Matthew Allton - The Art Blog

February Life Drawing Efforts

2012-02-15T22:28:00.002Z

Thanks to Steve for posing for me again this evening, though to be fair I was ridiculously weary so its a wonder I've managed to produce anything worthwhile at all! I quite like my finger blended one at the end and my use the technique again next time.

EEK! Life drawing attempts tonight!

2012-01-17T22:49:00.002Z

Well! Steve agreed to come over and pose for me this evening as its been soooooooo long since I did any life drawing. Considering its been months and months and months, the resuts weren't tooooo bad. I was also fairly quick as I did 8 sketches in the time. So all in all a positive experience and Steve wants us to do it more regularly to get my confidence back up again. I've also agreed to attempt a double grandchild portrait for someone at work over the next few weeks, so I need all the confidence I can get!!

Beech Trunks and Bluebells

2011-05-12T16:01:00.000+01:00

Although a very rough and ready alla prima oil sketch I quite like this.. a) because its done in oils and its been a while and I thought I might struggle more and b)because it gives a nice sense of the lighting and atmosphere of the original photo scene. I may well do a few versions of this over time in various media to further experiment!

Great Langdale

2011-05-12T15:56:00.000+01:00

Hmmm.. finally something a little more loose and heading more in the direction that i would like. Half pleased with this loose painting. Its done on some weird watercolour paper from Tesco that has a texture of lots of little circles which I actually quite like. This is maybe a little TOO loose and wishy washy. Its a little too tonally restricted this time. I'll get there!

Barn and Rape Fields - Take Two

2011-05-12T15:50:00.000+01:00

Sigh! This is not going well. Take Two of this scene, from a photograph taken while walking Arden Way with Karen is even worse than the first attempt! The background is now too light and wishy washy!

Barn and Rape Fields near Watcote, Warwickshire

2011-05-12T15:47:00.000+01:00

Oh dear... I seem to have started regressing! Is this a watercolour or a gouache painting? Where is the transparency, the light and airy feeling of watercolours? Sigh! Not happy with this at all! I will persevere!

Great Langdale Beck - Take Two

2011-05-12T15:45:00.000+01:00

Second attempt at a more finished version of Great Langdale Beck in watercolours. This is done from a photograph that I took on our holiday up to the lakes in early March. I am half pleased with areas of this painting, and I was having a go at new techniques like scraping to create rocks etc and also using a quite large flat brush. Its all a bit "tight" I'm afraid. I want to be looser with the watercolours, let them do their own thing wet in wet etc

Great Langdale Beck Preliminary Sketch

2011-05-09T07:52:00.002+01:00

Hmmm.. a return to watercolours after a lot of years!! I fancied having a go again because of the immediacy of being able to capture things. Its harder than I remember! This little sketch just to get used to the feel of them again took about 20 mins. Another version will follow!

Lakeland Clouds clearing

2011-05-09T07:39:00.004+01:00

Decided to add trees to the Lakeland Clouds Clearing sketch to stop the painting being bisected by a straight field edge. An improvement in my opinion. Choky is not convinced.

Lakeland clouds clearing sketch

2011-03-22T08:52:00.002Z

Finally managed to pluck up the courage to pick up a paintbrush and had a dabble last night. I am going to try to just sketch something in oils as often as I can, to get used to the feel of them again. There is some to be pleased about in this first effort, but a long way to go, and I expect I will return to the middle and foreground over the next few days. Very colour naive. Sigh. But I am at least painting something! Yay!!

Lemons and Lime still life study

2010-08-04T18:15:00.004+01:00

Hmmm not exactly sure I am getting far with these here oil paints. On one level I like this study for a still life of lemons and a lime... on another its just not there! I guess my problem as ever is just not spedning enough time immersing myself in painting so every time I come to paint its like learning all over again! Sigh.

