Sheri - portrait in progress

It's great to be back painting after the summer break, and great to regain a little bit of 'me' after nine weeks of looking after the adorable Lottie - a complete joy, but even so! What is better? The whiff of baby sick or white spirit? I'm not sure.

I started a new portrait in the session before last, and had a chance to work on it some more last night. It's still very much not finished, but it's coming on - do excuse the lack of nose and mouth. It's oil on canvas, how wonderful to be working in oils again after so many months of acrylic painting.

Here's the painting after the first session:

 

...and after the second session, last night. The nose and mouth will come, I promise:

South East School of Art exhibition

Pictures from the South East School of Art exhibition, including work by Liz, Marina, and Michael, over here.

Michael: Linocut, stage 3

Darker green over the previous stages.



Nearly there.

Michael: Linocut, stage 2

A tricky gradient from dark grey to yellowish green to dark grey across the previous layer.

Michael: Linocut, stage 1

This new linocut starts with a gradient of grey to grey-brown. The challenge here will be keeping the registration perfect: as the layers of ink build up at each stage, the slightest misregistration will make the white lettering disappear.

Michael: Croydon Art Society exhibition opens

The Croydon Art Society exhibition at Denbies Vineyard in Surrey starts today, and is open every day until 4pm on Sunday 18 September.

High Waving Heather
Reduction linocut • Image size 15 x 15cm • Edition of 12

Michael: Linocut, stage 4

Fourth and final stage. Near-black ink printed over the previous three layers.



Jeans, TShirts, Shoes. 10 x 10 cm.

This is another building that I found in the North Laines area of Brighton. The morning sun highlighted the clothes hanging in the window against the dark interior of the shop.

Michael: Linocut, stage 3

Red is difficult to print on top of. I printed this layer in grey (a mix of cobalt blue and burnt sienna, with white).

Michael: Linocut, stage 2

Red printed over the previous blue layer. The red ink (T.N. Lawrence's scarlet) is very transparent. If you add white in an attempt to increase the opacity, the red turns to pink. I adding lots (nearly 50:50) of warm yellow ink, which increased the opacity without shifting the colour.



The lamp and window details will have darker ink printed on them later, but I didn't want the red on those parts because I was worried that the slightest misregistration would show up too much. So I used a mask to hide these parts from the red on this layer.