I had a great time teaching courses myself for the first time last autumn and I’ve scheduled some more portrait courses for 2024.
I’ve also confirmed Andrew James again for the annual autumn Expressive Portraits course. I think I’ve run it 20 times now. However this year due to various reasons including, literally, time and tide, the courses are two days each.
Get in touch either directly back to me or via the contact form on the course pages. Note my portrait drawing and painting courses in March are quite soon.
Capturing a Likeness with Ian Price
Suitable for beginners and experienced artists, they cover drawing techniques, introduction to limited palette, and assistance with transitioning from drawing to painting. Basic materials are provided, and participants can bring favoured paints and easel.
The course is built around expressive portraiture. Observational work set up to enable the formal qualities of oil paint to become a more explicitly descriptive medium and asserting a more active form of observation and connection whilst still capturing a likeness.
Tuesday 8th- Weds 9th October 2024. Single model for 2 day pose.
Thurs 10th- Friday 11th October 2024. Same schedule with a different model holding a 2 day pose.
Oil Painting Outdoors
Note that the dates of the landscape course for 2024 are not confirmed but I am able to offer one to one tuition or tailored courses for small groups. Please use the form on the oil painting outdoors course to enquire.
I’ve enjoyed having a bit more time to do lots of painting in the last few months, more ships after being chuffed that my tanker painting sold from the RWA open as well as landscapes and portraits.
I’m very excited to have started to sculpt in clay and am looking forward to seeing how I progress this year or if my hopes shatter in a kiln!
Let me know if anything take your interest or get in touch to enquire about a purchase or a commission.
Hello again, here’s a quick update on recent work and where to see my work this autumn. However the biggest new is that I took the daunting step to make art full time in March so I’m now running some courses myself for beginner or intermediate painters for the first time.
I’m also organising the Andrew James portrait course for the tenth year so get along to that if you’ve some experience with oils, more details below.
Recent News
I’ve had a great Summer and crammed in quite a bit of painting in the south-west, including Sidmouth Folk Festival, Cornwall as well as Clevedon! I’ve painted 20 plus over the summer so check my posts in Instagram.
Last week was the opening of the RWA open exhibition in Bristol and I am beyond chuffed to have had two paintings selected from the 6000 submissions.
Thanks to Hemali Modha for the photo of myself ( with Andrew Hardwick and my son’s shirt) and for helping to organise such a great exhibition. It’s a great exhibition this year with a colourful main gallery; attractively split by subdued and full on colour.
My work is in the Methuen side gallery, the sage painted wall really complement the landscapes and seascapes hung. They are in great eye-level spots, don’t miss battery point in the corner. Perhaps I got two in because they aren’t showing any Prince Charles watercolours this year? (Thanks your majesty!). The black and white room looks as good as ever including a scarily valuable Frank Bowling work and a piece by Hamish Young who exhibited with me earlier in the year. The exhibition is on for the rest of the year. Get along but more urgently get along to this …
ArtPort 23 Portishead
On the weekend of 23/24 September I’ll be exhibiting my work part of the ArtPort 2023 festival in Portishead which is continuing to grow year on year. Come and find me in the church opposite Somerset Hall in the High street. It’s broadened to a burgeoning arts festival, come along to see the range of music, guided walks and other art events on offer. Brochures should be dropping into Portishead letterboxes shortly.
Courses
Once again I’ll be organising the Andrew James Expressive Portrait courses in October which is always fun, educational and stretching for those with some experience of painting in oil paint. Dates for these two three day courses are the 13-15th October and 16-18th October.
Take a look here to see the quality of Andrew’s work. on Instagram or on his website. He really is one of the most respected portrait tutors in the country.
Most excitingly (and terrifyingly) I’ll be running some art courses myself at the same location in Portishead Yacht Club.
A two day introduction to oil painting outdoors 16/17th September, so whether you want to try oil painting for the first time or want a bit of support as you paint this might be for you. I’ll be able to provide or advise on materials as required.
