meldrum artHere is a selection of watercolour and pencil sketches from my life drawing evening at Konstnärshuset, Stockholm. I hope to transfer the energy and freshness of these sketches into my paintings which are all too often, stiff and laboured.
 |
| Ten minute nude. 20130910 |
 |
| Five minute nude. 20130910 |
 |
| Five minute nude. 20130910 |
 |
| Ten minute nude. 20130910 |
 |
| Two minute nude. 20130910 |
 |
| Two minute nude. 20130910 |
I paint these Naked Hands at lunch time, I take my time and invariably I overwork them, I get scared, I have too much time to think, I dab the brush 100 times too many. Life drawing is different, there I have only five or ten minutes to execute the watercolour, the result is a painting that contains life and energy. I am learning, in the mean time; here is a muddy, overworked Naked Hand.
 |
| Naked Hand 20130910. 9 x 14 cm Moleskin. |
I was very excited about attending my first life drawing evening after the summer break. It was a two hour pose at, “The Swedish Academy of Realist Art“. I was a bit too eager and so my watercolour study failed, luckily I didn’t give up and managed to do one half-decent sketch. The model’s underarm does not look correct but otherwise I’m quite pleased with it.
 |
| figure drawing 20130905 |
I used Arches 300gsm rough paper originally which is wonderful to paint on if you have time but is too slow-drying for figure painting with tempo. I don’t think my fellow artists would appreciate me using a hair drier every ten minutes either.
It sounds like one of those bad newspaper headlines. As for the watercolour which took me two lunch breaks, – it’s all right, I learned a few things which is the point of drawing and painting these in the first place. I’m happy enough with the result, a mixture of success and failure.
Life Drawing starts again tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to starting, it feels like it was a very long time ago since the last session.
 |
| Naked hand holds stopwatch! 9 x 14 cm Moleskin. |
I know I should let the watercolour pigment do it’s magic but I don’t. I stress, I forget, I fail.
…and one backwards. The last week has been a bit of a backward step for me. Seven days ago, I thought I had mastered it, watercolouring. I was silly of course to think this way. I was painfully reminded that I am in fact a student of art. My last four watercolours have been flops, very frustrating. This quick watercolour below, which I painted this evening may mean that I am starting to move in a forward direction again. What a relief if this is the case, but then again, I haven’t started my next watecolour yet, so we will see.
 |
| Moleskin watercolour notebook, 13 x 20.5 cm. |
Once a month a small group of sketchers and I meet and have great fun doing what we enjoy most – having coffee!
 |
| Långholmen, Stockholm, 20130825 |
 |
| Långholmen, Stockholm, 20130825 |
I gave this hand two washes and then stopped, I was planning to add a few more but realised that I was happy with it after two. It is interesting when one gets the message to stop. Sometimes, it comes too late of course.
 |
| Moleskin watercolour notebook, 9 x 14 cm. |
Firstly, I would just like to say that I am very happy with the execution of this painting. It was the first time I used 100% cotton paper (Arches Rough, 300gsm), and wow, what a difference it makes. It is so much easier to paint on high quality paper.
The only problem I have with this painting is the subject matter. Why is it that a naked person who looks you in the eye, feel pornographic? Why do naked models who look away from you or have their eyes closed feel like classic art nudes? I have a problem with this, Lucian Freud did not but then again, he was not exactly glamorising his subjects either. The next nude I paint will have a cloth over her head, let’s see how that feels!
I paint, I learn and I paint some more…
 |
| Autumn, 38 x 76cm / 15 x 22″ |
