Peter Woof Tribute Exhibition

A tribute Exhibition of Peter Woof's work is currently being held in Leamington Spa.

The exhibition features many of his later paintings and up to ten of his drawings.

The exhibition is being held at

37 Park Street
Leamington Spa
CV32 4QN

The exhibition is open from 10am until 5pm ( 2 - 4 Sunday) and runs until the 25th of August.

There will be an evening drinks reception on Friday 24th 6pm to 8pm to which you are invited.

Sea sky - Oil Monoprint

A Monoprint is a unique piece of art created using printing techniques. Here I used winsor and newton oil paints. I painted these onto a canvas and then when I was happy laid a piece of paper over the top.
I used my hands to smooth out the paper ( hand pressed) and then lifted up the edge pulling away the resulting image. With this technique it is possible to get results that are difficult or impossible to achieve any other way.
This piece I decided to leave as it is. Other oil monoprints I have left to dry and will be working on the top of them with oil paint or ink in the near future.

Master pen and Ink work - She stoops to conquer

Exploring Mark making

This piece was drawn with one fine nib and kandahar ink. I think it is important to play around with your mark making tools whatever your medium. It is often possible to make a wide variety of marks without ever changing a nib. Do remember to use a thicker quality paper for inkwork to avoid the blotting paper effect and don't press too hard otherwise you will tear the paper surface.

Artiplace on LinkedIn

There are many Art Groups available on LinkedIn and sometimes they prove to be useful places to ask questions and discuss art. Sometimes however the forums can be swamped with self promotion round robins and sales pitches. For this reason I have started two groups on LinkedIn

Artiplace - This is an Art forum for discussion of paper pencils art and the way we work. This is a closed group which means that it is not open to Galleries and Salesmen. Round robin sales pitches will be removed and those making them will be taken from the group list. This is a good place for technical discussion and work critique.

Professional members need to use LinkedIn to make new work connections and to promote their work. I have started the sister group
Artiplace Networking and Promotion- This is the place for artists to list their websites, give notice of exhibitions and place all round robin self promotions. The reason why this is a good place to be seen is that I will be encouraging galleries and gallery owners to join and to list their open  exhibitions and calls for work. If you list your website and availability here then all the subscribing galleries will be notified when you update your details.

This is free advertising. To join please go to LinkenIn Art groups and make a request to join.

Ancient Hills...Sketching in ink

Sometimes it is fun to use Ink in your sketch book. It is almost difficult to go wrong with pen and ink. Experimenting with mark making will help in all areas of your drawing and is hugely enjoyable. It can be very freeing to know that once a mark is made it is permanent...so why worry?  For sketching I usually use Black Kandahar Drawing ink. I have a selection of nibs but one of the most useful is a Post Office nib which has a medium/broad nib. I also like to have one narrow nib for finer detail. It is possible to make mant different marks with each nib.

Quick Impressions

It is worth trying to use a mid tone paper to catch sketches of people and things around you. It teaches the eye to pick out the darkest darks and the lightests lights and the form appears almoest by magic. Here I caught a quick sketch of a friend's daughter giggling with her friends. A black white and a little sanguine on the cheek. Maybe less than 4 mins work You do not always have to sketch in a white blank sketchbook. There are books available with both white and sand toned paper on alternate pages. I find it sometimes helps to draw the same image in graphite pencil ( B ) and using the 3 pencil technique.

Three Pencil technique

This quick pencil sketch shows an example of Three colour work. In this piece I have used a black coloured pencil, a white and a sanguine. Three colour work uses the background colour of the paper to produce a mid tone in the picture. This is particularly useful if you need to make a picture which seems coherent throughout. The use of the paper as a mid tone also means that you are able to work up the image much more quickly. This is 10-15mins of work. The paper used here is Canson mi tientes in sand. The pencils were Caran d'ache luminance. I use a softer pencil on the canson paper because it is quite soft and can tear if you use a harder pencil with a sharp point.
On this picture the sanguine( blood red) pencil is used only on the mouth. It lends warmth to the face.

My Quiet Place

Another Example of Illustrative Pen and Ink work. This time I have have used several mark making methods to achieve texture and tone. I like to produce a picture that allows for narrative. That is a picture which invites people to create their own story. This picture I have used to create greetings cards.

Working in Pen and Ink

An Illustration piece in Dip pen and Kandahar Ink. I prefer to work on these directly without pencil drawing. This was completed using a narrow nib. the shading was achieved by using many very light dots of ink. this doesn't take as much time as you might think. I like the clean lines that you can achieve with something as simple as Ink.