A few weeks later from the 30th September I’ll be running a three day Portrait course on Capturing a Likeness. This will be aimed at beginners and inexperienced artists who want to learn techniques to capture a likeness in charcoal leading to oil paint. This has been in response to people asking for a companion course for the Andrew James Course. This is filling up but get in touch if you are interested in a future course.
Find out More
So please get in touch on the contact forms on the respective pages if you want to book a place.
That’s quite a list I’ve blasted at you there, I hope our paths cross at one of these events.
If anything take your interest get in touch to enquire about a purchase or a commission.
I’ll be opening my studio for North Somerset arts week again 11.00am to 6.00pm over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend (including BH Monday) and the following weekend, 4th, 5th, 6th and 11th and 12th of May. If you can’t make these dates and are local we’ll be opening up on Weds evening 8th May 5.30 to 8.00pm.
This time I’ll be sharing the venue with incredibly talented local printmaker Ruth Ander. Ruth layers unique prints on Japanese paper, she’ll be presenting a range of work including new work evoking the estuary location.
Hopefully there is something for everyone to enjoy, come along to browse, chat, listen, eat, drink or explore…
As in previous year’s Black Nore lighthouse will be open for visitors to climb inside during the afternoon while I’m open. This is accessible via the garden and I’ll be selling tea and cakes in support of its upkeep.
I’ll have a large number of new plein air oil paintings of the local area and from further afield on show for the first time as well as new studio paintings, apologies for not sharing more on the blog recently. Much of my new work is exploring the fast changing light at dawn and dusk.
I’ll also be showing some examples of my portraiture and life class work.
Also I’ll have Raku pottery by Brian and “Nibs” Fowler at the venue, they’ll be exhibiting a range of vessels, bowls and figures that show this exciting medium off to the maximum. If you’ve never seen the Raku process before it’s fiery and unpredictable, there will be a couple of Raku burnings in the garden on the final Sunday when you’ll have an opportunity to scrub off the carbon yourself and reveal what the process has created.
Finally I’ll be showcasing some estuary soundscapes by a local producer Dave Howell to add to the atmosphere. When that’s not on I’ll be playing a bit of vinyl on my turntable, or LPs if you are my age.
This morning I got set up for the NSA #65 show in Nailsea, this evening I looked around the venue for the BS9 art trail at Elmlea school and lunchtime I found out I’ve had a painting selected for the New English Art Club for the first time EVER.
Come and celebrate the post hump 2018 with me at the private view of the NSA exhibition #65 on Friday (13th April). Ignore the fact it’s Friday the 13th and get out from under your duvet, it’s all downhill from here, see you there.
My wall at the NSA #65 show
I’m particularly excited about finally getting a piece into the NEAC show at the Mall Galleries. One of the first “proper” artist’s I met was the marvellous Dawn Sidoli NEAC RWA who has always been overwhelmingly supportive of my efforts over quite a large number of years of no NEAC luck, so I’m relieved to feel I’ve rewarded her faith.
To quote from the press release, ahem…
“Work by a local artist has been selected from over 1,600 entries to appear alongside paintings by some of Britain’s leading figurative artists. The New English Art Club’s annual exhibition is on display at Mall Galleries in central London between 15 and 23 June 2018.
Continuing to build on its tradition of painting and drawing from observation, the New English is a vibrant and diverse group of visual artists whose work is highly collectible and widely admired.
Its Annual Exhibition is a showcase for members and gives aspiring artists an opportunity to exhibit alongside some of the best figurative artists working today in painting, drawing and printmaking.
Many diverse styles of art have developed since its founding in 1886, adding richness and variety. The New English aims to foster excellence in all its activities and continues to assist and encourage the art of painting to develop even more expressive possibilities.”
Some of the “richness and variety” in my selected work was added by it being blown off the easel and rolling down the slope leaving all sorts of exciting vertical marks which I embraced.
The show in Bath is still on until Mid-May, get along if you can, it’s a cracker.
