A demonstration - so no pressure !

A view of Brodick Castle 

   

Oil on canvas  30x24"

Bridget Hunter 2013

Sometimes I get asked to do demonstrations for local Art Groups. I don't know why I say yes except for the fact the people are so nice. But I find the whole thing terrifying and get a bit frantic working in front of others. I've been known to drop a paint laden palette upside down on the floor and once forgot to take the white paint. Maybe that's why folk turn up to watch knowing things will go awry.

This one was started as a demo and finished later - but I may have now overworked it. I'm not sure. 

Sketches of the castle done on my visit there while flapping away the hordes of midgies which enjoy biting any visitor on a damp day.

From easel to Frame. Done!

The light has been good recently with high clear skies. No snow here but bitterly cold. The only place for me  is inside working from sketches and memories of a winter sky and a walk along the shore. 

Then to pop it in a frame and say - "Done!" 

January Shore

Oil on canvas   30 x 24"

Bridget hunter 2013

Sold

The Way Home

Oil on board  24 x 20"

Bridget Hunter 2012

Sold

I've been searching through sketchbooks for resources for paintings and using memories to recall the essence of places. This latest painting is of a rather neglected sheep pen in the Galloway Hills and again I've included sheep as they are such an integral part of the landscape. 

A bit more of Skye

Oil on Board  24 x 20"

Bridget Hunter 2012

This is another version of "A Little Bit of Skye". There was something about the first painting that irritated me - so I thought I'd try a second time, same size and same 7 colours but a slightly different composition. In other words I've deviated from the original sketch but think the basic lush greens of Skye are better shown. 

A painting subject - or not?

Poppies in the sketchbook

Beautiful sunny days here a few weeks ago brought out the large patch of poppies I usually have a go at painting. But the timing was wrong this year and I came back to a patch of weird but wonderful wilting poppy heads. Irresistible  !! I've tried to capture them in a sketchbook and wonder if a white jug of drooping poppies would make a good painting subject. Something to think about .

Taking the ferry to Arran

 Holy Isle off the coast of Arran

Goatfell 

Brodick Castle

Village Shop at Whiting Bay

Whiting Bay

Lochranza Castle

I've been staying on the Island of Arran, an hour's ferry trip away. I've come to paint but the weather has been changeable so I've been sketching mostly and taking photographs. When it's damp the midgies are lethal so that's another excuse to leave the easel in the car.

If you'd like to see the "midgie dodging sketches" they're on my other blog 

Bridget Hunter's Sketchbooks

http://bridgethunter2.blogspot.co.uk/

A last Postcard to Vivien .

Cliff Walk at Ayr

Acrylic on Card  2012

This was my very last postcard, sent to Vivien  - http://vivienb.blogspot.co.uk/ - as part of our postcard exchange. It's been the best time - making and receiving cards from all around the world and not only seeing my Blogger friends' work in reality but to be able to keep them.

Round 2 is just about to start at http://walk-postcard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/keep-on-walking.html

with Cathy's wonderful new logo.

A Little Bit of Skye

A Little Bit of Skye

Oil on board  20 x 24'

Bridget Hunter 2012

Still trying out the new blue ( Windsor Blue, green shade ) and finding it makes some very intriguing mixes with Cadmium Red or Yellow Ochre or a warmer blue, or combinations of a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I work with a limited palette of 7 colours anyway so it's been an adventure into the unknown.

 This oil is based on a sketch done when I spent a week in Skye last year and, like this May, it rained !

A Greener Shade of Blue

Lights and Darks at Culzean

Oil on board   20 x 24"

Bridget Hunter 2012

I've painted the small pond at Culzean before but recently went sketching there again and used the sketch as a resource for this painting. It's very much based on a new colour I bought - Windsor Blue ( green shade) which is very strong and needs scouring powder to remove from the  hands !! It's always the same with a new colour though- the need to use it to prove you've not wasted your money.

Watercolour in sketchbook

Sketchbook Blog

It's been a long while since I bothered with my other Blog  'Bridget Hunter's Sketchbooks' ,  about a year probably, since most of my sketches are really done as resources for paintings and full of scribbles and notes or studies. But I've been a bit inspired lately by some of the wonderful Sketching Blogs around and how the sketches are finished works in themselves.

So I've decided to have a go again at proper -grown- up- sketching for the pure pleasure of drawing, and posting these more often should the results be 'blogworthy' !

Hence, a new blog banner.

I'd like to have a new more interesting blog title but at the moment I just can't think of anything. Any ideas welcome !!!

Sketching Kit

Acrylic Sketching at Ardnamurchan

Working from a Photo

The Small Pond Culzean

Oil on board  24 x 20"

Bridget Hunter 2012

I've been searching through sketchbooks and photos for a painting subject and found this one taken on a walk at Culzean Castle. I've always wanted to paint the shadows and reflections there but thought it might prove too tricky to get it right.

First a few thumbnail sketches to decide on the composition.

Then the exciting part - blocking in the main shapes.

 Palette - Ceruleum, Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Rose, White.

