Townscape 011513

Townscape 011513, a photo by Vyvyan Green on Flickr.

Townscape 011513

Not what I set off to do ... I switched horses several times along the way... and I thoroughly enjoyed it - changing stuff, banging some colour on, pushing it around - when it comes to painting I try to remember it's sometimes about the journey, not arriving...

Watercolour with pen and ink and gouache glazing and highlights - 5" x 7" on Bockingford 425gsm paper

Trees in Coxley Woods, Horbury, West Yorkshire. Watercolour:

Beside the seaside.

Well, I guess that's it....

I had considered putting in a figure or two on the hill, I decided against it, they may have become the focus of the piece, not what I wanted...

Beside the seaside, watercolour in progress....

I'm still not too sure where I'm going with this one, changed horses in mid-stream, which is okay,..... and I should sign off at that before I start sliding into a whole raft of metaphores......... as I did there..

I'll be back on this one

Watercolour 7 x 5, with pen and ink on gesso-primed 200lb Bockingford paper

Beside Inglis Falls, Owen Sound, Ontario.

Here's number two that I foretold yesterday ...

As always, I was on it too long...

Wish I'd done it bigger.....

Watercolour 7" x 5" on gesso-primed Bockingford 200lb paper

Inglis Falls, Owen Sound, Ontario. #1

Ingliss Falls, Owen Sound, Ontario. #1, a photo by Vyvyan Green on Flickr.

Inglis Falls, Owen Sound, Ontario. #1

I started this small study last night, it's the first in a series I intend to do of this place, a series of..... well, two at least - I'm always full of good intentions....

I haven't been here for about ten years and more, when a friend and I dropped in on the drive up to Tobermory. I recall the salmon were running that week, they were everywhere we went, or so it seemed, laying around in great lumps, resting between waterfalls.....
I took lots of photos that week ....... and can't find one of them anywhere right now. This I painted from a photo taken more recently by my friend Eric Norcross, - thank you, Eric.

Watercolour 7" x 5" on Gesso-primed Bockingford 200lb paper

Friday's piece.... finished at last....

I started this one on friday, it's a small practice piece, that I decided to do on gessoed paper which, amongst other things, allows for easy lifting of colour, a technique which I love, and use an awful lot..... some of my artist friends, watercolourists, often 'loosen up' by doing small pieces on various supports (canvas, paper, masonite) that have been gessoed prior to starting on a bigger piece on paper. The gessoed surface allows for a level of manipulation, experimentation and reworking that cannot be achieved so easily on paper, and some fantastic results can be achieved - and if it doesn't work out, stick it under the tap, rinse away the paint, dry it, and off you go again... Often, in my mind, the practice pieces are better than the main work...
The building shown at centre is sort of ...well, it's stolen from Robin Hood's Bay and hacked about a bit, everything else I made up as I went along, and is pure Vyv Green....

It's likely I shall be doing some more of these over the next few days - seeing that I have a full sheet of paper gessoed up and cut up and sitting there...... perhaps then, if the muse appears, I might consider doing a bigger piece.... long overdue....

Watercolour, pen and ink with gouache hi-lights on gessoed 200lb Bockingford paper... 5" x 7"

Staithes Beck by night:

Staithes Beck by night:, a photo by Vyvyan Green on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
There's much wrong with this piece, it's overworked and too much played-about with........ I've taken the paper as far as it'll go, working it any more would really not be a good Idea.....
Yet I'm loathe to dump it, as I feel it has one or two redeeming qualities...

Watercolour 5" x 9" on Bockingford 200lb paper

Catching up....

I've been neglecting this site.......sorry,  been busy with 'stuff' for...... Oops! almost a year, it appears... my apologies, I will get on it...

Now that winter is coming, I'll  have lotsa time... for catching up on ... more stuff...

Weatherman starting to drop the 'snow' word of late, ...... stores full of christmas stuff..... van needs a brake job.....

Actually the van really needs setting fire to.....

Finished......Trees beside the Ure, Aysgarth, Yorkshire Dales.

Something of a change, eh?

I have a bad habit when I have 'completed' a painting, of looking and seeing another 'better' piece within it, or deciding that there are more things I might add to it..... so enthusiastically I go ahead and change it, totally, and generally destroy what had likely been a good piece. Those of you out there familiar with the practicalities of working in watercolour are well aware that even the best of papers will take only a certain amount of abuse before giving up. So I often end up with no painting to show for my efforts, and the despair of having ruined a good piece.
This is a ludicrous thing to do and this man is an utter fool you are no doubt thinking.
But I don't paint with the intent of producing a vast inventory of pieces to stick on a wall, I paint with the intent of becoming a better painter.
More on this topic later...

Trees beside the Ure, Aysgarth, Yorkshire Dales.  2010
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20"

Painting in progress... Trees beside the Ure, Aysgarth, Yorkshire Dales.

Bad photo,........ taken in artificial light..... acrylic on canvas
I'm fairly happy with the composition, but.... but... a little washed out, needs separation, or unifying....needs some, some - umph!
Back to it...

For those who would like some exciting news....

well, sorry, but as I've been so busy of late, I don't really have any.
But I guess I should put something in my blog, now that I've installed it, and I'm itching to try uploading an image...
Whilst not exactly earth-shattering or even up to date - here's me last year at Aysgarth Falls in the Yorkshire Dales.........

To begin at the beginning... Sept: 08:2010

Well, I've finally finished working on the new website  at <vyvyangreenwatercolours.ca> , it has been an Herculean task coming thus far.
I thought it best to get it posted up, before I went totally balmy from the effort, and before I took an axe to my computer - I am not, despite my totally fantastic coolness, what the 'now' people refer to as a.... 'techie'.