Well relatively far anyhow. Some of my work will be showing with Farmer Fine Arts at the Cambridge art fair this coming weekend. Andrew Farmer is a fine and ridiculously prolific painter himself and he invited me to exhibit with his gallery along with some real up and coming painting talent. Take a look at his site and even better if you can make to that part of the country take a look at the fair. Look out especially for Tom Stevenson and Maria Rose who are ones to watch for the future. I really ought to get some painting swaps sorted while I still can!
As well as some larger work I’ve packaged up some of my life class studies for the fair too.
HJ Ink and Brush
Closer to home I’ll be exhibiting with the Portishead Arts painters at the Portishead Lido Cafe again at the end of this month.
I’ll be showing some dinky little ship paintings that I’ve enjoyed creating over the last few weeks along with some recent plein air painting work fresh off the easel, yesterday in fact. I’m really enjoying this low winter sun.
P.s. if anyone has the Sky Arts channel then you might be able to spot me in the background of the recent episode of Landscape Artist of the Year. It was on last week but it should be on catch up. I’ve not seen it but I’ve seen some shared screen shots. I’m the one wearing an apron that looks like it’s been involved in some kind of dirty protest.
I was one of 50 wildcard entries painting Worm’s Head on the Gower, this was in addition to the 6 artists selected for that heat. It was a really enjoyable experience being in a group of artists who were all excited to be there. It was great to meet so many artists face to face and I hope our paths will keep on crossing. As a bonus we were able to park up the campervan in the crew field which had a spectacular view of Worm’s Head.
It was really interesting to see the programme being made and it was great to meet *spoiler alert* the heat winner Alice Boggis-Rolfe Art who I’ve followed on social media for a few years and knew my work too. But even better I got to speak to and shake the hand of Tai-Shen Schierenberg, one of the judges, I love his work. Unfortunately my painting didn’t work out so well, my foreground turned to non drying gravy, I painted over some of the brown mess when I got home, too late for the programme though. There’s always next year…
I’ll be opening my studio for North Somerset arts week again 11.00am to 6.00pm over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend (including BH Monday) and the following weekend, 29, 30 April, 1,6,7 May.
Hopefully there is something for everyone to enjoy, come along to browse, chat, listen, eat, drink or explore…
As in previous year’s Black Nore lighthouse will be open for visitors to climb inside during the afternoon while I’m open. This is accessible via the garden and I’ll be selling tea and cakes in support of its upkeep.
I’ll have many new plein air oil paintings of the local area and from further afield on show for the first time as well as a new studio paintings. Much of my new work is exploring the fast changing light at dawn and dusk.
I’ll also be showing some examples of my portraiture including a painting of my son that was recently preselected for the Royal Portrait Society show.
Last Light, Black Nore
Lois Pryce (no relation) will be exhibiting with me for the first time. Lois paints local scenes, still lives and life studies in a bold expressive style that I hope you will enjoy.
Also I’ll have Raku pottery by Brian and “Nibs” Fowler, they’ll be exhibiting a range of vessels, bowls and figures that show this exciting medium off to the maximum. If you’ve never seen the Raku process before it’s fiery and unpredictable, there will be a couple of Raku burnings in the garden on the final Sunday when you’ll have an opportunity to scrub off the carbon yourself and reveal what the process has created.
Raku Pot, Brian Fowler
Avonmouth, Lois Pryce
Finally I’ll be showcasing some estuary soundscapes by a local producer Dave Howell to add to the atmosphere. When that’s not on I’ll be playing a bit of vinyl on my turntable, or LPs if you are my age.
I’m exhibiting work at the Clifton Suspension Bridge Visitor Centre with Clifton Arts Club, it’s a great space and it runs until Sunday the 1st of April. I’ll be there Sunday afternoon if you want to say hi, it’s open from 10 to 5pm and is free.
Winter Mizzle, Suspension Bridge
Za Za Bazaar
It’s been a while since I’ve posted but I have been out painting over the Winter and to prove it I’ve just updated my Landscape gallery, take a look here. I’ve also broken it down by area, Wales, West etc. Any comments welcome, I’ll be updating the lifeless and portrait galleries in the next few days too.
