This is a small class, providing individual guidance and tuition in watercolours and sketching. Subjects will vary according to weekly requirements and preference. Classes will take place at Karen’s studio in Barbourne, Worcester.
Autumn Term: The course will run for 5 sessions on the following Fridays: 29th September, 13th October, 27th October, 10th November, and 24th November.
All drawing is hard, subjects just seem to become easier when you are more familiar with them. However, there are a number of ways you can make life easier for yourself and one is to consider negative space.
Negative space is the area that surrounds the subject you are drawing, it describes the subject as equally as if you were looking at the subject itself. For example, if a person is stood with one hand on their hip a triangle will form between the bent arm and the line of the body, the shape of that triangle will determine the angles of the bent arm.
The drawing of dancers below show on the left the finished work and on the right the principle areas of negative shapes.
A good way to practice looking for shape is to set up a simple still life and describe the objects purely by drawing the space around them as in the example below.
Negative shapes can be found in all sorts of areas including the white surrounding an eye iris and areas of shadow in an uneven surface. Training your eye to spot them very quickly becomes part of your drawing process.
The approach to Aberystwyth from the east necessitates the crossing of twenty miles (from Llangurig onwards) of open, undulating hills sparsely dotted with signs of human habitation. These hills divide the mountains of Snowdonia to the north from the smoother landscape of Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire to the south, dissecting Wales across her lightly populated middle.
The journey is at its most glorious in winter, the hills glistening with the whiteness of fresh snow. For me, the destination is a coastal university town that drops to the Irish Sea with a riot of architectural fashions and people. The seafront is predominantly high Victorian, a ghost of a late 19th Century tourist boom that left whisperings of grandeur in the architecture, and at its centre, Aberystwyth’s grand pier reaches out into the relentless waves.
Pleasure piers hold a fascination for me, both as an artist, with the marriage of manufactured engineering and earthly elements, and as a studier of people, desiring both the engineered fun and the wild experience. At this moment in time, it is tired and, like the hotels and guesthouses, echoes days of sunshine, ice creams, and pleasures, now long past. However, like vinyl records, I can’t help but hope that the seaside pier will one day have its renaissance!
My painting is captured during the winter – my favourite time, as the waves drown out the squawking of seagulls, and the structures of the pier brace themselves against the harsh elements. I don’t even contemplate setting up an easel, but follow Turner’s lead with a sketchbook. Luckily, there is a strategically placed pavilion that offers just enough cover to sit with my watercolours for a time.
Drawing is fundamental to all art, whatever the discipline. It makes you look, if you do it properly, and to study your subject, you must get inside its head. I must have stood and studied the grand pier many times, yet this is my first painting of it. The sketch was drawn on a relatively calm day, with the watercolour painted straight onto paper with no pencil (drawing doesn’t dictate the use of pencil) and the time period was decided by the attention span of a small terrier, apt to make mischief when bored.
The sketch sat in my plan chest for two more years of visits to the pier, each time making mental notes and repeatedly taking the same photograph from a slightly different angle. A visit in December gave me the sounds – the sounds to put into the paint.
The most difficult part of the artistic process is bringing the art piece to life – it is as precarious and ephemeral as conception, and its individuality and ability to communicate can be wiped out with just an overenthusiastic sweep of the brush or carve of the palette knife. I started with an accurate drawing, taken from a photograph, the purpose of which was not to collect a photographic representation, but because I knew if I messed up the proportion now, it would greatly irritate me later on.
When I transfer the drawing to canvas, I have an essence in my mind that is neither the sketch nor the drawing, but is an intuitive feeling formed from a combination of the sketch, the reference photograph, the experience of standing on the seafront, and my own identity This is the beginning. For the entire time I paint, I must be in the painting.
When approaching how to capture the sea, it’s hard not to think of the works of Joan Eardley and Dawnne McGeachy.
Joan Eardley painting the sea
Joan Eardley was a Scottish artist, born in 1921, and is noted for her portraiture of the street children of Glasgow, and for her landscapes of Catterline, a fishing village in north east Scotland. She stayed at a simple cottage in the village, with no running water and no flushing toilet! Her work seems to respond to her subject rather than representing it – she painted the sea directly from its source, often strapping her easel to large supports on the side of the harbour, so that the resulting works became soaked with spray, literally including the natural elements in the finished piece. Eardley died of breast cancer in 1963.
Dawnne McGeachy
Dawnne McGeachy is also a Scottish artist, who is currently working. She studies the forces that make waves, using mathematical equations and the Beaufort wind force scale. She sets out the working of each wave state using the scale, then paints directly on top, encapsulating the mathematics within. Her fascination with the sea began as a child, growing up on the Kintyre Cambeltown Peninsular in western Scotland, and hearing the stories of her fisherman father. However, McGeachy holds a deep fear of the sea, knowing its dangers from her father’s stories, so, unlike Eardley, most of her process takes place in her studio.
