Early Bird

Early Bird

“Early Bird”
245 x 350 mm. Coloured pencils and oil pastels on pescia paper.
A crested tern in front of The Left Bank Cafe Bar Restaurant at East Fremantle early in the morning.

Two weeks ago I hauled myself out of bed for some early morning photography.  I wondered whether to bother leaving the house as it was a dull cloudy morning; not at all the sort of light I had hoped for.  However, once I was up I thought I might as well go.  On the way to Point Walter (where coastal birds nest and feed) I drove through East Fremantle.  As I passed the jetty I saw that the familiar wooden pier (which you have seen several times in recent drawings) was occupied by a crested tern so I stopped.  It can’t have been even 6 o clock and the light was so dim that the electric lights of The Left Bank Cafe Bar Restaurant were still on.  The crested tern kindly cooperated with me by varying his positions (and not flying away) as I took photos.  I wanted to include the electric lights behind him as they looked quite festive.

The image below is the source photograph (uncropped) for “Early Bird”.   Do you remember a few weeks back I complained about the ugly Fremantle traffic bridge which cuts across the landscape?  Here it is.  No wonder I do my best to exclude it from drawings.

This photo is the source for the drawing EARLY BIRD.

You can see bright electric lights behind the bird.  I had to sacrifice their brightness, dulling them right down and pushing them back so that the tern stands out in the drawing.  If I had kept them as bright as they are in the photo, the tern wouldn’t have had  impact or looked closer to you than the background.  When I am doing a drawing like this I spend a lot of time pushing and pulling colours around.  I pull the main subject closer by adding warm colours while pushing the background away with the use of cool colours.  In other words, I am using colour to trick your eyes into believing there is depth of field.  The final thing I did to this drawing was lift out the colour at the centres of the electric lights with a putty rubber.  I pressed the rubber in quite hard and then lifted it off; most of the colour coming with it.  Then I added a touch of yellow into the colour-vacated spaces.  Before I made this change, the lights were too red.  (See image below.)

The drawing as it had been before I made the decision to take some of the colour out of the electric lights. They were too red and detracted from the bird.

You might disagree with my decision to take away the reds.  While they were pretty,  the background seemed too disjointed from the bird on the post…as if I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was being a realist or a naive artist.  Possibly there isn’t a right or wrong and it is just a matter of taste?!  My taste says, ‘Less is more.  Reds must leave.’

As in last week’s Eye Catcher, I used Neocolor I wax pastels and Neopastel oil pastels as well as pencils for the current drawing.  In this drawing I have used more pastels than I did in the last one.  They help me to achieve soft focus in the background and give me a bit of creative freedom too.

Speaking of early birds, I am being an early bird by making my Christmas cards today.  I have been deep in production; cutting and folding card (ouch – sore fingers from so much pressing on card), pasting photos of drawings onto the cards, gluing Christmas messages inside each card, writing names and addresses on envelopes.  All this is happening now because I am going overseas next week.  For this reason, there will be no more posts from me until after Christmas.  I know I will suffer from blog post withdrawal but I will be gathering new material for future posts and future drawings from exotic new locations.

The Christmas card factory at my desk today.

So I wish you, Dear Reader, a very happy festive season.  Merry Christmas.  I will be back to write stories and post photos of exciting adventures and cities in the New Year.   Thank you for being my reader!!!

Return to Contents of Posts page      Related page:  Subject 6: Birds in a landscape

A Difficult Birth

A Difficult Birth

Eye Catcher
285 x 305 mm, November 2013, mixed media on pescia paper. Copyright 2013

Conception was the easy and pleasurable part (as it often is).   I knelt on the sand at Point Walter early on a breezy October morning.  The oystercatcher was pausing between oyster catching.  I realised I would have to prostrate myself on wet cold sand to be on his eye level and to get the composition I hoped for.  My clothes got soaked but I got the photos.  As I stood up, brushing sand off wet trousers, I thought triumphantly, “It’s a wrap.”

Next stage; the gestation period was steady and uneventful.  I had the idea to use crayons in this drawing so I laid down undercolour with Caran d’Ache Neocolor I (a water-resistant wax pastel).  Then I built up the colours, as usual,  mainly with ‘Luminance 6901’ pencils.  Later I used Caran d’Ache Neopastel (an oil pastel) sparingly for some accents and highlights.  (Information about these crayons are now on the Art Materials page.)  The mixed media drawing grew and matured at a consistent pace over a week and a half.  I enjoyed the freedom of expression which comes when working with an image where much is out of focus.