Life Painting Oil Sketch 26/06/10

2010-07-03T07:46:00.003+01:00

I went along to a life drawing session on the saturday while Mark was at work. I'd been notified by the CWSA that it was going on. It was run by Tanya Kozin...Model was Saulius...nicely muscled body, but alas couldn't keep still for two minutes strung together and fell asleep at one point....sigh... coupled with Tanya taking ages to set up and then changing the pose.. not exactly an experience i am rushing to repeat?? I dunno.. maybe I'll change my mind. Despite the conditions I was quite pleased with the oil sketch.. just practicing using oils at the mo.. not exactly worried about the outcome to be honest:) doesn't sound like me I know! I left early because I was starting to ruin it. It was probably better a bit before this final version.... sigh

Life Drawing Group

2010-06-12T10:48:00.004+01:00

More experimenting with oil paints in a situation I wouldn't normally paint in oils. The life drawing group met for the first time in a while and probably the last time in a while too, as its soon summer hols at the college where we use a room. The oil painting sketches are far from perfect, but again I am experimenting with how oil works.... both here and at Astley Castle I was painting on acrylic primed Grayboard, which I think I like better than canvas. I find it difficult to make the paint flow on canvas so far. I am determined to persevere and work out how to use this medium in the long term:) I am enjoying the new directions it is taking me in. I really like the pencil sketch done at the end of this life drawing session. its unusual for me to put the backgroudn into any of my sketches in any detail.

Astley Castle

2010-06-12T10:41:00.003+01:00

I have recently joined the Coventry and Warwickshire Society of Artists after my exhibition at the Lock Gallery in Coventry Canal Basin. I am hoping joining makes me do more work and also gives me the opportunity to exhibit a bit more regularly of late. I noticed on the Society newsletter that there was a painting day coming up at Astley Castle and so thought I would go along to have a go at some plein air painting.. something I have never really done before. To complicate matters for myself I decided to paint in oils.. a medium I am only just getting used to in a studio setting. My inexperience at painting in the field was imediately apparent when I picked a ridiculous tiny part of the castle to paint, with no contrast or colour variation. Ah well.. the results are posted here.. rubbish but I am experimenting and at least doing some stuff!!!

Life Drawing efforts from 21/04/10

2010-04-22T23:22:00.002+01:00

Worked much smaller for the first two of these drawings in pencil on blue pastel paper and qite enjoyed doing so using one of Choky's propellant pencils which are quite nice to draw with. REverted to Charcoal for the third which I also quite like. Last one is out of proportion and not that good.

Life drawing stuff from 10/03/10

2010-03-21T09:53:00.003Z

Only three drawings done in the last life drawing meet up.. which means there must have been longer poses. I am not sure that my efforts represent the longer time to perfect!? I tried a quick use of watercolour pencils on the second one.. bad use of colour. The last one i quite like.. i've handled the foreshortening of the pose quite well apart from the head being too small.. at least it IS a human head from a less than normal angle though! hmmmm I struggle on and still on the whole enjoy the challenge:) Thanks to Matty for posing!

2010-02-21T07:33:00.000Z

THe last one from the life drawing group meet up on the 10th feb

Life drawing group 10/02/10

2010-02-21T07:31:00.001Z

Matty stepped in to pose instead of Steve this time when we met. Quite a few turned up. I struggled with the drawing this time... generally ok results for ten minuter's I suppose but a bit scrappy and rough!

Mushrooms still life

2010-01-12T20:15:00.003Z

A new oil sketch done in one sitting of mushrooms on a 7 x 5 inch canvas. Could be worse but lacks soul and interest... bad composition, bad background.. just getting used to the feel of oil paints really! Hopefully be a few more attempts this year as I prepare for an exhibition in May??

Life Drawing Group Efforts 03/12/09

2009-12-03T22:02:00.003Z

An ok effort this evening, with being so rusty of late and also sooo tired this evening in particular!! Sorry about the quality of the images.. i couldn't be bothered to set up lights and used the flash from a way away. 3 15 minutes sketches here and 1 half an hourish. Oddly I was quite tight and small and precise this evening??

