Some random sketches of people on Public Transport

These are some of the sketches I do everyday, the very thing that gave birth to this blog and I am going back to the drawing board to give it life again!

I have re-invented myself as the sketchmachine and the addictivesketcher, hope you enjoy these.

And don't forget to keep sketching!

PINTAR RAPIDO 2015- It's Time to Register!

Hey, It's summer!! It's the best time of the year to paint in London!!!

ARE YOU GONNA BE THE 2015 Winner????

And that's why Pintar Rapido is one of the best painting events of the year!!

That's Me, painting my winning piece in 2013 SOLD

Over 300 artists (both amateurs and professionals) gather together at the Chelsea Town Hall to get their boards, papers and canvases stamped and ready to paint any place of their choice in London!

That's Peter Brown NEAC, one of the lead Judges in 2014, shaking hands with Ben Hope (The 2014 Winner )

Registration starts at approximately 9am on the day and by 9.30 am-10 am every artist would have been at their painting spot to paint for the day. Every artist needs to be back by 6pm and the work would be instantly hung for a selling exhibition the next day! You must have resitegistered and paid for your Artist Pass before or by the 6th July, 2015.

Ben Hope,  Looking West Along Queen's Gate Terrace 25x30cm. Oil on canvas
Winning Painting Pintar Rapido London 2014

Many artists look forward to this! I took part in 2013 and I won it! Many have sold their paintings at this event and it's also a great time to meet up with loads of other artists who love to paint outdoors in the summer!

That's Haidee-Jo painting at Duke of York Square in 2014

So what are you waiting for if  you love painting outdoors! you don't need to be an ardent plein air painter to take part, just get ready and enjoy the day!

 HAIDEE-JO SUMMERS, Duke of York square, 22 X 24, OIL ON CANVAS, SOLD

TO REGISTER before the deadline on the 6th of July please CLICK HERE

Rob Adams Painting his piece in 2014

ROB ADAMS,  SLOANE SQUARE, 12 X 16, OILS SOLD

David Pilgrim, Cadogan Pier, 12" x 16", Oils

How the Hall looks with mounted and hung paintings on the Sunday at the Chelsea Town Hall

DETAILS OF PINAR RAPIDO LONDON 2015

Pintar Rapido London is the UK's biggest outdoor painting festival, competition and exhibition. A weekend celebration of art and the London cityscape. It is open to professional and non-professional artists of all skill levels and it inspires hundreds of them to create a picture from start to finish in a day. The following day the public can view and buy these unique visions of London at the Pintar Rapido exhibition.

John Walsom, Embankment, Oil.

Saturday July 11; Painting Day. After choosing a location to paint , each artist has a day to create their artwork. They use their own materials and work in any style, medium or size they wish. 

Tom Hughes, Kings Road Chelsea, Oils SOLD

Sunday July 12; Public exhibition and sale at Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King's Road London SW3 5EE. Visitors can view more than 400 paintings and meet the artists, including the winner of the £1,000 Pintar Prize. 

Mark Harrison, Chelsea Reach, Oils SOLD

Runner up 2014 Cristobal Perez-Garcia King's Road oil on canvas, 73 x 146cm awarded £500 cash prize donated by Bective Leslie Marsh

 Pintar Prize. We have £3,000 worth of prizes being awarded this year, including the top award of £1,000 sponsored by sofa.com. This year we are pleased to have the award winning artist Richard Pikesley as our lead judge.

Valerie Pirlot, Battersea Bridge in the morning  11 x 14  oil on board

If you enjoyed this post PLEASE SHARE, LIKE OR COMMENT and let anyone who is interested in painting outdoor or willing to sell their painting in an exhibition the next day or anyone who is just interested in meeting up with loads of other artists who work in a variety of media and paint outdoors -THIS IS THE EVENT for you!! JUST CLICK HERE for details

The Prophet, 8" x 9", Oil on Mountboard.

