Turner, Monet and me – painting the Houses of Parliament

I’m in London and could not resist painting this scene. Monet sketched it often during his time in London between 1900 and 1905, although from a slightly different viewpoint. Turner was an eyewitness of the fire that almost destroyed the building in 1834 and painted a couple of pictures of the fire. So in painting the Palace of Westminster I am standing on the shoulders of giants!

Claudio Monet series The Houses of Parliament (1900-1905) http://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com

We wandered to the embankment and just so happened upon a bar situated on a moored boat – the perfect place to see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben across the river, and at the same time sip a pint.

Monet painted the buildings in silhouette, so I began in a similar fashion, blocking in the darks and leaving the bridge, water and sky as light. This allowed me to check the composition and see if it was strong enough to carry the painting. I painted on a 5″ x7″ MDF board held on my Pokitbox pochade box.

A bit more blocking in, this time in colour helped to establish the scene.

The Houses of Parliament. 19.7.2023

Details, such as they are, were added and the picture is complete. Some things have changed since the age of Turner and Monet – there’s Lambeth Bridge in the foreground, and you can just see the top of the London Eye on the left, but the Houses of Parliament remain distinct and recognisable, even in semi- silhouette.

That was a fun hour. Please give a thumbs up if you liked it.

#enpleinair #Turner #Housesofparliament #london #pochadebox #Pokitbox #Monet #Watermixableoils

Plein air painting kits for watercolour and oil.

Summer holidays beckon and I’ve once again been checking out my plein air kits so that I can take the bare minimum with me. I was just going to take watercolour sketching stuff with me, but Donna my wife suggested that I paint in oils as well. So, as we are flying it all needs to be small, and as we will be wandering around on foot it needs to be light. And all of it, both for watercolour and oils, needs to fit into one small shoulder bag so that I can have the choice of media when I spot something I want to paint.

Can I do it?

Yes, I think I can, so let me show you what I’m taking.

This shoulder bag is just big enough to carry both oil and watercolour kits, and it has two handy pockets, one for each. (Don’t ask me where I got it from as it was going cheap on a market stall somewhere. Sorry.) There’s also room for a phone, wallet etc..

Oil painting kit

Here I have the whole kit. 1. A bag of cobra water mixable oil paints – just the bare necessities, but I could have limited it even more to just a red, blue, yellow and white. 2. My Pokitbox which holds 5″ x 7″ panels. 3. A tin containing brushes 4. Two oil painting dipper pots which will hold my water 5. Tissues for cleaning up (also I use wet wipes which do a magnificent job of removing all paint from anywhere!)

The water bottle is not strictly necessary as I can use the spritzer bottle from the watercolour kit below.

Here is the Pokitbox opened up to show the 3mm MDF gesso coated panels that I paint on. You can also see the back magnetic strip in the bottom of the box that holds the metal dipper pots. My brushes are a collection of rounds and flats, and I had to cut the handles down on some of them to fit into the tin.

And here is how it works in practice. Lightweight and quick to set up.

Watercolour sketching kit

Here’s what fits into the other pocket in the bag. I use an A5 Hahnemuhle Watercolour Book and strapped to this by an elastic band and the black band that comes with the sketchbook is a 3mm board which has a magnetic strip glued to it. The yellow pencil case holds everything else.

Here is what is in the pencil case. 1. a few Escoda travel brushes 2. A couple of fineliner pens, one in black, one in brown 3. a mechanical pencil (doesn’t need sharpening!) 4. an eraser 5. a tube of white gouache paint 6. A spritzer bottle that doubles as a water container 7. some spare elastic bands 8. my paint palette made from a small makeup box and filled with half pans. I glued a magnet to the bottom of this so that it sticks to the one on the board. 9. a roll of washi tape for masking the boarders.

Here it all is in action. The wooden board slips between the covers and the first and last pages of the sketchbook and is held firmly in place there when the elastic bands are put in place around the pages. A tissue clips under the metal dipper which is also the one I use for oil painting (saving space again!)

So there we are – set up and ready to go! I’ll show you some of my holiday sketches and paintings in the posts that follow! I hope you are able to get away this year for a break, even if only for a few days, and that my ideas here may help you to slim down your painting kit so that you can go anywhere and paint everything! Happy hols.

ps. you can see other ideas I have had for portable painting kits here and here.

Tennis, art and ambition

I’m sitting here watching Wimbledon and wondering what drives some of these tennis stars to perform in the way they do. And also how this relates to us as artists or painters.

Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon 2023

What makes a great tennis player?

I think that three words sum up what makes a great tennis player, someone who rises to the top.

1. Dedication

2. Passion

3. Fame (and of course I’m sure the money helps!)

Why do you paint?

1. Dedication. Champion tennis players are dedicated to what they do. They play daily and they practice daily. That’s what makes them champions. Just like masters of any discipline, whether they be athletes, musicians or artists, they practice. They set time aside for it, they prioritise time for it, and they are dedicated to it.

So how about you and me? Are we dedicated enough to want to progress, to become the masters of our medium? This will take time, although even five minutes a day works wonders. If we want to excel we must be dedicated. Half- hearted efforts produce half- hearted results.

1. Passion. This is the driving force to help us become dedicated. What is passion? It is the inner desire to do something combined with the fun we have doing it. Without enjoyment and passion I don’t think even the best tennis player in the world would succeed. They play because they enjoy playing. Talk to them and you will find they are passionate about it.

And us? We have to enjoy painting to do it. It can be hard work, it can be frustrating and complex. So if we don’t enjoy the process we might as well give up. Someone once said that the process is more important than the final painting. It doesn’t matter if the painting doesn’t work out if we have had fun painting it. So enjoy the process and the match is won!

1. Fame. So what of Fame? I guess that fame is a driving force for most tennis players and other athletes. Who doesn’t want to be famous for what they are dedicated to and passionate about? That’s why they enter competitions and they earn a good living from it.

Do you want to be famous? You may say no, but do you post your pictures on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest? Do you check out your ‘likes’ and do your emotions go up and down with how many or how few you get? All of us who do this are seeking fame. We want others to see our hard- earned work and applaud it. There’s nothing wrong in this, it’s perfectly natural, and for many of us it is the only approbation we will get. So enjoy the fame, however big or small it is!

Up the garden path, oil on board, Plein air 5″ X 7″

Thought you might like to see this plein air painting which came from dedication and passion. You can make me famous by liking it below 🙂

#learningtopaint #Motivationtopaint