Titanic artwork

Yesterday I delivered a drawing to The Drawing Office, in Belfast's Titanic Quarter. It was an illustration of Lilian Bland, the first woman to build and fly her own bi-plane..! (as you do!)

Not the best photo, but you get the idea

I used 300b drawing paper, which was almost like card. I stained it with a mixture of Sepia and Black ink (seriously diluted), and applied it with a broad decorating brush. I always say that white paper 'isn't your friend', and tinting this sheet meant the drawing looked a bit oldish, but also softer on the eye. It saves a lot of elbow grease too in the pencil work.

With Maeve Curran, Destination Manager at Titanic Quarter

It will be hung as part of an exhibition in Titanic Belfast for the month of March as part of the celebrations for International Women's Day.

Ulster Festival of Art & Design

hello all drawers and frustrated drawers...!! Lots of great things on offer next week at Belfast's festival of Art & Design, all wonderful opportunities to meet and listen to great artists of our time. 

 I appreciate that some of them are during the day time, but if you (or your creative family member) are at school, and studying art  (or even teaching art) these events are a fantastic creative-experience-booster and worthy of seeking time out.. 

Wed 11th  March - 11am Oil painting demonstration and talk by award winning illustrator PJ Lynch    

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/pj-lynch.html

Wed 11th March - 6pm - 7pm  Talk by Katherine Tyrrell about her book on Drawing, and how to take your on-line presence from blogging to book publishing. Katherine write the UK's  no 3 art blog Making A Mark and her talk will include ways to use the internet to your creative advantage. 

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/katherine-tyrrell.html

Thursday 12th - 11 am, a panel of artists (including PJ Lynch, Set & Costume designer David Craig and Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy of Art in Florence), will each talk aout their work and join in an open discussion together with the audience. This will be full of vareity and show the broad range of options within the creative field, as well as lively and fun. 

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/drawing-together.html

Thursday 12th - 7pm, a talk by Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy of art, Florence. John lively and passionate speaker, and is coming all the way from Florence to share his experience with us!!  http://www.ulsterfestival.com/michael-john-angel.html

As well as this, I am holding location drawing sessions at lunch times, and a tutored life class on Saturday 14th March at 11am. This is nearly full so don't delay if you are interested in coming. Suitable for all levels, from beginner to more experienced drawers. http://www.ulsterfestival.com/julie-douglas.html

Tickets are just £6 (or £3 concession) - if you are available, I recommend these events and hope you can come along.

Julie Douglas

www.juliedouglas.co.uk

Spring Cleaning!

My new website went live yesterday, after many weeks of tweaking, writing, rewriting, scrapping, avoiding, putting too much in, taking most of it out again. 

Sorting out the mountains of information needed was a challenge to say the least, but the previous site was set up 9 years ago, so it was time for a Spring Clean.  If nothing else, technology has come  a long way since then. And so have I!

Mel's heart, from Tenby 

It's good to regroup and reflect. One thing I put on the site were photographs of some of my heart shaped stones. I have a friend in Wales, Melanie, who I taught with at London Art College. Today, after seeing my site, she sent me a very excited email saying - 

Julie, Julie! 

We took our visitor to Tenby and walked along the non pebbly beach and look what I saw! My heart for you, from Tenby :D 

Mxxxxx 

It just shows you, those hearts are everywhere!

I'd like to say thank you to Paul McNally, who loaded all the information for me. If you're ever looking for Mr Patient and Efficient Designer, he's the man! 

www.paulmcnallydesign.com

and I know there is the odd typo in there, but I need a few days away from it before I look...

                                  If you'd like a look I'd be glad that you did. It's

                        http://www.juliedouglas.co.uk

Festival of Art & Design, Belfast 2015

Festival of Art & Design 9th-14th March This year’s Festival has over 70 events – a fantastic range of talks, workshops, discussions, performances and exhibitions all about art and design. Fashion and textiles, drawing and painting, photography and animation, graphic design and illustration, architecture, sculpture, performance art……and much more Internationally renowned artists such as Axel Scheffler (Gruffalo), Sylvia Ayton (Wallis Collection), Andy Stevens (Graphic Thought Facility), Mark Wallinger (Turner Prize winner) to name but a few. Full programme at: www.ulsterfestival.com  Watch our short video: https://www.youtube.com/UUFAD-2015

Arts and Culture, Ulster University, Belfast campus, York Street, Belfast, BT15 1ED Telephone: +44 (0)28 9536 7285 |culture@ulster.ac.uk | www.culture.ulster.ac.uk
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Delicious and unique offerings for March, Belfast 2015

After the success of the Draw In Symposium last year, I was asked to create a drawing theme throughout the Ulster Festival of Art & Design, which takes place from 9th - 14th March 2015 in Belfast.
The festival comprises of many lectures, at lunch times and in the evening, from speakers from all aspects of the creative field. I have always been impressed by the quality of the speakers, no matter what their discipline and I was delighted to be asked to contribute.

Here is what I have come up with - all events take place at Belfast School of Art.

On Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th and Friday 13th March" Lunchtime Location Drawing".  I will be holding tutored sessions at 1pm for an hour.

