Paul Priestley’s Newsletter: October 2008 - Issue 35

Welcome to Paul’s Newsletter. Your comments, suggestions or contributions are welcome.

See below for details of the launch of my new Painting website

Pencil Drawing

Recently, I invested in a good quality set of coloured pencils by Derwent, not a medium I use a great deal, because as some of you know, I am a great fan of graphite sticks, simply because of the variety of marks you can make with them. In this set of pencils I noticed two special ones; a blending pencil and a burnishing pencil, you may know of these pencils, but it is the first time I have come across them. They really are quite useful and not only with coloured pencils.

First a little description;
The Blending Pencil is made from the colourless binder they use to make coloured pencils and is quite soft.
The Burnishing Pencil is made of the same material, but is very hard.

Essentially, all you do is colour an area then use the blender to soften the marks that will inevitably show from the coloured pencil. This produces a more subtle graded effect and if the burnishing pencil is used on top, this gives extra smoothness and also a slight sheen. The advantage these pencils have over other blending methods is that they don’t leave a build up on the surface and are actually very good in the really dark areas of the drawing.

If you like to combine mediums together, you’ll find that the blender and burnisher work just as well with graphite pencils, graphite and also have an interesting effect on charcoal and chalk. What I have noticed though is that you need to be using good quality coloured pencils, probably artist quality from the big makers. The cheap pencils, from the well known cheap and cheerful art shop, contain more of the binding medium and not enough of the colourant and therefore are more difficult to blend. If anyone has any comments on blenders and burnishers please let me know and I’ll publish them here.

Forthcoming Art Courses
October Courses

• Starting with Watercolour at Hampton Bishop on 4/5 October – This course is designed for those with little or no experience with watercolour, but want to learn how to handle the medium in such a way to create lovely paintings.
• Creative Drawing(1) at Hampton Bishop on 26 October – This course is for those who wish to develop their drawing either by ‘freeing it up’ or using different media. We shall be experimenting and pushing at the boundaries.

November Courses

• Abstracting Reality at Aston on Clun village hall on 2 November – Ever wanted to know how to create a successful abstract painting? This course explores some of the ways you might achieve it. All abilities welcome.
• Starting with Acrylics at Storridge village Hall on 8/9 November - You may be a beginner or competent in another medium, this course explores the techniques and methods of working with acrylic.
• Capturing a Likeness at Storridge village Hall on 13 November - Learn how to capture a likeness with short and long sketches.
• Creative Drawing (2) at Hampton Bishop on 25 November - Using some unusual combinations of items for mark making, this drawing course will have you producing some wonderfully creative drawings.
• Matisse Interiors at Storridge village Hall on 29/30 November- Using Oil or Acrylic come and explore the wonderfully colourful and dramatic world of Matisse. A model will be available.

You can book other painting and drawing courses online

New Website: http://www.pppaintings.com/

For the past couple of weeks I have been putting together my new painting website. Essentially, it has all my paintings, lots of drawings, together with limited edition prints, but it has lots more too. Not only can you buy paintings, drawings and prints, but you can also go on a virtual tour of my studio and complete an ART Quiz. In fact, if you answer all the questions correctly you will WIN a £10 discount voucher which you can spend on the site. As some of the items are less than £10 you could actually ‘buy’ some items FREE. (You would have to pay for the postage as the voucher does not cover even if the items cost is less that £10). There will be new quizzes every month or so. Why not take a look now at http://www.pppaintings.com/

Christmas Party Events
Some of you may be aware that I run party events for adults– Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays etc. Essentially, this involves an artist such as Salvador Dali or Picasso turning up to your party as a surprise guest. It’s quite an experience watching the reaction of everyone as the artist’s bizarre life unfolds and your guests become the bizarre characters that occupy the artist’s world. It is great fun. If you are interested in a crazy artist coming to your party please call me on 01568 617433


Kind regards

Paul Priestley

Filbert’s Newsletter: September 2008 - Issue 34

Welcome to Filbert’s Newsletter. Your comments, suggestions or contributions are welcome.

Pop Art Painting: 22/23/24 August at Aston on Clun

We started the course by looking at the work of a number of Pop Art painters especially, Robert Rauchenberg, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. The first day was spent working out ideas and painting around the theme of repetition. Repetition can be found in lots of Pop Art works, primarily because this was the ‘60’s when supermarkets and mass production began to take off. The idea that the design of a can of soup can look quite impressive when stacked together on shelves was taken as a starting point for our paintings, together with the idea of basing the painting around a very ordinary everyday object. So we had impressive paintings of cars and light bulbs in all their repetitive glory.

The second day we took Andy Warhol’s paintings of famous people as our starting point. Using his methods we photographed each individual and projected their images onto large boards. With colours very reminiscent of Warhol’s some fantastic paintings were produced. It was important here to use the methods of Warhol – he was very much into the use of the camera – which is not ‘cheating’ as some might believe. His methods did give us all an insight into how Warhol worked when he set up his Factory to produce his own art works.