Last Life drawing group meet before summer hols

2009-07-03T17:02:00.004+01:00

Three drawings done in the last session of the life drawing group before the summer break. None of them other than this one were anything remotely like publishable!! Maybe it was too hot!?? about 30 degrees!? I tried using conte pastels for this drawing which is something I would like to get more into... unfortunately my set has no green tones which I thought odd for supposedly a life drawing collection?? I will try and persevere with these over the summer.. would like to try blending them more subtly!

Sketches from last Louise session

2009-06-29T23:14:00.002+01:00

A couple of pastel sketches from the last session at Louise's. I'd not used colour, let alone pastels for a very long time and I was very very slow to recognise colours and work them in to begin to create something semi subtle. I found this session frustrating. The lying down pose was improved in the last few minutes of the pose by re emphasising the form with charcoal lines, which is successful in parts in my opinion eg around crossed leg.

Louise's Life Class 15/06/09

2009-06-29T23:10:00.002+01:00

Three more sketches from the penultimate life drawing 'class' at Louise's. The first one was a sketch of only a couple of minutes, which began to capture the essence of the model in a semi mysterious way. The second one was a longer pose.. conte crayon on white paper again. The last one was black white and burnt sienna conte crayon.

Drawings from Louise's Life Drawing class 01/06/09

2009-06-16T19:01:00.002+01:00

A couple of charcoal and chalk sketches from Louise's life drawing class a couple of weeks ago.

Steve from my life drawing group on Wednesday 10th june

2009-06-13T17:40:00.003+01:00

A couple of sketches of Steve. Both about 30 minutes and pencil on pastel paper for some reason. I tried to take my time on the observation for these but failed as usual:) the legs are all screwy on the sitting up one. I quite like the hunched one but the sketch is a little scrappy and under polished!

And another that wouldn't fit in the last post:)

2009-06-13T17:39:00.001+01:00

Various sketches from life drawing class over the last 4 weeks

2009-06-13T17:33:00.002+01:00

More sketches from a life drawing class that I have signed up for to make myself do something weekly. The stuff here is from the first 4 weeks. They vary from 5 minute sketches up to about half an hour. I have tried to do a few pen and ink type sketches and some subtractive drawing. On the whole I am enjoying being made to do more! though the results are variable. I never seem to be in the mood but sometimes i can force myself into it and sometimes I can't.

Latest life drawing sketches

2009-04-29T22:30:00.003+01:00

Just returned from the life drawing group meeting this month. Went ok this evening.. possibly because I have started going to a life drawing class on monday evenings and the regular forcing to do something artistic is working?? keeping my eye in. Also have organised an exhibition with Choky for a year's time in may at the Lock gallery in Coventry so knwo i need to refocus and do regular stuff to make it second nature again.

2009-04-08T22:20:00.001+01:00

Latest sketch from the life drawing group that met this evening. I'm not soooo unhappy with the effort on this one, though I know I can do a lot better.. charcoal on soft paper. About an hour pose.

latest life drawing group sketch

2009-03-12T19:19:00.003Z

The only sketch worthy of posting from the last life drawing group session. We met on the 6th of March. I am struggling to be accurate at the moment. Maybe I have been doing too much work from photos etc and got lazy at looking for proportions and angles?? The left thigh is much too long on this sketch. The pose was an hour but I started four or five drawings during this time so in reality about 20 mins on this sketch if that.

Paul II stage 2

2009-02-22T09:23:00.002Z

Well finally got around to doing a bit more on my first ever oil painting yesterday. It has potential, but now i have to wait for this stage to dry for at least a few days before I can carry on and no doubt by then I will have lost potential again. The left arm of Paul still looks too long but I have measured it up and its not so far out.. I think its just the pose.. the very low shoulder and the perspective which makes it look worse... I'll have to wait to see how it develops. I didn't struggle with the oil paints quite as much yesterday which is promising.

