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Slow progress on my Little Explorers…, but have now decided not to submit to the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art this year as I have run out of steam and time. There is absolutely no point in trying to produce good, saleable work when I am tired so I have to admit a defeat on this round. However, this is the latest picture progress and also means that if I get it completed in time it will be available at my Cambridge Open Studio exhibition in July. Please pop along to see me if you can – it will be lovely to have lots of visitors.

A little bit more done this morning. I sketched this drawing about two months ago and am having a bit of trouble remembering what I drew! But I can make it up as I go along, so am really enjoying this one.

Since completing ‘The Guardians of the Mangrove Oyster’ I have started the first of four little paintings for this year’s National Exhibition of Wildlife Art. It remains to be seen if I can complete all four in time, as I am a bit behind now. But I shall try. This is the progress I have made so far on the first one entitled ‘Little Explorers at the Minimart’ (Long tailed tits at the bottom of my garden – the mini shopping trolley is what my sisters and I used for our mother’s funeral flower composition (2007), as she so loved shopping!).

Last night I attended the Pint of Science lectures at The Cambridge Boat House pub, Chesterton Road. The lectures were wonderful, and the atmosphere was electrically scientific, but light and entertaining. All three lecturers provided a good evening’s entertainment. I met Helen Scales (my scientist) and she was extremely pleased with my painting to complement her talk on the Gambian women who look after the mangrove forests in order to protect their livelihood of harvesting Mangrove Oysters. The finished piece, along with all the other artists’ work for the Pint of Science event, will be on display, at the one-day exhibition at St Barnabas Church, Mill Road, Cambridge:
13.00 Exhibition Opens
18.00 Official opening with deputy Mayor speech; voting for Artist Prizes
18.30 – 18.40: Flying Machines
19.00 – 19.15: Dance performance
19.30 – 20.10: Flying Machines
21.00: Announcement of Prize winners.
10.00: Close.
A percentage of sales will be donated to the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity.
This was a great event to be part of and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of painting for the first time with acrylic paints and also listening first hand to some first class lectures. Thank you Creative Reactions for all your hard work in organizing everything. [Below is the completed painting. And I still do not like painting with Acrylics!]

 

Working steadily on. Enjoying the challenge! This will be the last progress post because the painting needs to be seen first by the audience at the Pint of Science Lecture (The Cambridge Boathouse), and then at the ‘The grand finale’, on 21 May 2015, when all the artworks will be displayed and for sale at St Barnabas Church on Mill Road, Cambridge.

The exhibition starts at 1pm with a drinks reception from 6pm. facebook/events

 

Not much work done over the weekend, and had a wonderful family party yesterday (Bank Holiday Monday). But I have been pressing on this morning and more progress has been made. I must finish this painting this week as I have other pressing paintworks to deal with!! The oyster-shell middens (the big lumps beneath the trees, right hand side) are proving a difficult effect to achieve, but the main attention, and detail, lies with the foreground figures. The two ladies bottom right are ‘shucking’ the oysters, and the lady on the left is showing off her festival head-gear. The two big trees top left are Baobabs. I am still not taking to these Acrylic paints though, and will probably not wish to use them again, unless a commission requires so.

I have been working hard on the big painting [Pint of Science]. I thought I might call it ‘Guardians of the Mangrove Oyster’.

 

(See entry for 19th April): Husband kindly went off to play golf this morning, leaving me to paint – wonderful. I have started this main painting the same way as the taster/tester (see entry 25 April), but have just had to stop for a while to allow it to dry before applying the next layer. When I mix a good colour in water colour paints, I usually mix enough to complete a painting – especially with botanical art as it is extremely difficult to re-mix an exact match if I run out before completing a painting. If there is any mixed paint left over, I store it in a little preserve jar for future use. I have done this also with the acrylic paint today – and I previously saved a mixed brown from the taster/tester picture, which I have used again this morning. The paint in the jar was still fresh, so I can re-use the mixed colour. I have uploaded progress here and will have a quick cup of coffee, then back to work. Hope you all have a nice day – the sun is shining…

 

I have spent several days practising with Acrylics as a ‘tester/taster’ before I commit to doing the big painting for Helen Scales and her Pint of Science Lecture. The consistency of acrylic is very waxy and some of the paint, in particular Burnt Umber, is very grainy, so does not mix too well. However, I persevered and decided to begin by working light to dark, working a light blue base layer, then a beige layer, leaving some blue, and finally a dark brown layer. This formed the basis on which I built all the rest of the layers in the painting to get a good feel for how the colours mix and match. The paint is a lot more luminescent than I realized, thinking that all the colours were opaque. But when mixed with water it is possible to layer different colours so that their luminescence shows through to form many variations. Finally, I laid down body colour straight from the tube and discovered the reason why Acrylics are so popular: you can make mistakes and just cover them up!! This is a definite No, No, with water colour, and oils can muddy-up if not left to dry before applying further coats of paint. I found the Acrylic paints overall very easy to work with and now realize that I was a bit of a yellow-belly for nothing!! The pictures show the completed artwork and a little film of the tester/taster picture, for your amusement:

 

 

 

I have made good progress with the Pint of Science drawing transfer today, even though the light was very poor (although sun shining brightly now 3.30pm!). This meant that it was difficult to take a decent photograph of the finished sketch. This progress picture is light-enhanced so that you can see the drawing – but I assure you the colours are photography glare, not the actual canvas which is still quite nice and white. All grid lines have been removed and the canvas is now ready for its first application of paint. But before I do that I am going to practise with the acrylic paint on a spare piece of canvas to get the feel of it. I will keep posting progress pictures every few days. Thank you for visiting and, if you have any comments, please email me.