I liked the way these two pots have turned out. Putting the time into the drawing certainly helped.
Both are available in my Etsy shop AnneLawsonArt. For more details of the green one click here
and for details of the gold one click here
A pink one and a blue one are in the pipeline.
You know me by now….I like to jump around from project to project. So instead of finishing my painting for the exhibition I decided to paint teapots. I have painted them before, and from that my friend Liz lent me one of hers to paint. I love its sensuous curves, and the wide belly looked like it would be good to experiment with watercolour washes.
So off I went and created these two paintings. The photos show them with the original drawing.
However I wasn’t happy with the proportions of the original drawing, so more paper and more drawing. I began with spirals, to help form the elliptic shape of the pot.
I did pottery many years ago (and would love to return to it). My teacher showed me how to make a teapot, and I remember him telling me about the spout. The end of it has to be higher than the lid and to attach it we cut off the side of the pot. I used those ideas to help me ‘sculpt’ the drawing.
While I was understanding more, I still wasn’t happy. More paper, more drawing. Some geometry, some measuring, and some understanding of angles. One trick I have learnt is to think of angles as a clock face. It helped me to see that the line of the spout went at about where the 5 is on a clock.
Now I was more confident that I understood the pot and could draw it more accurately.
The next step was to trace the outline of the drawing ~ this makes it easy to transfer onto good watercolour paper for the painting. Now that I am looking at this simple line drawing I wonder if I haven’t made the belly of the pot, under the spout, too wide. I will notice more inconsistencies as I paint.
Lastly I did a tonal drawing. This is a map of the dark areas and highlights. Drawings like this are an invaluable reference tool, helping give the painting a 3D effect. To make it I put another piece of tracing paper over the line drawing and started to really look at where the darks and lights are. You will see that I left the highlights white, because when I do the painting I have to remember to leave these areas the white of the paper. It is the darkest darks that add oomph to the drawing. Often artists are too scared to go as dark as is necessary. I haven’t done a very good job of modelling the belly of the pot, but there is enough there to help me understand some of the tonal complexities.
I love working my way through drawings like this. It reminds me how lazy I can be, with my first attempt being ‘good enough’. Until, as I painted and realised that it wasn’t good enough, because I had been listening to that lazy part of my brain that says “It is a teapot. You know what a teapot looks like. It looks like this….” The problem with this process is that I don’t take the time to really look and analyse. Where is the edge of the lid in relation to the foot? The top of the spout to the top of the handle? What angle does this line take? Is the pot as tall as it is wide? (Actually it is wider.) Where would the spout attach? How does the handle attach?
So, instead of drawing a teapot I ended up drawing lines and angles and spirals and negative spaces. Now I am intrigued to see what the painting looks like. I will certainly let you know!
Before I showed you what was happening in in my studio (and lovely to get some links to other creative spaces) I was musing about using social media. I have found a few things to be useful, and thought I would pass them on. If you know of other helpful ones, please share in the comments.
“Show your work” by Austin Kleon is one of those books that seemed to jump into my hands. After the first couple of pages I knew I wanted to read it. It begins with this quote from Honore de Balzac:
For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself noticed.
Artists of all stripes these days are so lucky; the internet gives us immediate access to millions of people around the world. As Kleon says ‘In order to be found, you have to be findable’ and a big part of that is sharing. His premise is
…..by generously sharing their ideas and their knowledge [artists] often gain an audience that they can then leverage when they need it — for fellowship, feedback and patronage…..this book is about how to influence others by letting them steal from you.
It’s an interesting concept and one that makes sense to me. I know that I have learnt so much from people who give generously of their knowledge, support, feedback. They are (you are!) the people I want to hang around with. And I want to share too. Klein says (and forgive so many snippets from him, but there are lots of bits that grab me) the minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others, share a reading list, point to reference materials, show a step-by-step video. Give credit to others — “Share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care.”
Kleon advocates learning out in the open, out there on the Internet. Like him I believe that we are life long learners and the more we do something the better we get at it. He has this great quote from Clay Shirky in his book “Cognitive Surplus”:
On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.
Which leads Kleon to advocate daily dispatches, where you show the world, or your little part of it, what you have been working on; it’s a thinking out loud time. It allows the audience to see the process behind your creation, and to engage with you and your work. That engagement might be as simple as an Instagram heart or as complex as a helpful critique. It may even be a purchase of the work.
Once a day, after you have done your day’s work, go back to your documentation [photo, video, diagram, notes, interview…you get the picture] and find one little piece of your process that you can share. Where you are in your process will determine what that piece is. If you’re in the very early stages, share your influences and what’s inspiring you. If you are in the middle of executing a project, write about your methods or share works in progress. If you have just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor or write about what you learned. If you have lots of projects out into the world you can report on how they’re doing — you can tell stories about how people are interacting with your work.
The book is crammed with things that make me want to underline and quote. But I will leave it there, because this is where I am at the moment. Let me share the link to Kleon, because, as he says, if there is no link no one can follow it
Show your work! 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered ~ Austin Kleon
and to his website, blog, newsletter
I am teaching myself how to do these daily dispatches, learning from others about how the internet world works and sharing what I know when I can. That’s why social media has been on my mind lately. It’s why I am finding information and newsletters about engaging with it useful.
I have come across Meighan O’Toole very recently. In fact I found her through Instagram. Her strength is using social media and sends out a weekly newsletter. I know that there are so many people who do something similar; if you know of a good one, please let me know in the comments.
I like Meigan because she is one of those who generously shares her knowledge. Her business is to connect people and technology, especially social media. I guess she knows that if she offers sensible, usable advice then people will come to her for the paid sessions. Her free newsletter is full of resources, tips, links to articles about social media and so on.
The last one is the newsletter from Red Dot Blog. Jason Horejs is the owner of Xanadu Gallery, so, of course his information is aimed at visual artists. I always find something of interest in the newsletter, and the comments are worth reading too.
Guiding hands are such wonderful things. Do you have a support that you would like to share? And if it is your own, that’s okay too!
If, as I said last time, I want to raise my profile as an artist, than I have to do more than just dabble in social media. I love to seek out knowledge. I have found some good books and sites that have helped me, from where I have been taking ideas and synthesising them with my own experience and knowledge. I want to use this post as a way of getting my thoughts about social media out of my brain, so I will share those resources on another post soon.
Artistically I want you to see, on all the different sites, my love for the beauty and delicacy of the natural world. I paint feathers, shells, and other treasures that come my way (and some teapots!), plants from the outback of Australia and from Flinders Island. So my activity on whichever form of social media has to show this. The place online where I can exhibit many of my works is the Etsy shop, AnneLawsonArt. Therefore social media has to link back to the shop. And one thing I have learnt is that if there is no link, then people cannot follow it!
Of course the shop is not just an exhibition space. I sell there, and I would like to increase sales. To do this I need to tell the story of my work. What inspires me, how I create the works, how a piece could look in people’s homes. Building up my profile as an artist is entwined with selling my work.
I have explored different sites; some I can’t be bothered with and others I enjoy. When I wrote about joining Instagram, Meeks, a talented writer, wrote, in the comments, how lucky visual artists were. The internet loves photos and I enjoy the sites that are photo dominant. They are perfect for artists.
So, some thoughts on the ones I enjoy and can see a reason for being on……
Shop update
This is not strictly a social media site. It is a feature offered by Etsy ~ sellers post photos with short captions, then link the photo to an item in the shop. The fantastic thing about it is that it goes to the Etsy feed of anyone who has bought from my shop or made it one of their favourites. In other words I can speak directly to people who have already enjoyed my art! It’s a great way to invite customers behind the scenes, to show how a drawing could look in a frame or my creative process.
You know that I am a newcomer to Instagram @annelawson54 but already I am a convert! I love looking at the work of so many artists, liking, commenting. I love exploring hashtags. Mostly I love choosing photos to post, selecting ones that tell people more about me as an artist. The more I use it the more I can see ways to tell the story of my drawings and paintings. I am challenged to find appropriate hashtags and interesting ways to encourage people to visit the Etsy shop. It looks like being fun too, with challenges that pop up and people to interact with.
Just in case you don’t know Pinterest is a like a big filing cabinet, a place to keep all sorts of bits and pieces you collect. It took me a while to join because I knew that it would encourage me to explore all sorts of fascinating but time wasting worm holes. What made me sign up was the realisation that many of my views on Etsy came from Pinterest. This month I have had 282 visits. I needed to have a presence there. So I am Anne LawsonArt
I use it in a couple of ways. The first seven boards are of my work and each item I pin links directly back to the item in the shop. This is important because the images can be repinned and then float off into the virtual world. I want them to be like kites, with a string back to the Etsy shop. It is not fool proof, but it gives me some control. It makes me smile when Pinterest sends me an “We have found pins you might like” email and one of the images is a feather of mine!
The other way I use it is to pin things that I am interested in ~ blogs on watercolour brushes, inspirational art, sketchbook ideas, things to read and so on. I always make sure that there is a link back to the original site. That’s courteous behaviour.
Like Instagram I am only beginning to understand how to utilise it properly. For example I have found out about group boards, and want to find out more about them.
Like most people I have been on Facebook for a few years, and I set up my AnneLawsonArt page not long after. My blog links to it, and I post photos about my work. But it is only recently that I have understood what a unique platform it is for me. Again, things to learn. I have left it in the corner a little too long, while I have been playing with the shiny new sites. It doesn’t bring a lot of people to the Etsy shop, but I know that people see my work there. A painting friend remarked that she hadn’t seen any of my work on Facebook for a while, making me realise that people do take note, even if they don’t “like” or comment.
