco I did of a camellia flower

 

 

 

The sort of roof tile used for the fresco