Saturday 14th March, 11 - 1pm,  I will be teaching a tutored Life Drawing session.

Wednesday 11th March,  at 11am - award winning illustrator PJ Lynch will be delivering a talk and oil painting demonstration.

PJ Lynch oils demonstration 

Wednesday 11th March at 6pm - Katherine Tyrrell, artist, author and the UK's number 3 art blogger will be giving a talk about her new book about Drawing.

Thursday 12th March 11am - Drawing Together: a panel of artists including P Lynch, Katherine Tyrrell, set & costume designer David Craig, and Michael John Angel from The Angel Academy in Florence, will each speak about their work and answer questions from the audience and each other. This will be unique and very interesting.

Draw Together - a panel discussing the nuts and bolts of drawing practice. 

Thursday 12th March, 6pm - Michael John Angel, founder of The Angel Academy of Art, Folrence, will give a lecture entitled 'The Training of the 21st Century Realist Painter'.

Student from The Angel Academy, Florence, with his work

Bookings should be made through the festival website,
http://www.ulsterfestival.com
All sessions are subsidised and very inexpensive.

I hope you will be at as many of these sessions as possible!

For more details see the website, or email me at julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Life Drawing, Belfast

When drawing the human form, one wonders why one would ever draw anything else. These studies were drawn during Colleen Barry's figure drawing workshop in Belfast. Five days to study form, light, and anatomy - an endurance test in its own way, not only for the model who stays in the same pose all week, but for the artists who get similarly stiff and sore.

End of day 1

I chose a back view for a change, although the shadow of the head was lovely from the front. But  my favourite thing was the light at the top of the model's head and on his shoulder. And I like a blady head. This view required sitting below the model, on a studio 'horse' or 'donkey' - this is a long stool rather like a woodworking bench, which has a hinged board to rest your drawing board and paper on. Basically it's as comfortable as you'd expect, if you sit on a plank for a week. 

But a bit of suffering for our art is all to the good...!

Twenty minute poses

Drawing the figure is one of the most satisfying, connecting experiences.  It is in no way sensual, even though someone in the room is naked. The word 'naked' impies a vulnerability - a life model isn't vulnerable, they are Nude. Modeling is extremely demandng on the body - try standing still for half an hour and see how you get on...  So even though it is not a sensual experience, life drawing is in fact intimate. There is intimacy in studying human form, like a contract between artist and model. 

End of day 2 (though the artwork is not so dark as it looks in this photo)

Twenty minute poses

We started each day with short poses of twenty minutes. As you can see, Robert has an arsenal of diffuclt-to-draw poses.  He clearly has an understanding of creating shapes with the body, to provide the artist with new folds and relationships on the page. this is the sign of a skilled model. 

Each one of the above drawings took twenty minutes. (just in case you thought I did all four in twnety minutes...) 

End of day 4

Twenty minute poses

More twenty minute poses. These were lovely poses, but we all wandered round bewilderedly trying to find the most manageable angle to draw from. We resigned ourselves to the fact that there were no easy angles, they were all just differently difficult. Some of them would have been great for an all-day pose. 

The last day, day 5, I added the front view of the model. 

Drawing is an intellectual act. Be in no doubt that the problem solving nature of observation drawing is good for your brain, your eyes, your appreciation of nature - and learning to draw well improves the intellect. We should all be doing it, more of the time...! 

Upcoming workshops: Oil painting, Belfast, Big Drawing Day. 

For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Oil painting workshop, Belfast - painting against the clock

Bottle and plums, Julie Douglas, oil on canvas. 

It's always a treat to be attending a workshop, as a change from teaching. But the week-long oils workshop with Matt Weigle was very busy for me, making sure Matt had everything he needed to deliver the workshop in the way he wanted, making sure the students atending were getting everything they needed, and taking many phone calls along the way regarding the upcoming Symposium weekend. Oh yes, and fitting in as much painting as possible too.

Here's how we did it. we started with drawing...

Day 1 - drawing the arrangement to a comfortable size. A3 study, Julie Douglas 

Our goal over the week was to do one drawing, one small black and white tonal study, a small colour study and a larger full colour painting. Ok then... 

I drew on A3 paper, with the shadow box at my eye level. 

We photocopied our original drawings down to the appropriate sizes for our canvas, and transferred the image as Matt showed us. It was great to get painting, and the B&W was done by the end of the ssecond day. It was very small, which really forces you to be general - this doesn't compromise accuracy, it requires clarity and contrast and balance and broader decision-making.

So small...

Finished B&W study

to give you an idea of the scale

Day three - we outined our transfer of the larger painting, so as not to lose the line during the underpainting process. 

Outlining the transferred drawing on canvas for the final (larger) painting

We did the underpainting quickly, in an hour or so, then left it to dry overnight. In the meantime, the colour study was waiting. 

Underpainting for final canvas

I was always a good bit behind everyone else, and was regretting having chosen the glass bottle, as it had a bit more detail to paint (meaning it would take longer..). By the end of day three I hadn't started my colour study.