I’ve got lots of new work to show at the North Somerset Arts week which is coming up in the next month. The paper brochure is already out and it should be downloadable from the NSA site shortly. I am exhibiting from my home “studio” in Portishead again on the Sat 29th, 30th April, 1st May (Bank how Monday) and the following weekend 6th, 7th May. I’m easy to find as I’m last in the brochure! I’ll be exhibiting with painter Lois Pryce and Brian Fowler who creates beautiful raku and pit fired pottery, More news on this shortly.
I’m very proud to share that I’ve had a painting selected for the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in London for the third year in succession. My selected work is an oil painting of a peat black ploughed field from a weekend on the Somerset Levels in the Spring.
The Discerning Eye annual exhibition is a show of small works independently selected by six prominent figures from different areas of the art world: two artists, two collectors and two critics. This gives the impression of six individually curated exhibitions with separate personalities. They always have a “celebrity” collector, this year it is Celia Imrie. It’s alway interesting to see who has picked your work and how it fits in on their wall.
It was originally supported by the late Brian Sewell who thought that small works were often overlooked in the art market.
Here is this years work along with my previous submissions and private view photos. (Note to self, work harder to avoid appalling glare in photos!)
Ploughed Peat
Private View
Spot the red dot
Have We Enjoyed Ourselves Enough Yet, 10 x 12 inches (ING Discerning Eye and RWA Open selected, Clevedon Selector’s choice).
Porthcawl Lifeguard Lookout
Click the links for the posts about the 2015 and 2014 exhibitions.
The 2016 Discerning Eye Exhibition will be open from Thursday 17 November until Sunday 27 November, between 10am and 5pm daily, at the Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1, just to be clear that I’m not talking about a Bristol shopping centre. Admission will be free and all the works will be for sale.
Thanks for all your support during the last Lido show.
I can reveal that the Portishead Arts group are running another pop up show at the Portishead Lido cafe for three days in November , Friday 25th, Sat 26th and Sun 27th, 10am – 5.30pm, with a late night opening with a bar on the Friday until 9pm.
I’ll be displaying a wider range of work than last time including some work from Cornwall and the Peak District so if you didn’t make it last time or want to see some paintings from further afield come along.
Here’s a little plein air (well inside the cafe) painting I completed during an afternoon cake induced lull. If you look closely you’ll see it’s a drier, more blocky technique than usual. This was mainly due to it being solvent free to allow the visitors to enjoy their triple decker coffee and walnut sponge without being in a turps haze. I’ll take low odour solvents next time!
I’m excited to be taking part in the inaugural show of a new groups of artists and painters in Portishead that go under the banner Portishead Arts. We have a website where you can find details of the other artists involved.
There’ll be a great range of work on show including painting, photography, jewellery and illustration so come along and enjoy a slice of cake and perhaps even have a dip in the Lido.
The show will be on for over a week from Thurs 22nd to Friday 30th of September the lido is open 9.30 to 6.30 every day (later on Monday mornings I think), I’m planning on stewarding on both the Fridays, I might take my painting kit along to paint the estuary in any quiet periods, so come and say hello.
For this show I’m focussing on local scenes, pretty much all painted within a mile of the Lido. My painting of the lido is the top right image on the flyer above.
Here’s a recent one painted after a last minute decision to walk down and catch the last light at Black Nore lighthouse. I’m so pleased I did, once again I was painting over a failed painting so it was doubly therapeutic, I’m so lucky to have this on my doorstep.
Last Light Black Nore 10 x 12 inches
As well as these outdoor paintings I’ll have a couple of larger works that were painted back in the studio, such as Winter Wave.
Ian Price Winter Wave 24 x 24 inches
The Autumn is always an exciting period with so many shows on, I’m lucky enough to have had a painting selected for the ING Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London which is coming up in November. More news in the next post!
I hope to see you at the show. Don’t forget you can also follow me on twitter and now Instagram @ianpriceart as well as Facebook.
