Happy Birthday little bruv!

Doing what he loves

© Sharon Whitley

It was my little brother's 40th birthday at the weekend - so actually not so little any more! - but to me he'll always be my 'little' brother - even though he towers above me.  He's as mad on mountain biking as I am on hiking and art so as a birthday card I painted this watercolour of him on his mountain bike.  It was a bit rushed and even though the legs are not right and the wheel is a bit wobbly I quite like it overall - and it certainly made a change from birds!   Not done any more on the barn owl, will hopefully have time to work on it tomorrow, hope you're all having a great day!

Red Deer and the Rugby League final

Hello bloggers - hope you've enjoyed the weekend and those in the UK hope you've enjoyed the lovely weather we've had - I'd like to say I've been out walking those hills but it was not to be this weekend - I promised my daughters I'd take them shopping for holiday clothes - I don't particularly like shopping especially when there's blue skies up above and you know the views up in the mountains are bound to be spectacular - but never mind, they'll be there other days - and my two shopaholic daughters were happy so all is good!!   Gary and I had a lovely day out on Friday at Tatton Park - a great place to watch and photograph red deer now that the rutting season has started.  There were a few testosterone filled stags about but the rut hadn't really got going although we came across a bit of play fighting........

photo by Gary Jones

We had a lovely walk through the grounds,

my photo

This stag had already rounded up a good number of hinds

photo by Gary Jones

Lots of roaring going on from the larger stags - a wonderful sound

photo by Gary Jones

and this is my favourite photo of the day - I love the backlight on this and the startled look of this young stag as we came across him walking through the trees...

photo by Gary Jones

We're hoping to go back over the next few weeks as the rut really gets going.  More photos on Gary's blog here

Saturday night we had tickets to watch the rugby Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford hoping that Warrington Wolves would take the cup but it was not to be and they were beaten by Leeds Rhinos - a great game though - so my little piece of artwork for you today has a rugby theme - although it's Rugby Union painted as my little tribute to the Wales earlier this year.

Go Wales!

 by Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist
© Sharon Whitley

Hopefully my next post will be another bird painting - I spotted a wren this weekend - well actually it was Gary that spotted it and pointed it out to me so the little wren is now on my ever growing painting list!

A Taste of India

Work is manic at the moment - well I say at the moment - it's never anything but manic in our office!  So I'm looking forward to a night out tonight - I'm off to a Bollywood charity evening in aid of Brainwave.  This is a wonderful charity which helps disabled children achieve a better quality of life.  The work that they do with these families is wonderful -  last year 7 of us completed the National Three Peaks Challenge in aid of Brainwave in under 24 hours and as well as raising thousands for charity between us all, we had an amazing weekend climbing the 3 highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales.  The whole challenge went without a hitch and we were treated with wonderful weather and fabulous views from all 3 mountains - although our luck with the weather has taken a distinct turn for the worse in recent months - the photos from the Lake District in Sunday's post is pretty much what the weather has thrown at us for the majority of our walks this year!!!   Hopefully our luck will change soon!  

As I'm off to Bollywood tonight, here is a painting with an Indian theme - I found a photo on PaintmyPhoto by Aiswarya of an Indian lady on a train, deep in thought and it really touched.   I decided one day to have a go at painting it and used colours to try and depict the sadness that she seemed to be feeling and painted it quite loosely.  I think it is quite an emotive painting - my mum came to visit while I was painting it and didn't like it! Here are some comments from PaintmyPhoto members:

'You've captured the emotion beautifully'  - Laura Moore,
'I find the subject of this painting disturbing. It is a very emotional capture you managed here' - Susan Hall   'Full of vibrance and emotion'.  - Terry F

What do you think?

Lady on a Train from a photograph by Aiswarya
by Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

Rain, rain and more rain in the Lakes!

Well, what a day it was yesterday - what was it I said in my last post?  The weather can do what it likes!  Well it certainly did that all right - and pretty much threw everything it had at us, well not quite everything but oh my word the rain, the water, THE WIND!!!!  Flooded roads, flooded fields, flooded paths but we still got a good walk in and sauntered up Place Fell from Patterdale hoping the weather would improve as it had said in the forecast (it didn't - it got worse!).