Day four - this is where I got even busier, and I wondered if I'd not finish anything. I didn't get to sit  at my desk till after lunch, but when I returned from taking a phone call, I discovered that Matt had prepared my palette for me. How very very encouraging.

Matt-Prepared-palette 

I finished the colour study by the end of the day, in time for us all to go out together for dinner. 

Hurrying UP....

Colour study, done in an afternoon approx 21cm x 12 cm

Again, to show scale

my desk, and the transfer sheets

Friday - the pressure was on, big time. We had to stop by 5 at the latest, as the walls had to be removed from the studio to make room for the Symposium on Saturday. Some students had already finished and were working on a second large painting. Sob sob... 

Nearly done...

Marathon painting, watched over by the resident skeleton.

But you know, there's nothing like a deadline... and with moments to spare, I got the painting finished. No time to celebrate though, the porters arrived on time, and we began the big clear-up for the weekend of creative delights ahead... 

Finished painting, 30cm x 22cm Julie Douglas

Upcoming workshops with Julie Douglas in Belfast: Portrait drawing, Oil painting, Drawing and water colour. For details, email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Julie's workshops are friendly, focused and fun. Fully structured courses so you know you are learning. 

Oils workshop in Belfast

It's been a very busy, very creative summer here in Belfast.

Matt Weigle's oil painting workshop continued for five days at the end of August, and all the students loved it and  learnt a lot.

Matt spent two and a half DAYS setting up the studio space, so that each shadow box had just one light source and each box was lined with black fabric. The intension was for each students still life to be as uncluttered as possible so that we could get through each stage of Matt's workshop in the time, and finish a larger painting as well. Because Matt took such care in arranging the boxes, tables, easles and lighting, all the students had to do was select their objects, then hmmm and aaaa about placing them. Much huffing and pondering... This jug or that vase... an onion or plum...?

matt showing the transfer technique

By the end of the first day we had completed our drawing. Day two involved transferring it onto two small canvases and one larger one.

Matt doing a transfer

Image transferred onto canvas, from the original drawing

Our aim after that was to put down an underpainting on the larger canvas, complete a black and white tonal study, a colour study where we were simplifying the colours (relying on the tonal study as a guide) on the smaller canvases, and later in the week, begin a second layer on top of the underpainting as a final more finished painting.

Matt helping to get the placement right on the canvas, measuring from the edges to get some form of symmetry and balance 

Matt preparing the greys

As I said, Matt had a daily requirement for us, and this helped focus us and stick to the deadlines. Here he is preparing and demoing the black and white study

Demo of black and white study

Demo painting by Matt Weigle

Caroline, Laura, Gennie, Ruth, Suzanne and Liz

So Matt would do the demo then we'd work hard to keep up. He worked much more quickly than us.. The studio was quiet (apart from the wind whistling from outside), as we concentrated.

Gennie, demonstrating the special technique of holding all your brushes at once, just in case... 

Gennie's wonderful Black and White study

One of the things Matt wanted us to do was to outline our transfer drawing with black permanent pen (this had to be permanent even if wet with turpentine), so that we wouldn't 'lose' our drawing during the underpainting. Some students were a tad sceptical about this,  feeling that we needn't go to those lengths to preserve the drawing.. However, we humoured Matt and did what he asked... 

Laura and Benedict outlining their drawings in pen

...and boy were we glad when Matt showed us the next stage.. The underpainting was very speedily done,  and the turpentine thinned the paint so much that without the black lines, all the drawing would have been completely wiped off. Ahem... 

Matt slathering thinned paint on for the underpainting 

The loose underpainting, with black pen lines clearly visible. 

Susan, Ruth and Gennie

While the underpainting dried (this took overnight) we got on with the colour study, leaving the last day and a half for the larger painting.

Susan touching up her cloth

Matt having a word with Liz's painting...

Benedict, engrossed in her painting

Matt with Ruth, and her fabulous painting 

Suzanne's work in progress - fantastic colours 

Fionnuala's colour study and final painting in progress. 

Ruths desk... YUMM

An astonishing amount of work was produced during the week. The pic below shows Gennie's weeks work - she managed two larger finished pieces, because, well... some people work pretty fast! 

Gennie's marathon production!

The studio was quiet, but we had a good chat at break times..

And on the last evening we all had dinner together, joined by Peter Cooper (on the right) who helped Matt with his 'foreign language studies'.. Matt did a great job of learning to speak Norn Irish, and can say 'Brown' and 'Bout ye' in the correct manner beautifully. However, just as Peter was encouraging Matt with some colourful additions, Benedict, from Holland, who was sitting next to me, out of the blue said the most perfect 'YOU' I've ever heard..  This is good news, for I've adopted Benedict (though I haven't told her yet, it's a surprise!) 

         Below, some of the weeks work laid out to dry.

Matt was a methodical and careful tutor, wanting everyone to get the best from themselves. His teaching was authentic and sincere - we all had a fabulous week and hope to do it all again!

Next up - Drawing Trail around Belfast's Titanic Quarter as part of EHOD
Portrait workshop

For information email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk