South African Air Force Avro Shackleton

 Whilst spending time at home doing a daily drawing of the human form out of my head, my other art class once a week was spent working on an oil painting of the South African Air force Avro Shackleton.

The work is based on a photograph of the machine that I took several years ago at an air show here in Cape Town. I used the image to develop a drawing – tonal study – of the aircraft.

Avro Shackleton A3 pencil drawing

After figuring out the tonal range of the image, I repeated the exercise in watercolour. This created a lovely tranquil looking image of the aircraft.

Avro Shackleton A3 watercolour

Up to this point the image was not particularly adventurous, in fact it was little more than the recreation of a photograph in different media. Something that computer packages purport to be able to do these days! I wanted to go for something a little different in the oil painting.

My first idea was to place the aircraft over the sea with a drifting rubber dingy of small lifeboat in the water, thus depicting the aircraft in the air sea rescue role. I looked at some paintings of seascapes with small boats in them and found one by JMW Turner. I used some of its background to create a mock up of what a painting might look like.

Avro Shackleton rough with lifeboat - A4 watercolour

The mock presence of the boat created some issues with composition and perspective which was a distraction from the main point of the image, the aircraft. So I tried again without the boat and more defined storm clouds.

Avro Shackleton - A4 watercolour rough

Then I looked at one of Turners most iconic painting, the ‘Fighting Temeraire’, and in particular the sky behind it. I began to wonder how Turner would approach and paint this aircraft. Another rough watercolour followed. This proved more acceptable so I used it as the starting point of the painting and created the first glaze of the painting on the canvas board.

Avro Shackleton final watercolour and first oil glaze

As the painting developed the sky went through a number of iterations such as the one below. Here the suggestion of a horizon can be seen in part of the image.

Avro Shackleton Oil glaze - intermediate stage 

I decided to enhance the horizon suggestion without making it too explicit, the idea is to leave the background to the viewers imagination whilst the foreground (aircraft) is realistic and explicit.

Avro Shackleton Final oil painting - 20 inch x 30 inch

I hope you like the final result.

Learning figure drawing

I guess most people think that to learn figure drawing one spends each day at an easel confronted by a naked person. Your role is to observe and draw. I have done some of this, perhaps twice in the month, but it is not where the workload lay for me.

All the material presented in this month’s blog entry was drawn on A4 scrap paper. I used various pencils and found that the easiest to work with are ‘Staedtler tradition’ and a normal plastic eraser, and a decent pencil sharpener.

Paul challenged me to draw a person based on my mental model of the human form. The purpose of this is to establish my understanding of proportions. So I began, drawing the standing man without any reference material in front of me.

Drawing out of my head became a daily activity, early attempts revealed significant problems between what I thought a person looks like and the reality. I think most of the problem is not a faulty mental image so much as an incomplete image held in the brain.

Once I realised my problem, I began reading and studying human anatomy. Apart from several books on anatomy for artists, I also found 3D anatomy models (apps) that I could refer to via my phone! With these supporting tools, and with Paul pointing out various failings, I started to focus on specific parts of the body, such as how the knee looks.

The next hurdle was to overcome the stiff lifeless appearance of my ‘little man’. By now I was drawing this figure each day and would by the end of the month have clocked up about eighty images of ‘him’. To loosen up a bit Paul suggested drawing a curved line and then fitting the form to it. This proved to be great fun, I love it!

Then it was just little men from the imagination – it remains a significant challenge as you can see from the last few I have drawn. These examples are about the sixties or seventies in the count of my drawings based on the mental image.

The standing man becomes a little too tedious after three weeks so I began to look for different poses, each presenting their own challenge as different parts of the anatomy come into view. What I found was a little loosening up by swirling the pencil to get a feel for the shape to be drawn helps as a starting point. The image below illustrates this process quite well I think.

My interest in animals and in Paleontology led me to start exploring how to represent the animals of the Permian period. A little research into their skeletons and works by other artists resulted in the image below.

With a prehistoric animal under my belt it was time for the little man to pose in different positions; my next effort was to put him on all fours.

Then I began to just doodle with both animals and the human figure.

My imagination began to take hold.

I started to try and tell a little story with my little men.

In conclusion, after a month of effort I am able to draw a recognizable figure in a variety of action poses. Much remains to be learned. I think the majority of the knowledge I need lies in knowing what and how the different parts of a person fit together and the relative proportion of the various parts. For example the hand is three quarters of the length of the upper arm. The forearm is longer than the hand but shorter than the upper arm.

Figure Drawing

One of my ultimate art goals is to develop the ability to draw figures in my paintings to add interest and also I feel it is a form of ‘product differentiation’. Many contemporary ‘hobby’ artists avoid the human form and face because it is difficult. Difficult sounds to me like a good reason to try to master the art!

I went to a set of five morning sessions delivered by Paul Birchall. It was part of the local university summer school; I think it was at the start of 2019. After I retired I returned to classes with Paul with the intention of developing my figure drawing skills further. That was at the start of 2020, Covid 19 then came along and art classes were put on hold.

