Richard - Saturday Life

My picture from Saturday's London Road Life session. Pen and acrylic on card.

Sheri - Willow just about finished

Here's my painting for the Willow Foundation's Stars on Canvas auction, which will take place in December. I painted it over two LRG sessions, and a tiny bit at home, which I pretty much redid. I quite enjoyed this new departure, in the end.

Sheri - A little bit of printing

It's not long now until the Craft and Autumn fair at The Jubilee Community Centre, East Grinstead. Just over a week away in fact (2nd October, 10.30 - 4.30), so I'm pulling out all the stops to produce some screen printed childrens t-shirts to sell, besides the goodies on The London Road Group stall, which will have cards, paintings, prints etc.

I have about 5 designs in total, printing them for ages 2 - 7. I printed the first design today, and hope to have the lot printed by Sunday night if I can.

Here's a shot of my batch from today. Once dry, washed and ironed, I hope to add a few embellishments.

Michael: Ashdown Forest animals

Ashdown Forest was originally a royal hunting ground where monarchs such as Henry VIII hunted animals. Here, we see a group of boar sent out to entertain the king. It was a cold day, so they put on their sensible hats and scarves to keep warm.

Michael: Back

New life drawing group just started.


Pencil on paper, A3.

See more at London Road Life Group.

Richard - Birling Gap

Just to prove there were a few sunny days during August, I've been working on a picture of Birling Gap, which is on the Seven Sisters not far from Beachy Head. I liked this view because the sun was directly overhead, leaving the cliffs almost entirely in shadow. A little more tweaking to do and then I think I'm done.

Richard - Our first life drawing session

On Saturday we held our inaugural Life Session, with seven artists coming along and Jo taking the honours of being our very first model. We were pretty inefficient at getting set up for the first time, but it turned out to be great fun. I’d drawn the short straw to run the session for this week and managed to get my phone covered with oil paint while setting the timer for the poses, but luckily it cleaned up quite nicely. Special thanks to Marina for organizing the attendees and much else, Michael for the baking, our hosts at the JCC for their helpfulness and everyone else for turning up. See you all next time!

Oh, and some sketches from the class ...

Michael: Ashdown Forest linocuts, final stage

Final layer of colour: I used a near-black, mixed from ultramarine, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow, adjusting the proportions to suit the underlying colours.


Ashdown Forest, Looking South.
Five stage reduction linocut, 10 x 10 cm.


Ashdown Forest, Autumn Morning.
Five stage reduction linocut, 10 x 10 cm.

The thing that I like about these prints is that I managed to keep the early layers very pale, which improves the contrast with the dark later layers.

The things that I don't like are some not-very-good drawing in places, and too many "Why did I cut that?" moments.

On with the next prints...

Richard - Back to life

It's September, so life drawing starts again. Here are a few quick poses from last week ...

Michael: Croydon Art Society exhibition

Croydon Art Society exhibition at Denbies Vineyard, Dorking, Surrey. 6 - 19 September, 2010.

Michael: Ashdown Forest linocuts, stage 4

I put the prints to one side for a day or two. When they're not going well, it's hard to find the enthusiasm to continue.

At last, I added another layer.





I think the new layers have improved the prints; the darker tones give them a bit more impact.

I'll probably finish them now.

Michael: Ashdown Forest linocuts, stage 3

Another layer on each of these prints.





And I'm still not happy. The second one has been particularly awkward. After printing a few, I noticed something wrong on the right edge of the print:



There's a strip of the underlying yellow layer showing down the edge of the print. It looks like misregistration -- but the left edge of the print is correctly registered. It's as if the block shrunk while it went through the press! The error is only a few millimetres wide, but that's enough to mar a small print like this (it's 10cm square).

After printing another copy I found that the error was consistent. I fixed it by hand-burnishing that edge before putting the block through the press, which seem to stick it in the correct place.

Richard - In the rain

The weather has been really nice for the last few days. Unfortunately, such wasn't the case last week when I took a few days off to do some painting. This is what I ended up with: a couple of views of Camp Hill on Ashdown Forest as the rain clouds roll through. Both 12"x12", oil on canvas.

Life drawing sessions

Starting on 11 September 2010, the London Road Group will be organizing regular life drawing sessions in East Grinstead, West Sussex. For more information, click here.