All wrapped up - fabric drawings in pastel

Often used as a backdrop to a painting, cloth makes a wonderful subject in it's own right too.
I set up four options for my students - two were large white sheets wrapped around poles and secured with a knot, a tailor's mannequin with a cloth secured by rope and a shop window 'torso' wrapped in a table cloth. All needed the help of good lighting to make the shadows stronger and the highlights brighter, giving the extra contrasts needed to take a subject from bland to brilliant!

Catherine M, a lovely study in chalk pastel - and in just one session! 

While this is certainly a complicated subject, which really allows you to feel the brain cogs whirring as you try to fathom a starting place,  it's apparent lack of focal point and apparent lack of beauty means there is no distraction. It forces each artist to select a point that interests them - a particular fold, or a series of shadows, for example - and their attention to that allows the rest of the drawing to grow.

Full use of the page by Marie. This was her first session, and she plans to do more next week. 

 The results were amazing. Many students opted to continue their drawing for a second session.

Alison's work coming on well, with Paul hard at work in the background. 

My demo

Great drawing by Christine, who spent two sessions on this stufy

Lesley beside her lovely artwork

Lesley showing her maximum-pastel-holding technique!! 

Brigid's drawing, next to the subject

Brigid's drawing - a lot of work in just one session,

Chalk pastel by David, on larger paper.

Rose-Jane's lovely drawing, pastel

Christine McC - a huge amount achieved in just one session! 

Sandra's lovely drawing. You can just see which part of the arrangement she is studying, near the rope on the mannequin. 

Hilary, during her second session at the subject. Lovely use of composition. 

I feel so lucky to have such a great studio space. The hard floor makes clearing up so easy after using dusty chalks. It's much more challenging to use chalks and charcoal at home, unless you don't mind having multi coloured skirting boards..!

Upcoming workshops: portrait workshop July 22 - 26, Oil workshop August 22 - 26,
Life drawing sessions Friday 19 July 6pm,  Fri 26 (6 pm) & Sat 27th July (10 - 4pm).

For info please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Arty Hen Party!

A couple of weeks ago these lovely ladies spent a morning laughing while doing some drawing and painting, as part of their Hen Do. What a great fun way to spend time time getting to know each other! 

 We started in the easels room, with a bit of charcoal, drawing pears and plums. I stood up to do a demonstration for them, when suddenly they all burst into song, and they did a lovely rendition of Happy Birthday for me, awk!! After the demo, the ladies got over their initial nerves, rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in - with excellent results!

Bride at work!

After tea and cake we moved into the other room for a bit of watercolour painting, and as you can see, they all did a brilliant job. 

The full line up! Brilliant bananas!

Bride (sporting a new BARA apron!), bridesmaids and bananas! 

The studio is perfect for groups wanting to spend time learning a new skill, be it co workers, family or friends. A warm creative environment with space for up to 16 people at a time.

For programme info on upcoming workshops, please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Going for gold - Oil portrait with time lapse!

I have been doing a lot of portraits recently, and have really enjoyed painting many lovely people. 

It's a real honour to spend time with the sitters. In my recent works, none had been painted before nor modeled previously and they all found it relaxing (well, the pressure was all on me, of course!). 

This painting is of my handsome friend Jonny. He was very happy for me to experiment with backgrounds. I started with plain grey, but felt that his head is so striking that I could be bolder. 

So, I painted a dark purple over the grey, then began applying..gold leaf! Not the easiest of things to work with, but worth the effort for the amazing dramatic effect. 

This is the painting so far. I have yet to complete the hair and all those stripes on the shirt. The gold is, I think, looks quite contemporary.

Upcoming workshops with Julie in Belfast:

Life Drawing July 19th & 26th

Portrait workshop July 22 - 26th. 

For information please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

Why small is the new big. Mini landscapes in water colour, student work.

 I have asked weekly my students what they'd most like to tackle in class, and their requests are varied, with a few surprises... The less expected answers include 'hands', 'sheep', 'cows' and 'birds' (does anyone know of a taxi dermist?!) (for birds, not cows or sheep..!). I am trying to work through as many suggestions as I can - last week we drew hands and this week it has been landscapes, in miniature.

Catherine M

 Why miniature, I hear you wonder...? There are many good reasons for starting small. One is COMPOSITION: Staring small allows you to focus on composition, identifying key points of interest rather than trying to put everything in. Landscapes can be daunting because of the scale of them in reality, so we must be selective about what we include, and what we leave out. Paring down information by working small really helps this.