Paul suggested a few practice exercises I could undertake during the start of the Covid period but with time the isolation and distractions of dealing with the new reality ended those efforts.

Paul has started providing tuition via zoom with a new arrangement whereby he acts as coach. I enlisted a week ago and began a new venture into the tricky realm of representing humans by drawing a skull.

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Drawing of human skull

The work shown here is on an A3 sheet of 60gsm layout paper. I used Lyra Art Design pencils ranging from HB to 9B. I usually start by getting the overall shape and proportions right with an outline drawing. On this occasion I then sent a quick snapshot of the outline to Paul for comment.. Once the master had approved of that stage, I followed up with an exercise in shading to define the form by delineating areas of cast and form shadows.

The initial outline work uses the point of the pencil and a putty rubber (extensively). The definition of form requires the use of the side of the pencil held at about 30 degrees to the paper. I find that during this process any error in the form drawing becomes apparent and so some putty rubber and line work is still required.

Following the skull drawing I was assigned the task of drawing figures from my head without any reference material. I tried a few, disaster! Following that I was to cast a photograph of an artist model up on a large flat surface. Then, set up an easel and draw the model form ‘life’. I have completed two of these so far.

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Pencil figure drawings

The image above shows the first figure I drew on the right and the second attempt on the left. Both are A3 drawings created on 60 gsm layout paper. The first drawing was created using the Derwent Graphic pencils, the second Lyra Art Design pencils. The Lyra pencils work better on the smooth and slippery layout paper. Each image required about eight to ten hours effort. I spread the time to produce these drawings over two days for each one. Constantly comparing the drawing to what is on the screen in tiring and requires concentration. As soon as I catch myself working the image without direct eye contact with the feature I am creating, I stop. I will explain my reasoning for this practice below. The model was photographed and made available to artists by 'Pose Space' on the Internet. 

A number of texts that I have read discuss the issue of drawing what is visible, not what our mind thinks the subject should look like! This is the perception versus vision problem that one has to overcome to become an artist of real world subjects. My interpretation of what the various authors say is that our eye acts like a camera and creates a digital image. Our conscious mind looks briefly at the image projected from the eye, and then it searches for pre-existing models of the displayed image. Once the mind finds the ‘right’ model, it uses this model, updated with a few new details from the image on the eye, and acts accordingly.  The problem of course is that when it comes to people, and particularly portraits, the viewer is as conversant in the reality as the artist! This results in viewers’ ability to judge the ‘truth’ of the artwork. This is what makes figures and faces so difficult to represent.

This is a list of some books that address the issue of perception versus vision.

Edwards, B. (1988) Drawing on the artist within. How to release your hidden creativity. Glasgow: Fontana / William Collins and Sons.

Elliott, V. (2007) Traditional oil painting. Advanced techniques and concepts from the Renaissance to the present. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.

Jacobs, T.S. (1986) Drawing what the eye sees. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications Inc.

A third Addo Elephant drawing, and a Pink Elephant

The drawing below is the third in the series of Elephant images I am producing. On this occasion I returned to the format of the first drawing and decided to try out a different background. Utilizing the idea Paul Birchall put forward to develop the ‘Letter from Earth’ painting I rubbed graphite around the outline drawing of the Elephant. Once I had established the background ‘grey scale’ I drew the animal with that as a reference tone.

I chose to adopt the dark background so that the light falling on the Elephant would be more clearly depicted. In fact the background had another effect, directly on my artistic rendition. I was so conscious of it that once the drawing was completed with HB, B, B2 and B5 pencil, I skipped straight to the softer B8 and B9 for my darkest darks. Most of the shadow areas of the Elephant are paler than the background. I think this has given the image a more ‘3D look’, the Elephant head certainly looks to me like it is emerging from the paper.

 

The drawing is on A3 size 200gsm paper. Pencils used were Lyra Art Design and there is probably about 16 to 20 hours of actual work involved in its creation.

Pink Elephant

At some point in the process of creating the third Addo Elephant drawing I was overcome with a need to do something else! So I used the same image outline on a small, A4, watercolour paper to splosh some colour about.

I was actually testing out a piece of old board to see if it would sustain a watercolour being stretched, without staining the paper from behind.

Not regarding this as a serious exercise in creating an artistic work, I thought perhaps painting an Elephant in Rose Madder (W&N Cotman) might be entertaining. To create a dark background I mixed Pthalo Green with Rose Madder to create a grey wash. I am still adding colour to the painting but the image below is where it reached as a two colour rendition.

A second Elephant from Addo National Park

I received some feedback regarding my earlier work on the Elephant subject, mainly about including the rest of the Elephant. The image below is the result of a new A3 work that addresses those comments.

My personal view on this is that the inclusion of the legs changes the overall symmetry of the composition to its detriment, I prefer the earlier approach, and it just feels more intimate and pleasing.

I used a set of Lyra Rembrandt graphite pencils for this one. I used a photograph I took in the Addo NP several years ago as my reference. I see that there are numerous comments on the internet about artwork that fails to give proper attribution and confirm permission from the original photographer. I am fortunate to have a lifelong obsession with taking photographs, consequently I have a large collection of my own images to work from.

