Pulpit rock

The coastal feature that is Pulpit Rock was cut away by quarry men at Bill quarry on the island of Portland in the 1870's. Some brave souls climb to the top of the stack - I've never fancied it myself, not having a head for heights. The stone is a beautiful mellow yellowish grey and the shadow colours that fall on it a delicious blue violet. This sketch was done with inktense pencils, sepia waterproof pen and a white gel pen. I tried to capture the moment inbetween heavy showers where the sun shines through lighting up the wet rock and making strong tonal contrasts.

After all the excitement of exhibitions I'm feeling a little flat so I'm going to be taking a mini break from blogging for a week or so whilst I spend some time out sketching on location and researching some new ideas for my next series of paintings. When I'm back I will have some exciting material to share, until then I wish everyone a wonderfully creative week.

A quiet evening

A Quiet Evening
acrylic on board 13x20cm
©2011 Lisa Le Quelenec

Some evenings feel so quiet and still. This is another painting inspired by the view from Southbourne beach with Hengistbury Head peeking through the haze. I've used lots of glazes again, whispers of colour that gradually build up layer upon layer.

A silent tide

A Silent Tide
acrylic on board 20x13cm
©2011 Lisa Le Quelenec

Back to the beach and unusually for me a landscape format. I really enjoyed switching to these muted colours after working with the strong greens and siennas of the last two paintings. The colours are more subtle than this photo shows, there's not quite so much contrast. I used titanium buff, parchment, cadmium yellow medium, indanthrene blue, naphthol crimson and ivory black. I've been quite scared of using black but ivory black is very transparent and more like a charcoal grey to my mind, it's been lovely to use in the mixes in this painting.

4ART at the Hayloft

  

A couple of shots of the exhibition at the Hayloft Gallery in Christchurch. The exhibition opened on Friday and continues until the 16th June. The artists exhibiting are; Morag Dixon, Dennis Male, Sylvia Musk, Linda Patterson and myself. There's a lovely mix of work so if you're in the area do pop in and have a look.

 

A Boat Load Of Trouble
oil on canvas
© Dennis Male 2011



Mixing it up a bit

 

This is another experiment using monoprints, on the left I'd added watercolour which resisted the ink of the monoprint. There wasn't very much bare paper in the top area so really the change was nominal. My intention was to slightly refine the drawing and beef up the colour in some areas whilst still keeping lots of the mark making of the print.

On the right is a picture of the same piece with added colour pencil (Derwent). This toned down some clumsy areas where the ink had been too thick but flattened out the light in the tops of the reeds.

To gain back light and get in even more colour I worked back in with pastel. Believe it or not there is still quite a bit of the original monoprint visible. I've added a detail of the painting which shows the amount of colour more truly, the photo of the whole has flattened it somewhat.