069 Bass Guitar - laser etch perspex and pastel

Today is a first, this is my first piece of laser etched art. I'm suitably excited. I have used the laser cutter for the odd job and to help out the odd student. but I haven't included it in my practice until now. It is an extension of the monotype prints I was doing of guitars a few days ago but with the thin Chinese paper replaced by 10mm perspex.

It's odd but it feels perfectly natural to display my work as it grows and develops like this, I wonder if many artists would do this? 

068 Tubes of paint

Five tubes of oil paint to round off five days of paintings tubes of oil paint.

067 Tube of Gamboge Yellow

This is the best yellow you will ever come across, it is rich translucent and mixed with yellow ochre helps give amazing pastry colours.... I've said too much. I can't give away all my secrets.

The four tubes...

066 tube of Ultramarine Violet

This is one of my newest pigments, it is a transparent purple which can be a little tricky to mix... 

I have a lot of tubes of paint... I might be able to do these all year!

065 Tube of Leaf Green Paint

You know what's coming now don't you! A tube series! I have used a few of them throughout this project!

064 Tube of Paint- monotype and pastel

Continuing my new invention of double layered drawings here is a tube of paint!

063 Fez

This has no particular reference today, other than I wore a little one earlier ! I do love it as a symbol though, I have very fond memories of watching Tommy Cooper and still find him hilariously funny. This is printed on some lovely Japanese paper I have had for years but never known what do with it. It turns out it is really very good for monoprinting on. It is also semi transparent so the colour you see is on a piece of paper mounted behind the print...... Just like that!

Also, check me out writing my initials backwArds so they appear the right way round in the final print!

062 Razor - monotype

A session of mono prints tonight, I drew a whole load of things I remembered from my day, the most exciting thing being that I had a shave. I really needed one! This razor was one the best drawings.

061 Toilet roll - pastel,acrylic and oil paint

I have sometimes worked from a black ground like this, the black ground in this painting is from excess printing ink rolled off my roller. Which gives a lovely fine yet rough surface which is great for paint and pastels. I find loo roll an underrated artists tool. Plus you use it everyday, unless you are in trouble! 

060 Banjolin - monotype and pastel

We have started to call this little instrument a Grandalin because it used to belong to Debbie's Granddad. it is a Banjolin which is half banjo and half mandolin. And very small to play!

059 bass guitar

Nearly done my inventory of instruments here is my short scale bass, easier for my delicate fingers.

058 Resonator - monotype and pastel

You have seen it before but here it is again in this mini series, my resonator guitar, shiny shiny lovely bluesy thing that it is! 

057 Ukulele - monotype and pastel

This is my ukulele which you will often find me strumming at the weekend. Or plucking.

The series so far

056 Aubergine Telecaster - monotype and pastel

Now, stop me if I a becoming a guitar bore, but this guitar I built from parts a few years ago, I keep this tuned to open g so I can play Rolling Stones songs and slides blues. It is darker in real life. 

Just to give you an idea of how I make these here are a selection from the ones I have made over the last few days 

055 Banjo - monotype

I did a run of banjos tonight! This one is a portrait of a banjo I gave new life to that was given to me by a lovely young man as he shed his southern belongings to start anew north of the border in Scotland (hello Chris!) This was going to be coloured like he other instrument portraits over the last couple of days. But I forgot and after printing a whole load more none of them had the same pizazz in the drawing so I went with this one. The first one I did. Who knew I would love prints this much this year, so glad I didn't set a style for his yers daily doings.

054 Parlour Guitar

I think this is my favourite guitar from my collection. It is an Oscar Schmidt parlour guitar from pre 1900 it has a gorgeous depth of tone and a dream to play apart from a slightly raised 8th fret which I should really sort out. 

053 My first guitar - monotype with pastel

Yep this was my very first guitar on my 13th birthday I got this lovely little red stratocaster style electric guitar and here I am today, an artist making daily pictures. And not the blues guitar god I expected to be when I was 13 ..... Sigh

052 Bass Guitar - monotype with pastel

You may have spotted in some previous posts that I am doing some portraits of my instruments. I've made a little prints of my ukulele and a drawing of my resonator guitar. This is a bass guitar I made a few years ago I have drawn is using a fantasticly quick pastel drawing for the colour then rolling out some black ink that I lay the image face down onto and draw on the reverse, which means I have to draw the guitar backwards!!?! I was pleasantly surprised by the vibrancy of the results.

051 Beehive - monotype

I have been experimenting with encaustic paint today at work, there are some great bits to my job. Below is one of the results. But I thought today's daily image should be this beehive to give thanks to the bees for the wax!

I nearly went with the green and red study below for today's picture but it feels like an experiment and not a resolved piece. Some more experimentation tomorrow may throw up a small masterpiece we shall see... But for now enjoy my first tentative step into encaustic paint!

050 Chicken Run - monotype

We have been spending the day designing, redesigning our chicken house. At one point we were making an entire new one now I think we are going to build a new run, see below, and bridge up the house. This drawing doesn't represent an actual design idea more the spirit of the design process. 

049 Sweet 13 - lino print and pastel

I fancied doing another sweetie lino cut today, due to the beauty of acrylic printing ink I was able to work into the print with pastel pretty quickly so, today is a double picture kind of day, sort of.

048 Ukulele - monotype

So it looks like I have started a little mini series of drawings of instruments, this is my ukulele wot I made last year in simple monotype form.

047 Resonator guitar - pencil crayon on printing ink

This is another drawing onto the excess ink rolled off my roller. It makes a lively surface to draw on, but due to its darkness this is tricky to photograph with my ipad. The line is blue and a bit brighter than it appears here.

046 Pen Pot - Monotype

I have been clearing out my storage room at work and found a lot of pencils I didn't know I had. As I found them I put them in various pots. So I have made a few monotypes this evening of various pencils in pots. 

045 Little Red Rooster (hen) - Lino print & pastel

This is another lino print from an earlier 'daily' this time coloured with pastel. I was thinking of the blues song 'little red rooster' while I drew this, but this is a hen. Oh well. 

044 Collection of vessels - after Morandi - pastel and Lino print

Some of you may remember day 12 of his years daily project when I made my version of a Morandi print. Well, today I have utilised my now favourite technique of hand colouring lino pints with brightly coloured pastels. I have done three of these but I think this was the best one.

043 Sweet - coloured Lino print

I really couldn't decide between these two for today's picture. If someone held a banana to my head I would have to say the coloured one. But they won't. I have also understood the difference between mono prints and monotypes during these sweet drawings and prints. These ones are technically mono prints, but they started life as a Lino print. Which it self was based on a drawing over the top of a monotype. Answers on a postcard please. 

I have used a Lino print from yesterday's 'daily' and added pastel. Fun fact: I haven't worked this way for approx. twenty years. 

042 Sweet - Linoprint

My holiday sweet project is entering the last weekend, it also enters he world of the Linoprint. I've done a little run of these sweetie prints as you can see below.

041 Sweets - oil on gesso

I was going to another single sweet but, no, I am assaulting your eyes with a cornucopia of sweets and colour. I hope you like it.

040 Sweet #9 - oil on gesso

There is a strange opaque and textured surface on the red part of today's painting of a murano glass sweet. Regular followers of my blog may remember my love of the red and green colour contrast. Today I was allowed to indulge it a little.

039 Sweet #8 - oil paint

So, a new year and a new sweet, am I going to do an oil series of glass sweets? Yes I am. 

Happy new year!

And here is a shot of my bench.