I love faces and I really love interesting faces, especially the people I meet on the street who happen to be total strangers to me! What normally happens is, If I meet some who I really find interesting. I simply beg them for the opportunity to paint them. Sometimes they agree and sometimes they don't. But I'm always really pleased when they do!

This guy, Paul, agreed. I used a the "Inside-Out Technique" which means I start from somewhere inside the face and I gradually spread out, making sure I bring each shape to completion before moving to the next stage.

The Prophet (detail), 8" x 9", Oil on Mountboard, 2015

Alla Prima Techinque: Inside out-"Rain, Rain, Rain, Trafalgar Square"

Rain, Rain, Rain, Trafalgar Square, 10" x 8", Oil on Board, SOLD

In this post I would like to explain in full detail, my process of painting a typical Urban Rainy Day in London.

I love rainy days because of the reflections and subtle greys but most importantly, I love them because it gives me the opportunity to test my drawing skills while painting. 

Painting shape by shape in the "Inside Out" Technique can be very tricky if one has not constantly worked on one's drawing skills. I believe everything in painting in this representational manner comes down to great drawing skills.

So this is more of a drawing exercise than a painting, so to speak. If I can get every painting stroke right, then I am indirectly drawing with colour. Once I  mix the right colour, I just need to be sure that I can place it correctly in the right position on the  painting ground. This is exciting because, one is looking forward to how the painting is going to shape out. When I work this way, I  work with a lot of anticipation and it keeps me interested in the work till the very last stroke is laid on the surface.

 Stage 1- I love being organic and going into my painting  without any grids. But when I take on complicated scenes like this, I like to make sure everything is right where it is, especially when I am working from a particular photo reference. I  am using a 10" x 8" Masonite board, which I have primed with gesso. I use about 3 to 4 coats of gesso mixed with a particular acrylic base of colours that helps kill off the stark white feel of the original gesso. The colours  I like to add to it range form Burnt Sienna, to Cadmium red  with some Ultramarine Blue and Yellow Orche. The particular consistency/proportion is not really important, I just make sure that I have a warm, light mixture which is quite light brownish or pinkish or even peachy, depending on what I am painting. The grids are drawn on with a blue coloured pencil and I start a bit of the drawing with a very soft 2B pencil.

Stage 2- This is the most important stage. Here, I make sure that I nail the drawing down to the best of my ability. Accuracy is everything. Nothing is taken for granted. I don't care how long this takes, because form experience I  have learnt that if I rush through this stage, it will ruin the painting and the painting would not have a good base and strong drawing foundation. Once the drawing is faulty the painting will go wonky! You can also see that I have used different hatching for the shading in some areas. This is to help me in  understanding the kind of painting strokes I'll be laying on the surface later on. I do this because it's drawing that helps me to understand painting. We as painters are all different in the way we interpret our  skills and communicate our methods, and I have noticed that I understand everything about painting through drawing. At this point I have enough drawing on the board and I'm ready to take off with colour.

These are the colours on my palette. I use from left to right- Titanium White, Lemon yellow, Naples yellow, Cadmium Yellow pale, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Yellow Orche, Cadmium Red, Terra Rosa, Alizarin Crimson, Transparent Red Oxide, Cobalt Blue,  Dioxanzine Purple, Viridian Green and Ultramarine Blue.

Stage 3- Because this is alla prima, it's always best to start from the back of the painting and carefully and silently come forward, it's quite like walking from the distance into the foreground. So I always start with the sky first, then any other thing that comes after the sky goes first. It works easier for me this way, because it creates an easier sequence to work with. My best greys are mixtures of Alizarin and Viridian. I also love Transparent Red Oxide and Viridian, they are the most combined mixtures I used here. The sky was a mixture of White, Cobalt Blue and Alizarin Crimson. At this stage you can notice that everything in the background is given the uttermost attention. I make sure I complete the building ever before I attempt the tree, even though I leave some vague spaces where the outlines of the drawing lines have been. The key is to make sure the initial background passages are not thick but lean paint.

