learning curve

Hi All
I've spent last couple of days trying to my head round using Adobe Dreamweaver Cs4 to rebuild my website.
If you haven't seen my website it's www.orchidarts.co.uk this was the first website I ever built and i did all by myself using XP frontpage. I was very proud of myself getting this far all on my own.
But more than 18months ago the original pc we had XP on self terminated and fried itself. leaving me with no access to my website and no way of uploading more work, so it's sat there for all this time waiting for me to rebuild a new one.
Over the past few months I have designed the pages on paper so I have a clear idea of what I want. The only problem being is that i now have Vista and dreamweaver to work with and that means sitting for hours/days/weeks teaching myself how to.....
So this week I have got as far as getting the background and main photo for the homepage sort of figured out but not exactly as I pictured it. The next step is to figure how i get things hot spots working and being able to label them. All this technical stuff stops me from painting as much as I like but if I can master this I'll be very happy!
If anyone has any tips on getting it done faster please let me know!
As I want some animation on my website now going to go and draw on some acetate cells, that should keep out of trouble till tomorrow.

Hi All
spent most of the day going through my very old portfolio's from school and college, while looking through it all, I decided that I just had to throw some of it out to get some room. I'm at the stage now I cant get in the shed or under the bed and the walls are full. I'm sure I'm not alone!!
Anyway while I was sifting through the mess I came across some charcoal drawings I did when I was 15 although i could see who they were they more akin to sketches than proper drawings. I decided to keep them and show my students in my Monday's classes how much my drawing had changed during the years. I also found some drawings I did when at college (17) of tailors dummies and loads of still lives of junk set up by the tutors.
As for the stuff I did at school much of it was very punk rock or macabre, I kept a couple of them because my daughter wanted them but the rest are now recycling. I'd also forgotten how much I liked drawing with fine nib Rotring pens on tracing paper and clear acetate cells.
While doing all this I had a thought - maybe I should mount some of this stuff and embellish it a bit more - maybe I'll make a book of it all.
For now I've got to clear up the mess!!!
So far I've managed to do no art all yesterday and today - may be there's hope for some tomorrow!
Kat

Join in!

Hi All
I had a thought today that if anyone wanted to add content to this blog you can become one of the authors, this would enable you to upload pictures etc to the blog, and help run the blog.
As it stands at the moment you can use the "comments " link at the bottom of each blog piece and this will let you add text to the blog. Other than that you can email the things you want uploaded and I'll put it on for you.
I would like to have more input from others that want to share but perhaps don't want to maintain a blog themselves.
I thought we should start a sort of gallery where we can all put a piece of art work on, and where others can comment/critique work.
What does anyone think??
I'll leave that one with you
Kat

Pen & ink

Today I'm getting things together to do a demonstration for an Art group in Essex. After a visit to them last week where I demonstrated drawing they requested pen & wash/ink for this week. All things being well we will outside working from the landscape.
It struck me as I gather my things that this is probably the least used medium of them all, yet I find it the most liberating of them all. I've used pen and ink since I was 16 and find it made look more carefully and draw even more carefully. It wasn't until some years later that I realised that my drawing had improved 10 fold just because I couldn't rub my mistakes out, that gave me a great sense of freedom but also made me aware that the more mistakes I made the more creative I had to be to disguise them.
And therein lies the beauty of ink it never looks wrong it always looks expressive and impressive no matter of your style.
Over the past 2 years I have worked extensively in pen/ink on a major commission, at the moment I cant show you any of that as it's under copyright and it's ready for publication yet.
For now here is some of my early stuff......

                                                                                                    

A series from my women warriors series

I've also created a range of bugs/insects from metallic ink tooa small detail of a dragonfly

Have a go yourself and get outside too - forget the pencil, leave it indoors and sketch. Don't worry about the lines the wobbly and un straight they are the more expressive it will be. Treat it as a sketch and don't go out with expectation of getting it right just enjoy it.

There's lot of different marks you can make with ink from dots to lines close together cross-hatching, you can always draw with the end of your paint brush or just a small branch/twig or a piece of bamboo dipped in ink.

Let me know how you get on!!!

That's all for today I'm off to draw a rather impressive iguana - I'll let you know how I get on.

All the best

Kat

Exhibition in Aid of Macmillian Nurses

Hi everyone
Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Some weeks ago my friend ask me if I would submit some work into her exhibition, which she is to host her home. We had done this some years ago in Aid of the British Lung Foundation and went very well.
My friend suggested that it would be nice to have some small pieces of work that people could buy at a fraction of the price of the larger pieces.

She suggested 8" x 8" block canvas, so I agreed to do 8 of them, I had forgotten how small 8 x8 is but decided to try koi on 4 of the and poppies on the others.
Most of my students will remember me more for telling them to work bigger and here I am doing smaller, small is something I struggle with I generally draw very big and so the paintings are the same.
A bit of challenge laid ahead just trying to get the fish drawn on the canvas in the first place, I always render the backgrounds completely first and let them dry before putting a drawing on the top.
You have no idea how many times I rubbed the watercolour crayon off before getting them the right size for the block!!
When eventually finished I was quite pleased with the results, I finished them off with some gold leaf.

I was really looking forward to see all the art up and displayed, some of the artists work larger than myself  some smaller. It's great to see so may difference pieces of art in one place. When I got there yesterday some of my work had already been sold - guess which ones????
Koi again always the koi! I should have done more of them.