Facebook is almost an amalgamation of many of the good points of the other sites. Photos are vital, but there is room to write a decent caption. I can post a series of photos that tell a story. There are groups where I can hang out with people who share my passion. I can link back to people who inspire me, or blogs that give advice that others might find useful. I like to share the work of others because I don’t want my online presence to always be NEW ITEM IN THE SHOP!!! or BUY!BUY!BUY!
Which brings me to here, my Blog
It is so different to the other sites. This is home. This is where I sit down with you guys, my friends, with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and chat. You let me chat away about my art, or anything else that I feel like talking about. The thing that got me into blogging in the first place was that I could talk about the things that I wanted to talk about. It is fantastic, and humbling, that there are people who enjoy listening to me! Your likes and comments are important to me, they remind me of the wonderful supportive blogging world.
I don’t think a lot is going to change here. Last year I made an effort to answer “Yes” to the question “Does an artist live here?”. Lots of posts are art inclined, but not all. It depends on where I am and what I am thinking about. Some of you have bought my art and that is fantastic! I appreciate your support of my work. But I certainly don’t want my posts here to always be linking back to the shop. This is home. The art work is hanging on the walls, you can look or not as we sip that glass of wine and natter!
So…that’s where I am at the moment, splashing around in various social media places. If you are there, give me a wave. 🙂 And let me know in the comments if you have a different take on these sites or others.
Don’t we just love to see how creative projects are progressing? I have been following the progress Kate’s Cloth of Heaven, a beautiful quilt she is making as a special present. So, I thought you might like to follow the progress of my painting of Cullen cinereum.
Often I draw feathers, which I sell in my Etsy shop. I am also working on other, looser watercolour paintings. However my C. cinereum painting is a larger, more precise botanic art painting that I am painting for a special project.
I am one of a group of botanic artists who go to Menindee each year to collect plants that were first collected in the area by Dr Hermann Beckler, a member of the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860. Our aim is to collect all 120 of his specimens and then do a painting of each of them. You can find out more about the Beckler’s Botanical Bounty Project on our website.
This October was the fifth time the Fella and I had journeyed up there. I was looking specifically for this plant, C. cinereum. Beckler collected four plants in the Cullen genus. I have collected and painted the other three, now it was time to search for this one. Below are my paintings of the first three.
I found it easily enough, on the dry bed of Lake Pamamaroo. So I collected my specimens [and yes, we have permits to do this] and set up my work space back in Menindee’s Civic Hall.
The first stage of painting is not any art work at all, but a lot of research. Accurate identification of the plant is crucial and that means working through the species key provided in reference books ~ what makes this plant Cullen cinereum and not C. discolor or one of the other species? What are the features of the genus? As well there are structural things to look at ~ how does the leaf join to the stem; are all the leaflets the same size? What is it’s habit and what identifying features do I need to include in the drawing?
Some artists move on to doing microscopic work and produce delightful drawings of the tiny parts of a plant. Unfortunately I am not very good at doing this. I do enlarged drawings of different sections, such as leaf joints and flower buds. Such drawings help me understand the plant and are a great reference.
Once I have a good understanding of the specimen before me, I begin a measured line drawing. Botanic art is done at size. Any enlargement, such as microscopic work, is indicated, for example x2, x10 and so on. Tracing paper is great for line drawings as you can rub out as often as you like and not destroy the paper.
This time I also managed to get a tonal drawing done. I laid another piece of tracing paper over the line drawing and shaded in the darker areas I could see on the specimen. Aside from colour matching, that’s all I have time to do up in Menindee. [You may remember the story of the little ladybird that hatched on the plant as I was drawing it.]
So, back home and it was time to transfer the line drawing to the good sheet of paper. I am using Fabriano watercolour paper, 300gsm. At this stage I had to consider the composition of the painting. I am fortunate that the specimen I used had a very nice shape to it. You can see the nice flow in the line drawing. It has a gentle curve that nestles into the corner of the paper and then the strong diagonal across the page. As well this composition shows the identifying feature of the habit ~ that it grows along the ground a little way and then becomes more upright.
To trace it I went over the drawing on the back of the tracing paper with pencil. After placing the tracing on the good paper I went over the whole drawing again to transfer the pencil on the back to the paper. Your really get to know the drawing well when you do it this way!
The next step begins, laying down washes on the leaves, and the tonal drawing comes into its own. I have lots of photos, but they don’t guide me at this early stage. It would be too easy to get carried away and not leave the lighter sections.
This is where I am up to. Most of the leaves have their first wash. I have begun to add in some of the stems and flower stalks as I need to know whether they go in front or behind the leaves.
Anne Lawson Art 