latest coloured pencil piece WIP

Tree fungi WIP

approx 14" x10" coloured pencil on Stonehenge

copyright Teresa Mallen

I didn't post an entry this week as I have been out of town, staying with my Father. His health isn't good right now. He doesn't have internet access so I am unable to do any blogging when I am there.

This is as far as I have got on the fungi picture. As you can see, the drawing isn't finished yet but I have started adding colour. I am not sure I am in the mood for such an intense picture. Yesterday I took a break from it and I got out some tubes of acrylic paint and painted a small piece that featured two glasses of wine, one red - one white. I had fun with my escapism. I might start a smaller, less complicated piece in coloured pencil so I have something to work on when this one drives me nuts. Perhaps there is such a thing as a subject with too much detail :-) !!!

I shall be returning to my Father's home later this week. I hope to get the July newsletter written before then. If you are trying to contact me via email, please understand that circumstances may not allow me to read or respond to emails. I promise I will reply to any emails as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

the passing of time

I was working in my garden yesterday and I reflected on the passing of time. We are here for such a short while. A few things triggered my musings.

I was planting some flowers along the edge of an old wall. This wall is actually the foundation of an old stable that was once on our property. The old stable is gone now and all that remains is this lovely foundation. The former owners planted a perennial garden inside and around this foundation wall. I found myself thinking of the original settlers of this land. They cut trees to carve out pasture land for their animals and fields to grow crops. The stable was a necessity - housing the farm animals that they needed for food or in the case of horses, animals they needed for transportation or farm labour. These people worked hard to establish a farm and now they are gone. All we have left is a glimpse of what their lives were like.

I am planting dahlias. These plants are from my Mother's garden. She too has passed away. I think of the life she and my Dad carved out. They too were farmers, but in a different era. Before I was born, they bought a farm that had the potential to be what they dreamed. Over the years they built a barn, bought machinery, built up a herd of dairy cattle and renovated an 1850's stone house. My Father still lives there. The cattle are gone, and the house and barn need repairs. Time marches on and we struggle to keep up.

So where do I fit in? What will I leave behind? My husband and I wish to be good stewards of this place. We shall look after the fields and not let them grow up into brush. I shall take care of the gardens I have inherited from the previous owners. We too will put our stamp on things with the trees and plants we will plant and the changes to the house that we are going to make.

Nature reminds me of how brief my life is. We have some maple trees on our property that are probably two hundred years old, perhaps older. Humbling really.

Time does pass so quickly. We must savour every moment of our lives.

my coloured pencil painting process continued

Okay, what happens once I have chosen a subject? Well, I either have to create a drawing from life, from my memory or imagination, or from reference photos. As I have chosen fungi that I saw on some logs as my subject, I need to decide if I am going to work in the forest (too many mosquitoes for that option), take the subject to the studio (would require a chainsaw) or take photos. Yup, I took photos... :-) My memory and imagination are not really options for me!

I use my camera as a compositional tool. Up until a few months ago, I used a 35 mm SLR camera with a couple of macro lenses. Now I use an SLR digital camera that can also use my macro lenses. I know that a lot of artists use Photoshop to play around with their photos. I have never worked this way as I worked on an ancient computer and I didn't have the software (didn't have a digital camera either - what can I say, I am a bit of a Luddite). I have had to replace my ancient computer and I now have the option to tweak my photos in Photoshop. Preparing to do this fungi piece is the first time that I have tried to manipulate my photos. I confess I didn't spend too long at it. Spending years taking photos with a manual camera was great experience. I have become a much better photographer and as such I don't feel my pictures need much editing. Having said that, I did try some zooming in techniques and I did some lighting corrections (the forest was rather dark for taking good pictures).

The above photo shows a few of the edited photos that I printed off. I am using a few of them as references for my drawing.

The next decision is what will my surface be. Of course I already know that my medium is coloured pencil! For this piece, I am choosing to work on white Stonehenge paper.

The next step is to create a drawing. If my photos were not what I wanted compositionally, I would work this out in thumb nail sketches. As I said, I use my camera's view finder as a compositional tool so I don't usually need to do any preliminary sketches. I usually have a photo that is the image I am after. Referring to my photo, I create a line drawing that I then transfer to my good paper.

This particular line drawing had just the outline of the major shapes. I am drawing the rest of the lines directly onto the Stonehenge. I am using a coloured pencil to create a grisaille underpainting. You might be able to tell from the photo that I don't have all the drawing done and yet I have already started to add colour. I couldn't resist. I had to get some colour in there :-) !

These blog entries are supposed to be detailing my process. I should say then that my process doesn't always involve a grisaille underpainting. Usually I am not so formal in my approach. I usually just start working on my darks using whatever colours I see in the subject. For this piece I need a good road map and as there are so many lines visible in the logs and the fungi, I decided to create a monochromatic underpainting first.