So I'd  like to thank my friend, her husband and her family for their continued support in my art and giving me the opportunity to make the art do something special for someone by raising funds for worth while causes.
Now today I have to I have to get all the things I'll need for tomorrows first class, tomorrow is the first of my private classes. I thought as this will be the first  should stick to doing something along the lines of a still life just to get people drawing and that way I will have idea where everyone is at.

Next challenge -what should I take as a still life and what should a still life contain??
So I have been trawling the Internet for examples of still life, this one I found is by George Flegel. I don't think you could get more in if you tried. However the painting is so well painted and covers a multitude of textures although mainly in the food department, which seems to appear in many if not 90% of still lives.

This is by Pamela Michelle Johnson it's a large canvas in oil a whooping 72" high, and the realism is phenomenal. Again on the subject of food visit her at http://www.pamelamichellejohnston.com and see the rest of her work well worth a visit.

I never had much time for still life although I did loads in the early days. I spent many hours working drawings on still life that consisted of rubbish and junk knowing that I would improve my observation and drawing skills no end. That didn't make me like them anymore for that.
Now I think perhaps I should spend some time doing some that interest me and that is probably true of everybody if you don't like the subject you wont give it your best.
So what do I think my student's will like - some like flowers some like animals and some like landscapes, how am I going to incorporate all that? After a rummage around the house I come up with a collection of objects that include a wooden horse head, an orchid plant, some old books, a large conch shell and an old glass ink well with an owl feather in it. The only thing that I can see being a problem is not having strong enough lighting to make interesting.
Why try one your self!
bye for now
Kat

new art classes

Hi there! Hope you all enjoying the lovely weather we've had today.
I'll will be starting a new art class on the 26th April 2010, this will run for 6 weeks at a time. They will cover a multitude on techniques over a range of media, allowing everyone to work on their own projects at their own pace regardless of ability. For further information send email via this blog.

During this wonderful weather it's at great time to get out doors and do some painting. I cant stress enough the importance of working from life at least part of the time. Photo's although handy as references are no real substitute for the real thing. You will learn far more by practicing life observations than slavishly copying from photographs. You have to remember that camera lens don't work like eyes and are limited to 2 dimensions, where eyes can decipher much more information second by second than a camera. You notice that parts of your photos will out of focus this is because the camera cant cope with all the information that is necessary. Where your can take in everything around you process it and understand it in a shorter time than it takes to take the picture.

So if you thought the camera never lies think again! it's limited to flattening out 3 dimension objects and not portraying true colour and tone. That's why you look fatter in photos!!!!

The watercolours above are from a trip to cornwall, I made sketches first then made quick small watercolours as the weather was not up to much, but it does give the me a better idea or should i say memory of the colours as you can match them more closely.
Have a go - and I'll upload some more soon.
Happy painting
Kat

Hi everyone!
Today I wanted to take look at process - the process that many professional Artists go through to accomplish a commission. It sounds relatively simple but it's one that has you loving and hating your own ability.
To begin with the idea that taking on commissions will provide you with an exciting prospect of doing what you love is only a half truth. Nobody can prepare you for the frustration that will ensue.
Imagine if you will you want to create a career painting/drawing/anything else creative, so you start by doing your stuff, things you like, things that excite you.
Soon someone calls you and asks you create something for them, this maybe a friend, family or client. Just as you think your going to get more of your work out there, your client says I would like you to do this, this and this and it must have this oh and can you do this? this is where the frustration starts.

It's pretty much what you'd expect from your family because you know they have no idea what their looking at, they just like it, but your client will!!! and they will want total control over what your doing, and as they are paying for the privilege so you must let them.

As fabulous as it is to have loads of clients wanting you, you will find that during the process of dealing with them you will lose a lot of sleep over the projects and wonder why your doing this.
This is mainly due to the fact that your client came with a prefixed idea in their head and they can see the finished result before you've done it.

So for a start make sure you meet your client face to face, write down all the keywords they use and make sure that you are understanding how they interpret those words, you'll be surprised at how much work it will save you in the long run if you just get them to doodle a sketch of what they mean. Although we communicate in words I have found them to be the biggest cause of mis-interpretation and the biggest cause of having to re-do work. In short what you call a spade might be some Else's shovel.

Once you have a brief please, please make sure you do sketches and don't proceed with anything until they are happy with the sketch. The other thing to watch out for is format not all clients understand our Art formats so you need to show them the exact support your going to be working on.
Next comes the tonal pic, work out if this is actually going to work once it's rendered, another thing to be crucially aware of is your composition - as said before you need to stick to what your client wants but if this does not lend it's self to a good composition, you will have to consult your client and possible start from scratch again. A bad composition and focal point will totally destroy your work and remember it's going to have your name on it!

You may find as I have, the only way to get things right so everyone is happy is keep starting again and re drawing and producing a small colour version. Keep your client working with you by involving all the way and that includes the colour scheme, as i said at the beginning they already had a prefixed idea and will still be wondering why they cant have exactly what they asked for!
You know as an artist that certain things just don't work in reality when it comes to painting so for instance keeping everything sharp and focused- in painting a real no no, but not to your client.
There are so many things that are going to get your goat, but as your go through the process more and more you'll learn to be much more methodical about how you arrive at your clients preconceived idea.
You will I guarantee you, there will be times when the customers is definitely wrong and want to give up, because you know that if they just left you to do your interpretation they'd be so much happier!! and process would be relatively painless
I'll touch on this subject again in the future, I hope do a video of a commission from the beginning going through the whole process to the finished result.
Don't let any of this put you off you have so much to learn about yourself from this.
That's all for today - thanks for taking the time to drop by.
Kat