Addo Elephant No2

Addo Elephant Portrait

 I have an intention to do some art every day. It never really works out that way... L but I try. One approach is to have a sheet prepared and waiting with an outline of a subject on it. Then I can spend an hour, or a few minutes, with pencil and putty rubber developing the image. I did this with some of the locomotive drawings I mention in previous posts. I thought that living in Africa made wildlife a logical subject. I have hundreds of photographs to draw on (Excuse the pun).

This work is intended to be a bit of a departure from the – what I see as traditional – view of an Elephant with big tusks, facing the viewer, with dust and so on around its legs. I decided to focus on the face alone, and so I have merely suggested the forelegs and left everything else out. See what you think.

Portrait of an Elephant in Addo NP

The drawing is on A3 paper. I used a set of Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils and 200 gsm drawing paper. To date these are the best pencils I have worked with for drawings of this kind.

SAAB Gripen over the Swartberg - creation of an oil painting

 This painting was quite an involved project. I began with a concept of two SAAF Gripen flying over the Swartberg Pass in the South African Swartberg Mountains. My inspiration came from experiencing a pair of these aircraft low flying over the area whilst I was out walking at a place called Groenfontein.

I had taken a photograph from the top of the pass so had a backdrop from a fair height looking south. For the aircraft image, I used my Airfix 1:72 scale model of a SAAB Gripen. I placed it in different poses on a flat surface, and photographed it with a digital camera.

Composition

These photographs (Image 1) were then rather crudely combined using Microsoft PowerPoint. The resulting image / slide was saved as a jpg format file and posted in the Aviation Art forum on Wet Canvas. This has proved to be a fairly reliable and constructive source of advice on matters relating to aviation and art. I have used it for several years and like it.

Image 1 - Airfix model mock up

One member of the forum advised me to use a free software package called ’Sketchup’; it has a library of three dimensional models of most aircraft which can be positioned and posed easily in a virtual space. I did this and then placed the resulting images into my PowerPoint background and posed a selection of compositions on the Wet Canvas forum for additional ideas and criticism (Image 2).

 

Image 2 - Thumbnails of Sketchup composition

From these ideas and with some ‘votes’ from the forum members I selected version two as the basis for the eventual painting.

Artwork development

I usually start my artwork with pencil drawings. I find this provides me with a feel for how much tonal range I need to use to give the feeling of depth to an image. I am basically creating atmospheric perspective. The drawing process also assists me in becoming familiar with the shape and salient features of the subject (Image 3).

 

Image 3 - Initial A4 drawings

Once I was happy with the pencil drawings, the ones above were an A4 initial sketch. I worked from them on A3 paper to re draw them in more detail.

Watercolour work

Following the drawing stage I moved to the colour decision process. I restored an airbrush and compressor arrangement that has languished in my cupboard for many years and used it to create a background wash. Onto this wash I then painted the two aircraft (Image 4).

 

Image 4 - Watercolour study

I can’t say I was particularly happy with the result as a piece of art in its own right. But felt it served its purpose. How wrong I was!

My main reason for producing a watercolour in one of these projects is to create a full colour idea of what the final painting will look like. It tells me what colours to use and where they may clash. Except in this case I did not pay enough attention to the small issue of aircraft camouflage!

The oil painting

The process I am describing started in August 2020, by the time I started on the Oil painting proper it was October.

I outlined my composition and created a Burnt Umber under painting of the aircraft, then worked over this with Payne’s Grey. After that I glazed in some hues that I thought would serve as the basis for the landscape behind the aircraft.

I then painted over the aircraft in a colour mix that more closely met the colours visible on photographs of the real aircraft in service with the SAAF. This is where I began to see a problem. The SAAF colour scheme is designed to make the aircraft fade into the haze of distant clouds or landscapes (Image 5).

 

Image 5 - Initial oil painting

I decided at this point that the landscape had to be darker than the aircraft so that they would stand out. So I duly spent some ‘happy time’ rendering a suitably realistic landscape behind the aircraft (Image 6).

 

Image 6 - Adjusted painting with landscape completed

This looked quite hopeful until I converted the image to greyscale. I could see tone was an issue and any ideas of glazing in a distant haze would also allow the aircraft to blend in! (Image 7)

 

Image 7 - Greyscale of adjusted painting

As a result I worked this version over with some Umber to darken the background and ‘cool it down’ so it would recede (Image 8).

 

Image 8 - Landscape with Umber glaze

This worked though I lost some of my lovely landscape details. With the addition of some contrails I did manage to gain a feel for movement and speed in the image. Many aviation paintings depict the aircraft in perfect focus and detail which makes the machine hang motionless in the air.

 

Image 9 Greyscale image of Umber glaze

A monochrome version of the image revealed that the tonal range, plus the contrast with the landscape, now brought the aircraft into the foreground (Image 9).

My final step was to complete the detailing of the aircraft and enhance the contrails to strengthen the feel for speed (Image 10).

Image 10 - Final painting / artwork

Winsor & Newton Artisan (water mixable oils) colours on Fredix canvas board. (50 x 76 cm).