I’m not a great fan of those round robin Christmas letters so I’m writing this with some trepidation. However 2015 has been a year of some progress so I thought it would be worth reminding you of news and any earlier posts you might want to look back on by clicking the links.
It was a year of two (unequal) halves a flurry of painting followed by a cycle of exhibiting.
I began the year by doing quite a bit of plein air painting and went on a course at Newlyn School Of Art with Paul Lewin. The course as well as being enjoyable was also an encouragement to loosen up with mixed media. With hindsight I haven’t taken this as far as I anticipated but it was certainly an inspiration to be looser when painting outside.
Ian Price Cape Cornwall from Carn Groose
Painting Land’s End
St Cuthbert’s Isle off Mousehole
This flurry of activity was mostly to get things to hang on the wall for North Somersets Arts Week. Once again it was great fun to have people coming through the house and I managed to raise £200 for Black Nore lighthouse by selling cards and Helen’s marvellous cakes.
The other main painting event of the year was the Andrew james portrait course which I’ve organised for a few years now and was a great success again fuelled by more of Helen’s cakes. I get a free course out of it and am still pretty pleased with my portrait of Viv.
I’m especially grateful to the judges of the Clifton Arts Club Open for awarding me the prize of excellence (which also doubled as my entry for the ROI).
Thanks to Trevor Haddrell RWA, Ione Parkin RWA and Ros Cuthbert RWA, what. a discerning trio.
People ask about my organisation and preparation but it all boiled down to this little scrap of paper I used for shepherding my meagre resources and time, so it’s all smoke and mirrors really. If you can read my handwriting you’ll see there are some misses among the hits so still plenty to aim for in 2016.
The Masterplan! (the only plan).
I mentioned not freeing up as much as I wanted and I am looking forward to a return trip to Newlyn for a course focussed squarely on abstract painting in March. I’m obviously hoping that 2016 will bring as much pleasure as 2015 but to be honest if it brings as much I’ll be surprised and very happy.
Thank you very much for taking an interest and I hope 2016 is a successful year for us all.
I’m very excited to have had both my paintings selected for the exhibition at the Mall Galleries, on the Mall central London.
view of the throng
The ING Discerning Eye is a show of small works selected by prominent figures from the art world. Each selector is responsible for their own section giving the impression of six exhibitions in one.
Breaking Light Black Nore with Idiot
Porthcawl Lifeguard Lookout
my work (left) showing careful curation next to Sue Wales (BSoA)
The exhibition runs for the next two weeks.
way home showing (indian flag colours on London Eye)
Thanks for reading, do follow if you want to keep up to date with future news and paintings, or follow on Facebook or @ianpriceart on Twitter.
Clifton Arts Club open exhibition will be in the exciting Colston Hall vaults in Bristol this year. The show runs for 2 weeks (PV tonight) hopefully I’ll have plenty of seascapes on view. No great forethought but I realised after the event that I’d only put seascapes in! As usual it’s an eclectic mix of output from local artists in this very arty city. This year closer to the heart of it.
Ian Price Winter Wave 24 x 24 Inches
It’s a fantastic place to visit in any case as its a rare opportunity to see inside the vaults which seem to go on for ever and have built up an exciting patina on the walls over the decades, imagine a Bulgarian nuclear bunker.
I’ve spent quite a few days down in Cornwall over the last few weeks on a family holiday closely followed by a course with Paul Lewin at the Newlyn School of Art. I’ve never had much success with sketching out of doors so I thought some exposure to some new ideas on his Coastal Painting mixed media course could help.
I did a few plein air oil paintings around Mousehole where I stayed and also in Newlyn. Because these were fitted in around other things they came out a bit tight but it was good to get into the swing of things before the course started. Did you know the sea could be turquoise? Mousehole is a great place for an arty break. Ken Howard even has a studio there.
