Liverpool painting No.111. Earle Road

21cm x 14cm watercolour

Liverpool painting No. 110. Boundary Lane

21cm x 14cm acrylic on canvas board, £90

Memories of Ogden's.

The factory is still there! I'm not sure but I think it may be a listed building. It certainly is a nice piece of architecture! Up to a few years ago there was an advertisement hording just outside which showed a large briar pipe, the bowl of which glowed red embers at night! Always impressed me that did! Also driving past, sometimes you'd get the smell of one of the more aromatic pipe tobaccos...Something like Clan


The baccy came in large bales straight from the docks, and it was blended as whole leaves by guys with pitchforks. Lots of flies around and it really stank.
Think how much a small can of rum flavored tobacco smells, and then imagine that smell multiplied enough to fill a whole room - yuck.


For more snippets from the past visit

http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-10472.html

Drawing for Liverpool painting 110. Boundary Lane.

Carbon and acrylic 28cm x 14cm

Ogden’s Tobacco buildings

30 second sketches

carbon 4b on cartridge paper.

Another lunch time watching and drawing out the window of the Tate. I’m really growing to like the spontaneity of these small sketches. I think the shorter the drawing time the freer and less cramped the picture.

Front and back of the cards

Finally had an initial run of cards done (about twice the size of a business card) to promote the Liverpool pictures. There are a few changes I'd probably make on the second run but these are a good starting 100.

Still Life with a Twist.

All oil on card 21cm x 14cm.

I managed to revamp these paintings with the help of Letraset, which proved surprisingly hard to find. My daughter also showed me the joys of scanning the small images that I produce instead of the lengthy process of photographing and getting the light right. The scan cuts out all the messing about and renders the darker colours like black with little or no glare and doesn’t leave the picture at the mercy of the light source, which can be too cool or too warm.

Liverpool painting No. 109. Georges Dock Way

Acrylic on canvas board, 20cm x 14cm £90.

30 Second Drawings

I'm giving drawing lessons at Tate Liverpool over the next ten weeks so while the students are busy on the task I can manage to fire a few off from the ground floor window as people walk past. We were practicing a drawing session that restates the lines and is a combination of both loose and controlled drawing. The class was working on still life but there's nothing quite like drawing if the subject's on the move, it's great practice for concentrated drawings.

The purpose of restating a line drawing is to introduce, review and develop observational drawing skills and in particular to learn how to see.

Emphasize observational drawing processes that show adjustments and that demonstrate trial and error processes. Allow for variations of mark making and engage in the hand made process of drawing and the desired product will eventually emerge.

During this initial stage anticipate that the entire drawing will eventually be mapped out with tentative lightly drawn basic shapes with restated lines. At times the drawing process will involve adjustments to the initial lines or marks by restating line.

Avoid getting caught up in details and in erasing lines. Instead anticipate that the initial “mistakes” with line will be used as visual reference for the proceeding restated line.

Get into a mindset that line drawing and most other forms of drawing are a layering process (or that drawing is done in messy stages) and not as a neat and tidy product.

As adjustments are made, restate lines and think of the drawing as a record of thought processes in learning how to see, a record of a trial and error process and not some finished masterpiece.