Stage 4- My main focus here was the intermediary road between the building and the pavements in the foreground. The addition of the cars too, add some spice to this area. This road is very important because its darker in value than the building but its cooler than the pavements which have reflections. For all my cool mixtures I add Alizarin Crimson and Cobalt Blue, I can never get enough of these. Looking at these stages makes you see how this technique can be really interesting as it just creeps up from distance.

Stage 5- This was the most enjoyable part of the painting, painting the reflections. The key is to make sure that the edges between the shapes are soft and lost. Nothing must be defined. Once the overall shapes are laid in. then come the shiny lines to depict pavement lines. The horizontal lines must come in last. You can see how I have left out the statues. This is purposely done to create a better feel of three dimension as they stand in front of most of the main shapes in the painting.

Stage 6-The main focus here was completing the middle statue . It looks trivial but putting it in, really helps the middle area of the painting to look perfectly complete. The only sore spot in the painting is the base of the front statue. You notice than the painting almost looks complete without even painting the base of the Statue in front.

Stage 7-final stage- Here the base is completed with the lone figure being the last thing I paint in front of the base of the Statue. It was Ken Howard, a master of painting reflections that said dark things appear lighter and light things appear darker in reflections.

 I AM GOING TO BE HAVING A WORKSHOP ON THE "URBAN LANDSCAPE" on the 24TH OF MARCH, 2018.  FOR MORE DETAILS, PLEASE CLICK HERE 

I hope you enjoyed this process. It's the way I paint complicated scenes. I am very methodical in handling this kind of work and I have to be focused from the beginning to the end.
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OPERATE IN YOUR ELEMENT IN 2015!!

Do what I love most-Sketching and Sharing.

The Experience, The Fun, The Passion, The Desire-It's always a different ball game when we do what we were CREATED to do, when we do what we were WIRED to do.....
Let me explain, the week I did this learning session, I pulled my back muscle around my waist, it was so bad, I had to stay at home, I was wondering as the Sketching Workshop was approaching, "How am I going to cope?" 

Addressing the crew, ready to fly!!

I couldn't sit down for long....the pain was excruciating!

Then Saturday the 6th of September came and I managed to go to the Workshop. I'm not kidding.....immediately I saw the people all lined up waiting for the session....The back ache vanished and from 11.30 to 17.30- I searched for the pain, tried to touch where it was hurting but to no avail. The pain took its flight. I enjoyed the workshop-without any aches or pains. It was a fantastic day!

The Workshop in progress , answering questions.

Now, you won't believe it, I got home that evening and the back ache whispered to me....."I'm still here ooo, can you feel me?" I felt the pain again......

Showing a few tips, while sketching is in progress

But while in my element-SKETCHING and SHARING-I didn't feel a thing!

Picture of one of the demos taken by Gareth Jones

I can't explain it! Some call it Adrenaline, Some call it Inspiration.

All I would say is this, "May God help us all to have the courage and boldness to go out and live what we dreamed to be, without any fears or limitations! Because it is the pure work of the enemy to get us trapped in a life, in a job, in a box that was never ours to be in. God's design for us was to operate in our element....When in our element-we glorify God at the highest level and our lives are far more enjoyable"

Sitting o  the floor and doing the demo at Covent Garden

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."-Ephesians 2:10 KJV

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."-Ephesians 2:10 NIV

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."-Ephesians 2:10 NLT

"For we are his creatures who are created in Yeshua The Messiah for good works, those things which God had from the first prepared that we should walk in them."-Aramic Bible in Plain English

So there must have been an INITIAL DESIGN PLANNED BY GOD, A DESIGN planned BEFORE, long BEFORE we were BORN.

It is my prayer that you never rest until you DISCOVER THAT MASTER PLAN, and when you discover it, TO HAVE THE COURAGE AND BOLDNESS TO LIVE IT!

Thanks Oh Lord for the way you made me!

A Dio sia la gloria

#Sketchingandsharing #Godsmasterpiece#purposedrivenlife #theoriginalplan