Mousehole
St Cuthbert’s Isle off Mousehole
Mousehole to St Michael’s Mount
Mousehole
Newlyn
Despite the turquoise sea it was pretty chilly and fogbound when the course started. The woolly hat I found in my pocket got used. Thanks to Sarah for the arty photo (note beard has gone for the Summer).
On the course we were encouraged to make multiple sketches initially of various compositions and to get a good tonal range using water soluble graphite pencils. I’ve tried these before without much success as mentioned but they seemed to work better in Cornwall. Not worrying about where the dog has wandered to or is eating or barking at or chasing helps to improve sketch quality I think.
Here are the inital paintings from Porthgwarra, getting to grips with gouache.
After a few days painting and sketching at Porthgwarra the final day was at Carn Groose on the north coast near Land’s end where I found a 2m by 3m ledge at the end of the headland which had spectacular views in every direction and was unnaturally sheltered.
Being at he end of the headland I wasn’t interrupted by anyone passing, even Paul struggled to find me. The sea fog eventually lifted and I was eventually able to take off my hat and coat that hat been welded to my body for three days and apply some sun block. I was able to get into the techniques I’d picked up and completed these three paintings looking in varying directions from that single point. A real treat.
The Brisons from Carn Groose
Lands’ End from Carn Groose (I’ll straighten the horizon line).
Cape Cornwall from Carn Groose
Carn Groose to Land’s End (still wearing waterproof trousers!)
The course gave me a prod to persevere with outdoor sketches and also reignited my previous enthusiasm for water-colour. I found adding gouache to extend the range of effects and paint over any messes and define things without the slow death of using masking fluid to be really liberating. The most surprising thing was that is allowed me to play with paint splashing and dribbling outdoors in front of the subject which I’d previously only done (very enjoyably) using oils indoors. Getting oil too splashy outside would generally result in your efforts dribbling to the bottom of the painting on the walk home.
Overall a great use of a few days at the course and lovely to spend time in a beautiful cottage in Mousehole too, thanks to Adam and Helen for their cottage. My next step is to apply some of the things learnt to the greys and browns of the Severn Estuary.
Some recent portrait sketches, all 45 mins to 2 hours.
All oil on Arches oil paper apart from the lady in a hat which was on a cereal packet that was sized with rabbit skin glue. I quite liked mid-grey tone of the cardboard.
From life class, incredible cheek bones.
Profiles are tricky so I was pleased with the likeness.
Captured his sad look, perhaps got a bit muddy.
Probably the longest of these and repainted most of the rhs of the face in the last 5 mins!
Here are a couple of recent larger landscapes. Both are headlands close to home on the Severn Estuary, regular dog walking territory.
The first one includes a few tools used to “paint” it. I used the big putty knife to drag the sky around.
I did quite a lot of scraping with it on the “Frosty Headland” painting too. Appropriately chilly, but no snow yet here this year.
I did bit of bathroom tile DIY over the weekend and am wondering whether to use the “grout float” on the next one? I’ve got some bigger canvases ready for it!
Twelve artists (including me) have provided work for a pop up shop in the Triangle precinct in the centre of Clevedon. If you turn up on Saturday (15th) afternoon there’ll be a jazz band and a chance to meet some of the artists.
I’ve tried to include all of the Clevedon related work I’ve got including this one that I painted a couple of weeks ago. I think it was the last day the sun shone! The show is hung from a selection of work, but I hope it’ll make it to the wall, I’ve seven pictures on show.
I’ve just had a great week painting with the great Andrew James RP.
He came to Portishead (just outside Bristol) again to teach portraiture on a three day course that I organise. Everyone had a great time once more, I survived consecutive courses and you can see some examples of the student’s work and register your interest for an anticipated 2015 course on the course page if I’ve not got your details yet.
Thanks to Andrew and all the students and models for making it such a great success and Helen for behind the scenes support including critical cake making.
Here are slideshows of the demos from the two courses last week. I’ll be posting my own work from it in a later post.
I was struck by the darkness of the ironwork making a bold zed. But sooo many lines to describe it.