Jon Sketch

2009-02-17T15:10:00.003Z

Strugglig at the mo a bit... had Jon over for some mutual sketching and posing last thursday and did three 10 minute sketches each. Only one was half worthy! so here it is!

Stage 1 of Paul II

2008-11-02T14:11:00.006Z

Well my first ever oil painting is really rather scary.. not sure I am going to be able to create anything worthy, but this is more an experiment in how to use the oil paints and to hell with the consequences! Stage 1 is posted here for all to see!
I have deliberately picked a similar pose to the last painting I did as a fair comparison between the oil paints and the acrylics that I usually use.

Any advice gratefully received!

Grrrrr!!!! Not going well!

2008-08-21T14:05:00.002+01:00

Well a couple of hours wrestling with this painting this morning and I am no further forward. The foot is ok, but will have to be redone. Although actually about the right size I am going to have to redo it and exaggerate its size slightly and bring it forward. The hand is a disaster that I just cannot improve!! It is really awkward because the chin is pushing it in at an awkward unnatural angle so it just looks WRONG!! GRRRRRR I am extremely agitated and in danger of giving up again!!!

Finally some more efforts!!!!

2008-08-18T17:23:00.003+01:00

Well, the life drawing group haven't met for a while with it being summer. We are due to meet again in early September so there should be more work coming soon. In the meantime, I have now finished my Cert Ed qualification and I have been wanting to get down to some serious painting. A week off work this week and no money to go anywhere has resulted in me working on a painting I started more than a month ago and failed to continue with.

I would say I have spent about 5 hours on this painting so far?? Guesstimate!? and would imagine that after this afternoon's session there is another 10 to go? Hopefully this will make it to a finished painting! and hopefully it will create the impetus and some confidence to finally make a grand re entrance into this thing called art!??

I am quite pleased with progress so far, though there is a long way to go.. the hand on this one is going to be a real difficulty... flat on with deep shadows between. hopefully I will end up not making them look like a bunch of sausages or bananas? the foot being half in shadow will also take some pulling off so that it doesn't actually look like a child's foot on a man's body!

Will hopefully post the next stage of this by the end of the week??

May life drawing group sketches

2008-05-04T11:14:00.005+01:00

Well more quick sketches when the group met. This time 15 minutes. I was going to use some conte sticks I'd been bought for my birthday, but with only having small paper I decided I wouldn't be able to get the detail with those. I stuck with pencil again, of varying softness. The results are nothing more than ok. I wasn't in the mood somehow this time? I think the fact that I wasn't in the mood and still produced recognisable poses is promising. I think my real problem is that I want to be able to devote some time to doing some finished pieces again. Sketching is all very well but it makes me not concentrate enough. If you are only spending 15 minutes on a pose what does it matter if it isn't quite right? After mid June when my cert ed qualification will be done and dusted I will hopefully start to produce some finished pieces to sell!!

5-15 min sketches from life group 11/04/08

2008-04-12T10:49:00.004+01:00

Out of my comfort zone when the life drawing group met this time on the 11th April. Louise wanted to do some quick 5 minute poses with lots of movement in them to get her eye in again. She'd got some ropes rigged up for the purpose of getting some different weight distributions going on with Steve. Actually despite having to work so quickly I was really quite pleased with the results I managed to get. They are by no means polished end results, but on the whole the pose is captured fairly well in my opinion with most things in proportion and doing what they should be doing. I am very aware that my sketches are very scribbled down, whereas other members of the group manage to make their marks more artistically and delicately even when having to do it speedily.. Something I should work on on in future perhaps, but at least the drawings were accurate enough for the time we had!

More sketches from life drawing group

2008-03-03T19:39:00.006Z

Well the life drawing group met again on friday evening (the 29th Feb) after a bit of a break since 2007. I basically spent the time more interested in experimenting with media that I have no idea how to use. I first started out with a coloured pencil sketch, which I was fairly pleased with, but it was a laborious process to build up colour and tone. I then followed with a watercolour pencil wash and lines drawn over the top, which was also ok. Nothing spectacular but ok!

