Touchwood

I am having a bit of a Catweazle day. There were specific plans for today, but I have a child home sick. Again. So there it goes.

Son went to camp last week and had a ball. He came home more confident, more willing to do stuff for himself, but also worn out (good) and with no voice (bad). He spent the weekend cranky and croaky and yesterday his eating petered out. This morning? Temperature, sore throat, day in bed.

I had planned to work on the abstracts. About 2 am this morning I got a vision of a new one and desperately want to set up the imprimatura for it and put another layer on the other two. But no. Sooooo, drawing.

Made a start on a portrait of my friend, Arlene. Remember when I did Riyaz I said I wanted to do Arlene, but on grey? The paper is a beautiful colour, but it's wrong for this. So that needs a rethink. However, the colour is right for a simple drawing of Ghandi, which I have started, but something isn't right and I can't see what it is. So the best thing for the moment is to turn it over for a few hours and then look again.

I thought about working on the shells, but... I don't know... just no. Or at least not right now.

Like I said, a Catweazle day

"Nothing works"

So, in a desperate bid to feel productive, I thought I would regale you with "what you can do with coloured pencils".

You know, just basic Derwent colour pencils. Not watercolour pencils, just the ordinary ones. I bought them in a tin a couple of decades ago. They have lasted this long because I don't use them very much, but I have such fun when I do. I really should get them out more often.

Snow Leopard, Megan Hitchens, 2011, coloured pencil on paper

Anyway, these two drawings were done a few years ago. I like them both for two reasons. One, I think they are quite good (and I don't normally feel so satisfied with what I do) and two, they use very limited colours. There are only four in each one.

Bison, Megan Hitchens, 2011, coloured pencil on black paper

They were both done from photographs. The snow leopard, I don't know where it came from. One of my photos from a zoo visit? (I spent a lot of time at the snow leopard enclosure) One of the hundreds of photos of snow leopards around? I don't know. Sadly, there are more photos of snow leopards than there are actual snow leopards. And the more the Chinese government opens up access to Tibet, with the fast trains and what have you, the more their numbers plummet. Passage for poachers was greatly facilitated by the train and, with backhanders and bribes, the government does nothing to curb the trade in snow leopard pelts. Or at least nothing serious.

The bison came from an ad in Wild Fibres. I have read a lot about bison fibre, how soft it is, its thermal properties, and would love to spin some. Maybe one day. I have some yak fibre sitting waiting its turn. Mmm, fibre.

I digress.

The snow leopard is mainly black and yellow ochre with a little pink and a touch of sienna. That's it. I removed all trace of the background and any outline because I wanted it to just be in the page. The white of the paper became the background and the main colour of the leopard Minimal work, maximum effect.

The bison is yellow ochre, two browns and white. That's it. The black paper does most of the work for me, just as the white did with the snow leopard.

I keep telling my mum not to add hard outlines to her drawings and paintings. Sometimes it is a good idea and serves the outcome well, but a lot of the time it just flattens the image and makes it look odd. And there is a difference between a defined edge (such as along the bison's nose) and an outline. The trick is to see what's there rather than what your brain is telling you is there. Brains lie. Plus, one of the tasks of fur is to smudge the outline, making the animal harder to detect. Have you noticed that a lot of predators have fur while their prey have hair? Silly prey.

The point of all this is, I suppose, you don't need a lot of tools and materials to create something. Go for the best quality you can get (it'll last longer and give you a better result), but you can start with a small amount, or a limited number (which makes it easier to afford).

And the point for me today is to remember that not every day is a Catweazle day.