On the last day we took Jasper Johns paintings as our inspiration – this meant that the painting would have a life of its own and not be based around any traditional compositional plan. The idea was to base the painting on a mundane aspect of live, like waking up or preparing a meal. Objects associated with this were collected overnight and became part of the painting, so it ended up as a truly multimedia image. Due to illness and absences only a few people were on the course, but they produced some marvellous paintings on large boards. Congratulations to: Sue Pauli and Maria Broughton

Forthcoming Art Courses
• September Course
Starting Drawing at Aston on Clun on 27/28 September – This course is designed for complete beginners and those who don’t feel that confident with their drawing. There will be lots of simple and easy methods to achieve great drawings – you’ll be producing masterpieces by the end of the weekend.
• October Courses
Starting with Watercolour at Hampton Bishop on 4/5 October – This course is designed for those with little or no experience with watercolour, but want to learn how to handle the medium in such a way to create lovely paintings.
Creative Drawing(1) at Hampton Bishop on 26 October – This course is for those who wish to develop their drawing either by ‘freeing it up’ or using different media. We shall be experimenting and pushing at the boundaries.

• SPECIAL OFFER – book Starting Drawing and Starting Watercolour for a combined price of £160 a saving of £20 on the discounted price of booking both. If you are already booked on one of these courses and have paid full price you can book the other for the balance i.e. £60. If you want to take up this offer please let me know by replying to this email and then pop a cheque (made out to Filbert Splosh Ltd) in the post to me. You can book other courses online, for details click here

Art courses in the evening This will not happen in the near future as only a very few people showed interest. However, I shall investigate the idea of running some evening courses after Christmas.

Children’s Party Events Some of you may be aware that I run party events for adults– Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays etc. Essentially, this involves an artist such as Salvador Dali or Picasso turning up to your party as a surprise guest. It’s quite an experience watching the reaction of everyone as the artist’s bizarre life unfolds and your guests become the characters that occupy the artist’s world. It is great fun. If you are interested in a crazy artist coming to your party please call me on 01568 617433 I have been asked on many occasions about doing something similar for children, so I now have organised children’s party events combined with a practical element. Details of children’s party events can be found by clicking this link.

Kind regards

Paul Priestley

Filbert’s Newsletter: August 2008 - Issue 33

Portrait Painting at Hampton Bishop – 14 / 15 July 2008

We started the course with some portrait drawing, learning how to proportion the face and understanding a little about its structure. Having done this we used graphite boldly to create light and shade and thus created a three dimensional feel. Having completed the drawing we looked at producing a trial painting based on the drawing. The emphasis on this painting was colour mixing and how to mix flesh colours, both warm and coo,l and where to apply them to create the 3 D effect we desired. This painting took longer than expected so we had to look at painting the portrait with much bolder colours, in the style of Matisse on the Sunday.

Have quickly completed the little exercise painting the face in bold colours, I became the model for the final painting, in which everyone had the choice of using the bolder approach or the more traditional. By the end of the Sunday session some wonderful paintings had been produced. The bigger improvements were seen by those who had done little or no portrait painting before, which was great. Congratulations go to all who attended the course and achieved so much namely: Karen Johanssen, Caroline Waldon, Chrisse Halls, Mark Whittle and his daughter, Jenny Harrison, Pamela Hudson and Maria Broughton.

Foot note: when mixing flesh tones it is a good idea to think in terms of cool and warm colours. Cool for the shadows, around eyes for example and warm for the lighter tones around cheeks, tip of the nose etc. A basic flesh colour can be created by using the ‘five to one to half’ rule – five parts white to one part yellow to half a part of red. This proportion produces a reasonable flesh colour, of course, the different reds and yellows will determine whether the flesh tone is warm or cool. A cool flesh tone might be; titanium white, lemon yellow and red oxide, whereas a warm tone might be titanium white, cadmium yellow and vermillion.

Forthcoming Art Courses

• August courses
• Landscape in Watercolour at Berrington Hall on 18/19 August – With a beautiful lake, views to the Brecon Beacons, gardens and a Georgian house as inspiration what better place to explore watercolour techniques.
• Pop Art Painting at Aston on Clun on 22/23/24 August – If you like working on a big scale, painting boldly in the style of people like Warhol, Hockney or Lichenstein this is the course for you. Large painting boards are provided on this course ready primed for you to work on with acrylic. Should be a great course.
• September Course
• Starting Drawing at Aston on Clun on 27/28 September – This course is designed for complete beginners and those who don’t feel that confident with their drawing. Lots of simple and easy methods to achieve great drawings – you’ll be producing masterpieces by the end of the weekend.
• You can book courses online, for details click here

A possible development: art courses in the evening

A number people have been asking me whether I would run a series of courses in the evening, say every Tuesday evening for two hours for a period of 8 or 10 weeks. A course like this might be aimed at developing drawing, turning drawings into paintings and working on specific painting techniques. It would have a structured programme which would be available before the course starts. It is very likely the courses would run in Leominster or somewhere close to it. In terms of cost it would be around £6 - £7 per hour depending on hiring venue costs etc. The total course fee would probably be paid in full at the start of the course or in two halves, one at the beginning, one in the middle.

At this stage I am looking for expressions of interest, suggestions of topics or areas you might be interested in, painting mediums you would like to explore or other suggestions, I am open to ideas. Please reply to this email if you are interested. Assuming there is enough interest courses are likely to start at the end of September.

Kind regards

Paul Priestley