Christine W.

Another good reason for 'small' is CONTROL: With water colour, one of the biggest challenges is controlling the behaviour of water over large areas. Working small allows you to observe the behaviour of water over small areas at a time, without the stress of trying to cope with large scale. 

Another benefit is to be gained from QUANTITY - working on several, not just one little artwork, take the pressure off 'the one'. Think of each painting as a draft, preparation for the next one and the next. 

PLAY: it is so important to be grown-up about the notion of playing, and let go of the actual outcome in favour of messing about! Lets call it 'playing, with intent', or 'deliberate playing'. Remembering that the aim was to learn about simplifying, I think they have done tremendously well. 

Sara C.

 The artworks here are by several students, who bravely played, and won! All images are no taller than 4 inches (10 cm) and were from photographs I had taken of the local area. Sara, above, moved on to using coloured pencil (bottom right of image) to tackle the lovely patterns in water.

Pat F

Carolyn G

Liz C

Hilary J - this artwork is in coloured pencil, on water colour paper. 

Ciara C

Ciara C - a closer view

Ciara's artworks, above and below, are beautifully executed and have a gentle illustrative quality about them.

Ciara C

Upcoming workshops include Friday night Life Drawing (7th June), and the summer programme is available  below. To be added to Julie's mailing list to hear automatically about extra workshops, please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

NEW** Portrait drawing and painting: Mon 22 - Fri 26th July 10 - 4.15pm, from photos, and with a model. Fully tutored, cost £600. 

August 22 - 26th: Drawing and oils workshop with Julie Douglas. This workshop will improve your drawing skills using pencil, charcoal and chalks, teach you how to create beautiful still life set-ups and you will produce an oil painting based on one of your own  arrangements. This workshop is perfect for all levels of ability, and is an excellent preparation for the oils workshop which directly follows, with Maestro John Angel. (see below). Cost £600 (materials list provided)

August 28th - September 5th: Oil Painting like the Masters. A workshop delivered by the Maestro Michael John Angel, from the Angel Academy of Art, Florence. Details of this can be found here: 

http://juliedouglasdrawingpaintinglearning.blogspot.com/2018/09/maestro-in-belfast-august-28th.html

Boots and ballet shoes! Student's drawings from Belfast Academy of Realist Art.

Last week I decided it was drawing time, and set out a variety of boots, shoes and ballet shoes. 

The first class used charcoal, and the rest of the week students opted for graphite pencil. The results were amazing. Here are a few examples. 

Charcaol drawing by Teresa L. (size A3)

When attending a weekly class, students have the benefit of trying lots of media, which broadens perspective and changes perception. The down side is that it's only once a week! 

Pencil drawing of work boot by Christine McC.

Christine hard at work. You can see here that the drawing was A3 sized and larger than the actual boot. This gives a dramatic drawing. 

Jane's lovely drawing of a boot.

Beautiful A2 drawing by Sara C. Great use of the page. 

Sara's drawing next to the shoes - larger than life!

 Students work very hard, and hardly grumble at ALL..! But for those times when a good grumpy sentence is really necessary, I've decided that a loud turkey-gobble is the best solution. So, instead of naming all the faults in your artwork and getting more and more agitated in the process, the new best thing is to do an impression of a turkey, using the most appropriate emotion to match your frustration. Not going the way you wanted?? GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!! I know it seems ridiculous, but it WORKS!! The frustration gets out of your mouth, without increasing your self disgust, and everyone in the room sympathises before bursting into laughter.

Alison working on her large and fabulous charcoal drawing.

Lesley's lovely drawing.

Dramatically large drawing by Pat.

You can see the pink boots in this photo - quirky!

Catherine working on her lovely drawing.

Catherine's drawing. 

A difficult angle, a pair of shoes in their box, surrounded by tissue paper. This is Glynis M's artwork. 

 I'm so proud of my students. Well done everyone.

For info about classes please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

website www.juliedouglas.co.uk

Julie Douglas has written a manual on drawing, 'Notes from the Atelier' which contains over 32 exercises as she delivers them at her weekly classes. A hard backed book with over 500 photos and drawings by Julie and her students, it's the perfect home study or gift to yourself or your arty friend. Details here:

http://www.juliedouglas.co.uk/#/julies-book/