Category: Acrylic

Brown Dog

11/6/2016

I was recently commissioned to paint someone's old dog. He is a real character and at 14 years old still loves a good roll in the grass and saying hello to his friends up the park. He is called Harley, but everyone calls him Brown Dog. I delivered the painting yesterday and right is him checking it out.

Below are the WIP stages. The eyes were tweeked after the last photo to create the final painting above.

©Sue Pownall 2016

Hello Spring!

20/3/2016

The gates are open for 2016 at the National Trust's Bourne Mill. ©SuePownall

Sitting in the gateway

Today is the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, and spring is one of my favourite seasons. I also like autumn ... and summer ... oh and winter if I'm inside and warm and it's snowing outside.

On Wednesday, I was sketching outside in order to record the 2016 opening of the National Trust property, Bourne Mill. I'm working with the property this year, so rather than sketch the building, other than the outline, I chose to focus on the open gates.

I used a Monologue sketchbook and as the photo (left) shows, I Inked on site. However, I added the watercolour added at home due to icy wind.

St. Patrick's Day. ©SuePownall

St Patrick's Day sketching with my assistant.

On Thursday, Saint Patrick's Day provided the opportunity to get some green paint out as I sketched with some friends in a local pub.

The above sketch was completed on site, Winsor & Newton watercolour with Staedtlar pen in A5 Daler sketchbook.

More green featured this morning, which is why I'm blogging this evening, as I experimented monoprinting using a Gelli plate. Some of these prints I am thinking of working up, maybe with stencils, or watercolour, or.... not sure. Some as collage backgrounds, maybe. Whilst one will become an Easter card to send to my mum.

Now, I'm looking forward to lots of garden drawing, flower sketching, and more spring printing.

Spring monoprint experiments. ©SuePownall

What about you? Is spring your favourite season? What are you working on?

Experimenting with Mixed Media

18/1/2015

Before Christmas, I taught Sketching Fun in Sanctus, a charity for the homeless and vulnerable, and they were so pleased that on the 9th I heard that they had requested I teach them a mixed media course, starting just 10 days later.

Now, as you know, I work in 2D and specialise in pen & ink, so I put a plea for help on facebook and twitter to gather ideas and plan a 7 week course with a buget of just $2 per person for the whole course. After reading several online articles, I started my first project. Below are the discovery stages and final result. (Don't forget you can click on images to enlarge)

Next up, collage, which I last did to cover my paper art folder in school... or was that decoupage? Help! Luckily, the start has been delayed a week and I have until Wednesday 28th to work this all out.

Any mixed media tips or ideas you'd like to share? Links to your mixed media work welcome! Just leave them in the comments. Thanks.

Just for fun

10/1/2015

Sketch 1, pencil in A5 sketchbook

I am NOT a portrait painter, but I'm starting the year with an experiment, working on something different, purely for me. I know this is not very good, but portrait painting is an area I'm exploring this year. I've lost the likeness, but like the advice I got from Jana Bouc to "not worry about likeness so much, go with the feeling and making it a "painting" rather than a "portrait"." It's supposed to be one of the homeless people I met recently. I did one session of sketches with her and took some photos. She didn't reappear for the next session, so I worked with what I had.

Here are the WIP shots:

The final painting:

Acrylic on A2 canvas

Are you trying anything new this year? How's it going? Let me know in a comment below please.

Brown Dog

Hello Spring!

Experimenting with Mixed Media

Just for fun

About me

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