Self portrait session 2

2008-02-08T15:56:00.000Z

Another quick session on the self painting this afternoon. Didn't plan to do any really.. just sort of crept up on me. I did about another hour on it.. not really sure how its going yet.. still very much at the sketch stage..hopefully definition will begin fairly soon, while still retaining a loose painterly feel I hope!!

Self Portrait in acrylics

2008-02-04T08:27:00.001Z

Well I have begun a long promised painting. Last night I spent about an hour or so just laying out the painting roughly, as you can see. It just allows me to fix the rough overall tone values of the work and the overall composition.

From this point onwards it will probably be finalised into a more set position maybe with the use of pencil or marker and then the more detailed painting begun.

Acylic on canvas 30cm x 40cm

Self Portrait in Charcoal

2008-01-04T20:45:00.000Z

Well New Year, new vigorous arty intentions!! Even with a stinking flu since xmas day, I have just managed to do a quick sketch of my face. Faces, and likenesses especially, are not my strong point, so I thought I might need to practice a bit before embarking on a painting of myself done in a loose style soon I hope?

For a change the sketch went very quickly.. about 15-25mins and I am fairly happy with its likeness!!! Blimey wonders will never cease! Long may it continue!

New efforts from 23/11/07

2007-11-27T18:09:00.000Z

I had my friend Steve round on friday night (23/11/07) to do some sketching, as the life drawing group had been cancelled. Louise was not going to be there and we use her back garden studio to meet in usually.

Obviously at my house it was sketchbooks on knees type drawing.. not as convenient as using an easle and also not as much space. I reverted to pencil as I had to work smaller. I managed three sketches in the hour and a half that we drew. They could have been worse and two of them are on display here.

The drawings could be worse, but as usual could have been a lot better:( The head on the first one is naff as usual, though otherwise the pose is captured ok... he is too upright though...In reality steve was lying back on a beanbag more than it looks like he is on the drawing. The second sketch is ok and I am quite pleased with the foreshortened leg.

I obviously need to keep trying harder though!:(

Choky

2007-11-08T23:00:00.000Z

Well here is the first sketch!

Choky
Charcoal on Paper
Approx 22cm x 30cm

I'm trying to force myself to do at least one arty thing a week since November the 1st. To that end I invited an artist friend of mine over to do a few sketches of each other on Wednesday evening!

He posed for the first half an hour... I managed to do this ONE charcoal sketch in that time!!! Appaulingly slow, and not even that good! It half looks like him.. is about all I can say about it. He drew next and did 6 or so sketches of me in his half an hour, all of which looked quite like me!

All I can say is that I don't care. The important thing is that I'm making a start. The only way to regain anything like confidence is to keep practicing! However demoralising that can make you feel to start with! I have never been happy doign portraits anyway so at least I am not taking the easy route so far!

Blog Raison d'etre

2007-11-08T22:32:00.000Z

Well here goes nothing.. a new experiment in my artistic career! This is hopefully going to develop into a scrapbook of sketches good and bad.

I re-launched myself at the beginning of 2007 artistically, but since June have done little creatively. I'm hoping that as the end of the year draws near I can refocus, and that this Blog will help me become more prolific.

This is a home for unfinished work! Be kind in your words of criticism, but equally I don't want you to just tell me "how wonderful darling!!!". That's not helpful to anyone! Be honest if you are going to comment on the work I display here. I'm a big boy:) I can take it:)

If its finished pieces you want though, then they will continue to be displayed on my commercial website. http://www.matthewallton.co.uk

I am hoping to challenge myself! Do things I'm not normally happy doing! Tackle subjects I find difficult (eg portraits)! Experiment with new media and new techniques!

Expect disasters, expect some happy accidents, expect joy and expect sadness! HOPEFULLY.. through time there will at least be an observable growth in confidence!! I am at a low ebb creatively of late!!