Rather a lot of water about as we start the walk up Place Fell, Goldrill Beck has burst its banks

VERY wet and windy on the way up

 Still lots of laughter and fun and a well deserved bitter shandy and chips in the White Lion afterwards.  It was great to meet Gretchen and Linda who had travelled to the Lakes from California and had a good taste of what the Lakes can be like weather wise - but they took it all in their stride!   I also bagged another Wainwright.  For those of you who don't know  - the Wainwrights are the 214 fells in the Lake District which Alfred Wainwright spent years drawing and writing about in his infamous pictorial guides - many people make a challenge out of completing all 214 of them.  I'm somewhere in the 50's now so still got a long way to go but I would like to complete them all one day For more information on the Wainwrights see here.  Anyway, today's painting has to have lots of rain in it so here is my little girl in her summer dress, dancing in the rain which I painted in June last year, hope you like it.

Rain Dance
by Sharon Whitley the Rambling Artist

Loosening up

I think my natural style of painting is fairly loosish anyway. I'm not a detail painter, I'm a lazy painter!  I like to start and finish a painting in one go and don't really want to take hours and hours over something - I'm impatient to see the finished piece and then I want to start on the next one!  So when I came across the Loose Group which was initially on the Painting Loft it seemed right up my street. 'Loose' for me is a very broad term and there is a quite a range I think of what can be termed as loose. For some it is all about lost edges, drips and splashes, for others it is just a more painterly quality to their work.  I paint in varying degrees of looseness depending on the subject and on my mood.  Loose is not everyone's cup of tea - my daughters don't like this style, nor does my dad!  They like realistic paintings and don't 'get' loose, impressionist styles at all!!  So if I'm painting something for them I have to be more detailed, but I enjoy painting in both styles so it's fine!  The Loose Group is hosted by another very talented artist Judith Farnworth - you can find a link to her blog in the blogs that I follow.  She gives exercises each month and gives brilliant feedback on how to make a piece looser if that's what you want to do.  A large part of the artwork I've done since this group started has been for this group and it has given me invaluable practice, inspiration, support and advice. I am grateful to Judith and all the other member of the group for sharing their knowledge and expertise and for their support.  Another lady who has given a huge amount of support to me and others in the loose group is Laura Moore.  You will also find her blog listed here.  She is passionate about art and hugely knowledgeable and offers excellent advice on how to improve a painting and she's honest too which is what we need if we want to improve.  

This is the first exercise I did for the loose group - a pig which I did very quickly - I've learnt since that quick doesn't necessarily equal loose!

This one was more successful and I still really like the effect I achieved in this painting - I don't say that very often about my paintings and am my own worst critic.  Shame I haven't been able to recreate the same effect since!  Complete fluke!

Bandouille Arch from a photo by Bix on PaintmyPhoto

Here are a selection of other exercises done specifically as an exercise in loosening up.

Bull from a photo by Bix

 You can see I've left more lost edges in Bix's bull, my daughters would say 'Why haven't you finished it?'

Hind from a photo by Gary Jones

 I quite like this deer, I like the soft halo effect and her eyes but again, haven't really been able to recreate this in other paintings!

Rusty Old Truck from a photo by Alena

 This rusty old truck was great fun to do, the photograph showed a background but me being lazy just concentrated on the truck itself - I love paintings of rusty old cars and trucks and intended on doing more but never did - maybe I still will though!

Painting an elephant in Hazel Soan style

I love Hazel Soan's art and have a couple of her books, African Watercolours is a beautiful book I would recommend to anyone 

Loose elephant

 I went a bit mad with this elephant and really went for it, splashing paint and using lots of wet in wet, I'm lucky the colours didn't muddy too much, although they have a bit.  Again I liked the effect I created here but haven't been able to recreate it!

Jazz Player from a black and white photograph

 Working from black and white photographs makes you have to think for the colours for yourself instead of following what you see in the photograph and Judith now gives us a black and white image each month to paint from. This jazz player was the first b&w image we did.  

Swan from a photo by Steve Lyddon (PMP)

 I like parts of this swan painting but got a bit lost on the wing on the right and haven't been able to fix it

Kings Cross Station

 When I attempted this painting of Kings Cross Station I didn't think I had any hope of creating anything work posting but I surprised myself as it didn't turn out too bad!

Spanish Dancer

This is one of a series of dancing figures that I painted last year, trying to focus on capturing the movement in the dance and this one captures that the most I think

The Loose Group can now be found on the Paint My Photo site, there are 3 images to paint each month if you want to take part.

Paint my Photo