This past weekend, though, was Hard Labour.  I worked furiously to bring the drawing to fruition.  I quote from my art journal…”It’s all going bad.  Just realised the horizontal seaweed to the left of the bird is vile  [see image below] and have taken it out.  I think the picture is going to die.  Still in saving mode right now – along with increasing dose of despair mode.  I did everything I could to make it work – and the more I DID; the more it DID’NT.  Or did it?  I’m always harping on about ugly/beautiful.  Here’s an example; I see “Eye Catcher” as ugly one millisecond and beautiful the next.  I can’t make up my mind which; maybe both at once?” ( Journal entry from 10th November 2013.)

The drawing as it was on Sunday – with that nasty dark horizontal line (supposed to be seaweed) to the left of the bird’s feet.  The sand was pale at that stage and whole thing looked insipid to me.

I worked until the light faded and then I lay on the couch in self-pity.  Fail, Fail, Fail.  I was done in.  Later in the evening I watched a documentary on tv which I had been waiting for with keen anticipation:  “David Bowie – Five Years: The Making of an Icon”, (BBC 2013).  It cheered me immensely.  One Bowie quote I particularly latched onto was, “The minute you know you’re on safe ground, you’re DEAD.”  Wow!  There’s no dishonour in being experimental, trying new ideas and failing.  I didn’t mind the state of my drawing any more.  I went to bed in a haze of acceptance.

This morning I got up and looked at the drawing with fresh eyes.  It was okay; not perfect, a bit rough in places but I liked it.  It had substance and energy.  “Eye Catcher” (no longer ire catcher) was born and would live.  I came to the conclusion that despair and elation, joy and suffering are intertwined and inseparable in many a creative process.  Art hurts but, ahh – it’s pain with satisfaction!

ps.  I forgot to mention that the oystercatcher’s beak is slightly open.  Can you see that?  He was just beginning to yawn!

Return to Contents of Posts page       Related page:  Subject 6: Birds in a landscape

La Danse

La Danse

“La Danse” coloured pencil drawing, 260 x 315 mm. November 2013.

Remember “Take Me to the River”?  Here it is (below) to remind you.

“Take Me to the River” 240 x 525 mm, completed on 2nd October 2013.

The Little Pied Cormorant of “La Danse” is the same individual as the one in the drawing “Take Me to the River “.   I took the photos for these drawings on 19th September when a misty spring rain was falling.    In “Take Me to the River” the view is up-river towards East Fremantle.  In “La Danse” we look across the water to the riverbank opposite.  This area is part of North Fremantle.  It is a bonus when a bird is patient enough to let me get several different views of him in his surroundings.

Little Pied Cormorant is looking straight at us with his wings outstretched to ventilate his feathers.  He looks like he is striking a dance pose.  Even the trees, in their softness, suggest a stage set painting.  The wooden pile is the stage floor.  I had been viewing a documentary about the pupils of the Paris Opera Ballet during the period I was working on this drawing.  My mind was in ballet mode.  What ballet could this be?  There’s no swan and there’s no lake…therefore… “Cormorant River”?  (Come to think of it, there is a swan involved as this is the Swan River which flows from Perth to the sea at Fremantle.)

I wrote about my new Caran d’Ache wax and oil blender recently.   In “La Danse” the whole area behind the bird has been worked over with it.  While it makes the layers of colour more opaque, it doesn’t obliterate the white paper underneath.  (I like a hint of the paper below the colours to show through.  I think of it like breathing space.)  The blender knits together and enhances the colour layers without taking away any of the pencils’ subtlety.

While working on the new bird series, I see now that the elegance and intimacy I search for in romantic far away places like Kyoto and Paris are actually right here at home.  They’re here and I’m here.  What a discovery!

I have made a new “Subject” page.  It is called Subject 6: Birds in a landscape.  I will keep adding drawings to the page as I complete them.  “La Danse” is number 4.  Number 5 will be a pied oystercatcher – as long as my current work on the drawing board succeeds.

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