WOYWW 360–Technology and Narrow Boat Painting

Better late than never – it’s now Wednesday evening and I have yet to show the world my desk! I couldn’t seem to get myself going this morning and all I managed to do was some singing practice, and then this afternoon I was busy producing something to show you!

Here is the corner of my studio to the right of the window, with my main work area on the right, taken from across the room. I took this photo this morning.

Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and decided it was high time I got my cutting machine going again. She is called Sheba and is a Black Cat Cougar from Thyme Graphics, and I haven’t used her for several years, what with everything that’s been going on in my life over the past few years – problems with elderly parents, moving house, illness. During the past year I haven’t used my iMac much and like Sheba, it was in the corner of the room gathering dust. When I got it, I had the cutting software licence transferred fro the PC to Mac but never got round to setting it up, so I had to start doing that yesterday. Open on the screen you can see Final Cut Pro X, the Rolls-Royce of video editing software (available only on the Mac, unfortunately) – this is something else that I haven’t looked at for ages and wanted to revise my knowledge! On the right is my old laptop which works OK for some things but was replaced a few months ago with the one I am using to type this.

Hopefully if I can get Sheba up and running soon, I should be able to start producing more flowers and butterflies, and make some stencils etc. for my art. Watch this space.

Last week I began practising my narrow boat painting skills and soon realised that I didn’t have the right brushes so I ordered some on Ebay:

They came a couple of days ago, so this afternoon I did a bit more practising.

I am very grateful to Diana Taylor for her hint about translucent acrylics – she suggested mixing a bit of titanium white with the yellow and this certainly worked. The square of yellow roses bottom right was done this way, and the randomly-spaced ones have another coat of paler yellow on top which I quite like. I thought the spontaneity of the single brush stroke for each petal might be lost if I added more, but it seems to be OK. I can always add more yellow if I want. The new brushes are much better, but I had to experiment to get the right size, and also the right flow of paint – too thick and you can’t tail off the small petals to a nice fine line – too thin and the paint becomes translucent and too watery. Anyway I think I’m getting the hang of it now. In some ways it’s a shame that the boxes are painted red because it’s not an ideal background colour for this technique – a dark green or blue is better. Anyway I think I shall proceed with the acrylics and not bother to get any Humbrol enamels which I might not use again.

Happy WOYWW everyone, and a good productive week ahead on the creative front!