I always love to draw and paint flowers form life rather than photographs and it is often watercolour that I choose to work with. An unforgiving medium watercolour requires patience and best results are often obtained by spontaneity and minimal application. The simplest of brush strokes can give vibrancy and beauty that can be difficult to achieve in other heavier based paints.
Cherry BlossomFaded Tulips
Daffodils
In The Gallery Window presents different works every few weeks in the window of t the gallery at York Place for passers by to enjoy.
This week the gallery window at 16 York Place is showing Beach Huts a small oil painting by the late Ruth Burden.
Ruth had her studio in central Worcester and I am privileged to both have known her and hold two of her small paintings. Ruth studied in Birmingham and Bath under such greats as Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and William Scott and her work is still in galleries and collections.
She had the ability to capture everyday life, including people, with a humour and sensitivity that made the stylised forms utterly familiar.
Beach Huts (I have named the painting as it came to me after Ruth’s passing) captures the sun and the sea and the vast expanse of the coast, making us, the viewer, feel so small. I love the simplicity of the figures, small yet gestural and the warmth from the Naples Yellow sand. The beach huts grounding the painting, informing us that this is a landscape that we choose to frequent. The painting is simply lovely.
Ruth lived and worked in a large house on the edge of Britannia Square in Worcester and at the end of her life moved to Windmill Close which culminates York Place. Beverly Schofield’s account of Ruth Burden’s life was recorded in The Guardian in 2012 you can read it here https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/26/ruth-burden-obituary
In order to free up space for new work I am clearing out some drawings, paintings and prints. Most have been produced as demonstrations to classes but some are pieces from ideas that I no longer wish to pursue. I have tried to price them very reasonably (most between £5 and £30) and on the more expensive I’ve added a ‘make me an offer ‘ tag. I’ll add them as I sort them so watch this space!
‘Cottages on Hill’ 24cm x 11cm Watercolour £25‘Dandelion Patch’ 15cm x 20cm lino cut £15‘Three Pears’ 16cm x 13cm watercolour £10‘Pink Flowers’ 20cm x 15cm Watercolour £10
Paint With Me is a series of designer colouring packs and kits that make fantastic stocking fillers or small gifts. From Funky Pheasant to the delicate Rudbeckia sunflower there is something for everyone – perfect festive holiday entertainment.
Karen has developed them specifically as an activity of creative fun for all ages. Absolutely no artistic ability is required as all drawing, colour choices etc are supplied. Full instructions are provided in an attractive colour brochure with a little twist at the end for the more adventurous.
Funky PheasantRudbeckiaPoinsettiaRobin With Rosehips
Packs contain 2 A5 preprinted sheets and 2 greetings cards to colour, envelopes and full instructions.
Kits contain the above plus set of watercolour paints, brush, water containers and mixing palette.
Ordered direct from Karen Stone Art the packs are priced at £10 each and the kits with paints, brush and all materials at £25 each.
Hello everyone and I hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe, and sane, in these strange times.
Basil and I have been enjoying the lock down working in the studio (me) and going for walks (Basil). What a strange time it has been, I’ve really missed meeting up with people both socially and through teaching so I thought it was about time I touched base with everyone and tell you what I’ve been up to.
I was very fortunate at the start of lock down to receive a grant from Severn Arts to complete a project over May. My Project “The Sketchbook Project” contained work from both myself and others who put their sketchbooks forward. Principally I concentrated on things that were unique to lockdown; Basil, zoom dance classes and an unexpected bunch of flowers. You can read more about the project in an earlier news item. I was also fortunate enough to receive a commission for the lovely Bertie, the dachshund.
Bertie Sketch
Whilst the impossibility of running face to face classes has been frustrating I have dipped my toe into the world of zoom and virtual learning (something I never thought I would do) and the two classes I now run have proved to be great fun and as one student pointed out participants get direct tuition in a greater quantity than in a normal class. Fortnightly is a general drawing and painting class Projects.
Every Wednesday evening is a portraits class.
Independent Woman
As normal classes will almost certainly not resume in the near future please get in touch if you feel you would like to try a virtual class. That said I am hoping to organise some outdoor sketching and painting, with social distancing, so again get in touch if you are interested . Here is a picture from a session last year.
Outdoor sketching
I have been busy working on my own work with new works in watercolour including some experimental ‘playing’ based on the works of Turner.
Clouds
I have now linked my Etsy shop to my Instagram, there is not much on there at the moment but I will be adding more things covering a range of subjects and prices and following my Instagram page is the best way of keeping in touch with what I am working on so please feel free to follow me.
Finally, as a bit of a detour to my usual free flowing paintwork I have been working on some marketing material for some beautiful new homes in the Cotswolds. As you can see – not finished yet!
Hello everyone and I hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe, and sane, in these strange times.
