I’ve realised that I haven’t updated this site for well over a year. I think it is time to move on, this form of blogging seems a bit archaic. I’ve been documenting my art on Instagram for several years now, and although it has some shortcomings, I think on balance it is where I am going to stay. So if you are interested in my art (and thank you if you are) you will find me at julian.swindell on Instagram now. Feb 10, 2022
In between lockdown these classes restarted in Victoria Works studios. It was good to get back together but now alas we are back on Zoom. These are some of the works I produced.
So we are back in covid lockdown. That will be the theme of life for a while I fear. Art gives us an outlet and purpose which I am thankful for. I’ve been doing little drawings. Partly so I can concentrate on detail, partly as it is quicker and mainly because I am running out of storage volume. One of the first things I’ve drawn small is a little lapis lazuli bead I wear around my neck on a leather thong.
I started with a watercolour wash and then lots of dense colour pencil work. It is always surprising how many colours are needed.
The two sides of the bead are quite different, with many pyrites inclusions on one side, so I drew then both and then mounted them in a frame.
I’m very fond of this little bead. Lapis was the source of original ultramarine and I think of it as the artist’s gemstone. I wear it all the time. When I go swimming in the sea it is usually all I wear to preserve my modesty. Seems to work.
I use a spare bedroom as my studio. A North light through a roof window, but a bit gloomy. It is fantastic to have a room of my own.
I have done a lot of drawing in my boat. Cramped, but if it is warm you can get out to stretch and swim.
I love life drawing, but all classes were cancelled during the lock down. There was a huge boom in life drawing via Zoom, with models desperate to carry on working somehow. I’d never done it before, but it does feel a bit like very soft porn at first. Looking at naked people over the Internet. But it works.
There seem to be two approaches. Live or saved videos of models posing, or still photos to work from. Pros and cons to both. One definite pro is that models can adopt extremely foreshortened poses, with the camera below their feet or over their heads or in very difficult/unstable poses which they can’t hold for more than a few seconds. These are just a few. There are so many that I have been binding them into collections.
Very early in the lockdown, when we were all meant to stay home, our local art shop, Pegasus Art (Pegasusart.co.uk) set a daily challenge to keep us focused. I didn’t do all of them, but they were a stimulus, which was welcome. These are a selection of what I produced.
This blog has been static for a long time, so time to catch up.
This first work is the last piece I completed before the full lockdown in March. Drawn at the Ardington School of Craft in Jonathan Newey’s class on drawing wildlife with watercolour and coloured pencils. He advocated use of water soluble pencils but I have never got on with them, so I used standard non soluble pencils. First a pencil outline. I am unsure of this, as it is little more than tracing, which I don’t like, but the result is good. Then a broad painting with watercolour washes. This gives a very basic colour scheme. Then overdrawn with colour pencils. This really worked. It gives a greater depth of colour than just using the pencils by themselves. You can also manipulate the colour endlessly. I was very pleased with the result. Happy to say, these birds now live with a good friend in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Happy birthday Carol!
Lockdown started just days after this was finished, but it is a technique I have used at home several more times.
An excellent evening with a wonderful model who had come from Bristol by train. That involved getting a bus from Swindon when the train was cancelled. Dedication. I tried charcoal, two-colour pencil and then a quick sketch just in pencil. As always, the quick sketch looked best, but I felt it was very incomplete
Our model had extraordinary tattoos. I often don’t draw tattoos as I think they can detract from the modelling of the body. But in her case, I felt she was incomplete without them. It isn’t up to me to decide how she should be seen. She clearly had her own ideas of how we should see her. I didn’t have much record of her tattoos, but photos on her Instagram account gave me the basics, and the rest I made up. Whether it is a better drawing, I can’t say, but it is much more her than the plain sketch.
Not my usual subject matter. At the drawing class I go to, we were given a poinsettia to draw. I was at a loss, so reached for my colour pencils. I was really pleased with the drawing, as far as I got in the morning (mainly the red top) but it looked a bit wishy washy. The tutor suggested going over it with water colour. This worked beautifully, so I completed the drawing, partly from a photograph, but largely from imagination.
JEGS ART 