After that it all went downhill as the struggle with the foreground meant I kept wiping paint off and adjusting the plants and resorting to lots of coffee breaks and getting totally scunnered with it !

In the end the large mass of pale plants at the bottom disappeared as it seemed to work better with a darker area there. Then it seemed best to darken the tones of the left side to emphasis the light areas at the end of the path. It now sits facing the wall so I'm not tempted to do anymore and so overwork it.

However, I love the work of Ivon Hitchens and would love to be able to reduce the scene as he does in this painting.

Drooping Trees over Water
Ivon Hitchens  1957

Red Jacket with Cat

Oil on board  10 x 12"

Bridget Hunter  2012

I don't know cats, have never owned a cat. I'm a really a dog fan and always had a dog around the house.
But I'm still inside as its too cold to go sketching landscapes and I'm a bit fed up reworking still lifes. I've been browsing through sketchbooks when I came across sketches of a cat that chooses to live with my relatives in Wales.This could be a bit of a challenge - to try to capture the essence of Smudge, his air of indifference to my drawing him as he dozed on a convenient red jacket. It reminds me of a poem by Eleanor Farjeon
   

Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Pencil Sketch
Bridget Hunter 2011

November Postcard

This is my November Postcard to Martin - How to draw a tree .

"Bridget Hunter sent me a nice card with a tree grove in typical Scottish colors. She critically reflects her latest ambitions in playing golf which at present mainly seems to be an excuse to have coffee and a giggle at the club house after a couple of golf balls have been buried between the tree trunks. She calls that exercise.

I think that it is this tabooless exchange of international customs that contributes a lot to the excitement in this postcard exchange. I am impressed by the quality of the gouache which arrived here in perfect condition. Thanks Bridget and good luck with golfing :)."


This was sent as part of the postcard exchange featured on the Blog - Postcard from my Walk.

Sketching in a train

View from a Train

Gouache on paper  2011

I travelled by train to London in September and spent some of the journey trying to sketch landscapes seen through the window. It was a bit frantic I suppose - trying to remember what I'd just seen and getting it down as quickly as possible in either pencil or watercolour. Luckily I was beside an empty seat!

I've now been working with the sketches as a resource, using gouache on paper, to see if one of them might work as an oil painting.

Alloway Auld Kirk

Spent an Autumn afternoon hunkered down beside the gravestones at Alloway Auld Kirk to sketch this card in Acrylic for Liz in Australia - Liz and Borromini  So glad it arrived safely as a previous card disappeared into the pit of the lost post.

From Postcard from my Walk

"Today I received this amazing postcard from Bridget.

It is of the church in the village of Alloway – the setting for Robert Burn's poem Tam O’Shanter. Although I am in love with Scotland and been there 9 times in the past 12 years, I have only had limited exposure to Burns and did not know this poem at all. Of course I have looked it up now

She prophesied that late or soon,Thou wad be found, deep drown'd in Doon,Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,By Alloway's auld, haunted kirk.

Just wish I had someone with a lovely thick Scottish accent to read me the whole poem!"
  Liz and Borromini

November sketch.

November Trees

Bridget Hunter 2011

The sun is shining, the first light frosts are here and the Autumn colours are glorious. So packed my sketching kit, met Dorothy (http://www.dorothyhfisher.com/) and went to Rozelle pond. This is an attempt to capture a small part of the scene in watercolour.

Going by the Arran Ferry.

Victoria's Shoes.

Oil on board  10 x 12"

Bridget Hunter 2011

A painting being collected tomorrow by Lesley, the manager of Arran Art Gallery, to hang in the lovely island gallery there. Its based on some gouache sketches I did recently. Hope, for Lesley's sake,  the Arran ferry's back on schedule after the gales we've been having.

A sketching place

 One of my favourite sketching places is the nearby fishing village of Dunure.

There's a great little icecream shop there too.

But amongst the stories of Dunure castle there's the gruesome tale of the Abbot of Crossraguel Abbey who was roasted alive in the castle dungeons in an attempt to procure Abbey lands. Happily he was rescued and seemingly lived well into his 80's !

Dunure Castle & Mary, Queen of Scots

A Postcard for July

A bit of my Garden

Acrylic on Watercolour Paper   5 x 7"

Bridget Hunter 2011

Our Sketchercise group continue to send postcards from around the world.  I've a lovely collection so far and all so varied. This month my postcard to Ronelle Africantapestry in France shows part of my garden.

Postcard from my Walk

Out with the bling.

Bling is the right word - being ostentatious, flashy, flamboyant. At least that's how I describe my animal print shoes. I like to do a bit of bling now and again - a sort of minor rebellion against being this age and seeing me turning into mother in the mirror- and my way is with shoes. I must add that my wee mum was the most delightful of women who "blinged" in her own quiet way.

 But sometimes bling can be painful and that's the way with these stiletto heel shoes. So they're off to the charity shop. But I had to draw them before I bid them goodbye as a reminder that I once owned such a pair.

So they've been sketched in pencil and painted in gouache and maybe they'll appear in oil one day.