Marsascala, Malta - watercolour on paper - 50 x 35cms. A weather-wise dull, wet and uninteresting morning. Thought I'd...
Posted by Andrew Borg Art on Saturday, March 21, 2015
First things first ...
Hope you're all back to your productive lives, all sober and looking forward to a great 2015 ahead! I've learnt a thing or two in 2014, it was great and 2015 will be even bigger :) I'm back to plein air painting. Plein air painting is when one paints outside, right in front of a live view. It's a lovely experience, a great social activity and a huge outdoor experience. It's also less physical, but being an outside activity, I kid myself that it's good physical exercise (it's not, especially with grub and juices that follow :)). Last Saturday we attempted Chadwick Lakes. It's an overwhelming place, painting-wise. Loads of leaves, trees, tadpoles, water and general skies. My strategy is normally to find a comfortable angle, i.e. a place which has enough shelf space to place my stuff. on. I then seek a visual frame to paint; I look for an 'off centre' angle, a less obvious sight to paint. It's not easy. Then the plan of what to put in and what to leave out and what should be the theme/focus of the painting. This time, I wanted to capture the play of the tree trunk reflection on the water and the subsequent spatial movement up to the point where the reflection and the real thing touch on the surface of the pond. The circular composition should keep the eye wandering on the painting. Absorb the colours and prep the palette; a quick pencil sketch, then on to the actual rendering with watercolour (the medium I normally use). Watercolour is like the Inquisition, no ifs, no buts, no second chances, no mistakes. When it works, it's great, when not, it's a ruined weekend, mood-wise, insomma, a bit of a tight-rope walk. This time, I did a plein-air painting of the 'Lakes', followed by a studio painting of the same scene back home, just to see the progression. Of note are the differences in the result. The studio one (the top larger picture) is more measured, calculated, possibly more serene. It's also probably better executed, technically. The plein air one is looser, more urgent, freer, less exact, more energetic; it inevitably captures the atmosphere it is painted in. That's the beauty of plein air painting. Streetlights at dawn - 35 x 50 cms - watercolour on paper. Mixing viridian green and alizarin crimson watercolours in just the right dose can give you these fantastic shades of grey. I also used the paper's rough texture to block out tiny specks of white to get the street lights in this early morning scene. The location was up at Virtu' with Valletta visible amid the morning mist. Fiery sky and all, this painting was eventually ruined when I left it for some 4 years in a damp, closed room while I renovated my Siggiewi house - ah well, lesson learnt! I shall not renovate houses any more :) Comino Tower view from Comino Hospital, Comino, Malta - Jun 2007 - watercolour on paper - 50 x 35 cms (unframed). Painted on site on the island of Comino, Malta; it was a terribly hot day, and we sat with some other artists in the shade of the ex-Comino Hospital courtyard. This is a couple of hundred metres from the Tower itself, but the summer haze was enough to send the tower way back into the background. I like the way the light falls on the tower, with vertical slivers of light on it. The foreground was as Arizona dry and the higher contrast there brings the foreground closer. Done for the day, I then went swimming :) Female head - oil on canvas. This was one of the last paintings I did during the four year stint studying classical drawing and painting under the expert guidance of Jason Lu when he was living in Malta some years back. The course followed ...the stringent Florence Academy of Art practices of sight-size and Bargue plate practice. One of my best investments, this required patience, discipline, perseverance and above all, the will to observe and learn. The exercises took time, this one some hundred hours or so, but this was necessary to gain sub-millimetric precision against the original cast, as well as in the colours and tone. I would not classify this as 'art', but an exercise to help gain the necessary skills to be able to create art. I will be posting other exercises here. Whoever is interested to know more can contact me (I can only give advice but am not in a position to give training [too much of a hassle :)]) What a read there is on http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html. The autor is a certain Bruce MacEvoy, who, from what I learned was a top guy at Yahoo! Bruce seems to be extremely resourceful and this site is really a M U S T R E A D for any serious watercolourist who is interested to know how watercolours work. Bruce delves into the chemistry, physics and history of the medium and embellishes the site also comments on some the great watercolourists work. One of the best (if not the only) technical and scientific study of the pigments, colour theory, paper, etc related to watercolour. It's too much to take in one go, but if you bookmark it, you can refer to it when needed. There's also an interesting anecdotal history of his ventures in this medium. A most interesting read!
Siggiewi Autumn Day - Nov 2013 - watercolour on paper - 50 x 35cms (unframed) - Typical of these wet days; driving down Girgenti towards Siggiewi, the view was 'end-of-the-world-like' enough to suggest it being painted. The brightly lit cumulus clouds towered over the rain soaked ones underneath, lighting up the village as if a sign for us to redeem our sins . This painting will be exhibited at the upcoming Hax Xluq Chapel exhibition. Ghar Lapsi, late afternoon - 33 x 47cms. Fresh from the oven, done yesterday in anticipation of the Hax Xluq annual exhibition in December. Ghar Lapsi forms part of Siggiewi. I'm having this 'thing' about shorelines lately and thought that this would make an interesting exercise. Shoreline, setting sun on boulders, Filfla - pretty good value for money :) |
AuthorAndrew Borg is a Malta-based painter, working in oils and watercolour. He captures images which, to my mind, look good or have are quirky enough to have a below-the-paint meaning. Archives
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