I shall keep you posted on my progress!

my coloured pencil painting process

The first photo includes a few sources of inspiration for my current piece. Several years ago, I clipped out the photo of the fungi from a conservation magazine. I have always thought that tree fungus would be a great subject for a painting. This photo stashed away in an ideas file, helped me to remember this. I also collected a couple of fungus bits because I wanted to have them in my studio. Further inspiration.

I recently found some lovely fungi on some logs in our forest. The lower photos are just a couple of pictures that I took one afternoon.

With regards to Karen's question regarding the artistic process, I have now gone from images from a photo, to live fungi in my forest, to a decision on what my subject matter is.

Tomorrow I shall talk about what comes next now that I have decided on my subject.

the process of painting

photos and pictures from my ideas file

As you probably know, I write a coloured pencil newsletter each month (which you can read from my website). I recently received an email from someone who is a Newsletter Group Member. She was putting forth a question for the July newsletter. After thinking about my response, I decided that it might be best to answer her question in a series of blog posts.

What Karen L. is asking is this: "Could you please describe the process you go through when doing a painting? I seem to flounder about. I thought if I could understand your approach, it might help me."

What an interesting request! So here we go. I have just started a new piece. I shall write about the steps I take to get my painting from start to finish - my 'process'. Karen, I hope this helps. Please keep in mind though that there are no rules in art. This is just how I work. :-)

First of all, I think the act of creating a painting is simply a process of making decisions.

To get started, I need an idea. Where do I get my ideas? For me it is from something I have seen. I am not the sort of person that gets my ideas from a song, or a line of poetry, etc. I am a visual sort of gal when it comes to this.

I am often inspired by what I see in nature. It can be flowers in the garden or items picked up on a forest walk. My inspiration often leads me to capture the object, the moment or the setting with my camera. When I am ready to start thinking about a new piece, I always review the large collection of photos that I have taken over the years.

I also am inspired by my 'idea files'. These idea files are simply file folders that contain images that I have gathered over the years. The sources for these pictures are often various magazines, catalouges, as well as art magazines. I cut out and collect images that I find interesting - it could be because of a colour combination, a uniquely shot photo, or an interesting composition of objects. Anything goes. The picture at the top of this post contains a small sample of the types of pictures found in my idea files as well as a few of my photos. Please note that I only work from my own photos. The images from the idea files are just for ideas.

Once I have some ideas for the next piece, I need to make a decision as to what exactly I am going to focus on. Remember I said that creating a painting was about making a series of decisions? At some point I have to move from having ideas to actually commiting to a subject.

In the next post I will show you how I came to be working on my current piece.

supermarket wisdom

Words of wisdom often come along unexpectedly and from odd sources. Today I was standing at a self serve counter at a supermarket. I was spooning olives into a container when I overheard a snippet of conversation.

The scenario is this: There is a young man questioning his future. Should he return to University to work on a Masters Degree? He was voicing his fears about money and about whether or not it would pay off down the road. The woman he was confiding with had some simple, great advice. She said, "If you know this is what you want, then take the risk. You have to take risks to get what you want. Take the risk." It was obvious that this man did want to fulfill this dream and he did want to take the risk. He just needed someone to give him a bit of encouragement. As I wheeled my cart away, the discussion had moved on to where he would live and how he could finance this. Sounds like he had a person he could room with as well as some ways to get the needed funds. He was getting more excited by his decision by the minute.

So perhaps you are reading this blog and you have a dream you are questioning pursuing. Allow me to pass on today's supermarket wisdom. "If you know this is what you want, then take the risk. You have to take risks to get what you want. Take the risk."

You are going to do what with your life?

Did you ever consider a career in the arts? Do you think it is impossible? Did you ever think you might like to be a singing quilter? Let me just hazard a guess here to say that I bet that career option has never come to your mind. I'll also bet a highschool guidance counsellor has never recommended it either. This blog entry is all about possibilities!

Guess what? I have met someone who actually has a career as a singing quilter. Honestly. Incredible right?! And you thought your ideas were 'out there'!

My husband and I are new to this area of rural Ottawa. We moved in about six months ago. Since then we have been warmly welcomed by our neighbours. Like most rural areas there is a very interesting mix of folks. From farmers, to independent back to the land types, to brilliant eccentrics that engage in 'interesting' past times. We recently attended a house party hosted by one of the local 'characters'. His brother was visiting from B.C. and his wife is the singing quilter. I kid you not. She has been a singer/songwriter all her adult life. She has written for theatre productions, recorded CDs, toured the folk festival circuit, and taught singing lessons. She took up quilting and a whole new chapter of her life opened up. She met the man who is now her husband and they have embarked on a life of traveling all over the world singing to quilters! For the last seven years she has only written songs that involve quilting stories and she also sells her quilts and now teaches various quilting techniques.

Her name is Cathy Miller (that's her picture at top of this entry) and her husband is John Bunge. They put on a very entertaining concert at this house party. After a couple of glasses of wine, I whispered to my husband that this is what we are going to do when we retire...that's me the party animal.

I urge you to go to Cathy's website, just click here. You will see that I am not making this up.

So what do you want to do when you grow up? What's stopping you? Obviously anything is possible!