That was 12 by 10. Here’s a little A5 lunchtime sketch that encouraged me to try again later with a deeper format; painted holding an ice cream in one hand. I don’t think there was very much cadmium paint in so I should live to paint another day.
I completed this oil sketch yesterday morning. Thanks to Derek for being such a good model. I didn’t do any preliminary sketches this time and was pleased how far I got in the 1st hour leaving time for judging small marks in the 2nd hour. This was another Zorn palette sketch but I was sorely tempted to get more blues and greens in this time, it’s been a good exercise to learn to push red, ochre and black though.
It was the first time I’ve painted on Arches Huile paper. It’s similar to their watercolour paper but sized to support oil paint. My initial sketch marks were a bit of a shock; I couldn’t paint more than an inch without all of the solvent being sucked out of the brush. I had to revert to a more scrubbing dry-brush style to build up the under drawing tonally instead of a more linear sketch. I’ve got a whole sheet to use up though so I’ll be trying again.
I was pleased with the result though and particularly happy that the model thought it was a good effort.
Following the session I tidied up the hat to remove a satin look it had but decided to leave the background unpainted and un-tidied up, bare paper with the odd sketchy mark. I like the sketchy feel especially the turps dribble, not sure about the background, hard to sketch a swift loose background on this paper though. What do you think?
I was lucky enough to get to see the ROI exhibition in the Mall Galleries last month, the painting that stood out for me was a painting of a homeless person by Adebanji Alade. The most remarkable thing about the portrait was that it used the Zorn palette only Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, White and Black!
The link shows a demo of him making the painting. I was impressed by the range of colours from such a limited palette.
This palette is name after the Swedish artist Zorn who specialised in paintings of Scandinavian ladies on the way to have a bit of a goosepimply wash in a fjord, brrr.
This spurred me on to have a go and find a subject to try out the Zorn palette on. I’m a big fan of Bristol Drawing Club (http://bristoldrawingclub.blogspot.co.uk) where pub and sketching people meet seamlessly. What’s not to like? At one of these get togethers I sat opposite Jim for 60 seconds, sketching each other before we shuffled along to the next person, a bit like speed dating with pencils.
I ended up with this sketch, thank you Jim!
I thought I’d captured Jim as far as I could tell from our 60 second meeting, so I thought it was a good candidate to work up into a little painting.
First thing I did was to see what range of colours I could get out of this palette so started mixing. This is what I got…
I thought that was plenty of colours and set about painting using the sketch and some imagination to fill in the blanks in the sketch. I wanted to keep the colours separate and patchy and after an hour or two ended up with this…
OK, not a BP portrait award winner but a useful lesson For me on how useful and harmonised a limited palette can be and also a good reason to ignore anyone that is dogmatic about not using black in paintings, black and yellow ochre gave some beautiful olive greens.
Encouraged by this I had another crack, this time with a model called Ella who was darker skinned, I think the palette worked here too. Thanks Ella. It’s also pleasingly different to the Jim one.
When I was looking into limited palettes and in particular using black I stumbled across this article. http://willkempartschool.com/the-3-myths-of-black-in-mixing-paint-colours/ I was staggered to find a painter I was familiar with that painted large portraits using only Mars Violet (a dull red with a purple twinge), Blue-black and a bit of white.
Here’s one of his works…
Pretty amazing for such a limited palette eh? It shows that accurate tone trumps hue every time. I must have a go with this palette next time out.
The artist is Paul Elmsley, he’s considerably better known today than he was when I first thought about writing this a few days ago, now what else is he famous for?
Oh yes…
I think he admitted himself that he was more cautious than he would have been with any other commission. Understandable I think and a pity if his career suffers. Thought this was a bit harsh ….
I found this article to be really helpful when thinking about how to price my work. I also think that many of these comments are equally applicable outside the art world. http://theabundantartist.com/5-art-pricing-lessons/ N.B.I take no responsibility for you never selling anything ever again but feeling good about it.
If you turn up on Saturday (15th) afternoon there’ll be a jazz band and a chance to meet some of the artists. 
ianpriceart 
