ART – Page 3 – Tim O'Hare

A Watercolour Sketch for Valentine’s Day #art

Yesterday was 14th February, commonly known as Valentine’s Day – a day for celebrating the romance in your life and letting your ‘special person’ know that you love them. I have to admit though that I am not known for my romantic gestures, or for expressing my emotions (fortunately for me, neither is my wife!), so in our household, Valentine’s Day is not a day filled with red roses, soft music and a candlelit dinner. Nevertheless, we do acknowledge Valentine’s Day in our own way, and this year I spent an enjoyable hour painting a watercolour sketch to turn into a special card. I based the painting on a photograph that I found online of a couple sitting on a bench looking out towards a magnificent view. It’s the kind of bench and the kind of view that my wife and I enjoy sitting on (the picture also had the advantage that I didn’t need to try to paint the faces of the happy couple…). I personalized the couple’s clothing and the colours of their hair and the caps that they are waving just enough so that the couple in the painting could certainly be us.

I’m glad to report that the card and the picture were very well received – evidence, I think, that it means far more to have taken the time to produce something personal and meaningful for the love of your life than to fork out a few quid for a generic heart or flower themed card and a bunch of flowers from the supermarket!

The Hutong Bagel Co, Plymouth #art

I seem to be on a bit of a run with my art at the moment as I managed to grab half an hour this morning to quickly paint a little ink and watercolour picture of one of Plymouth’s most popular cafes, The Hutong Bagel Co, located right next to the entrance of the Royal William Yard. (Ironically, being off sick from work with a streaming cold has had the benefit of giving me a bit of extra time to myself even though I still ended up doing work tasks during most of the day).

These little ink and watercolour sketches, which are approximately 7cm x 4cm in size, work best when there is some kind of building or solid structure in them to provide some hard edges and a clear focal point. In addition, I’m deliberately playing with the idea of producing pictures of the premises of various local cafes and shops.

I’m also trying to be brave and sprinkle a few people into my pictures when I can and although I am absolutely hopeless if I try to include any details I’m quite pleased that I seem to have found a way to capture the crowd of people standing outside the cafe without having to stray into the territory of their hands, noses, eyes and ears!

So here it is, my quick mini-watercolour of The Hutong Bagel Co.

The Royal Oak and a view between Meavy and Burrator #art

Today I have been suffering from a horrible fluey-cold which has left me feeling unable to do very much – a somewhat frustrating occurrence given that it is Sunday. But one positive of being forced into relative inactivity by illness is that as well as being unable to do very much I also don’t feel that I need to do anything very much and as a result I was able to sit down for an hour or so just now to do a little painting. At the outset it was my intention to do one quick miniature watercolour landscape and after a quick look in the photo library on my phone I decided that The Royal Oak pub in Meavy about 10 miles from here on the edge of Dartmoor would be my subject. The photo I based the picture on was one taken at end end of last month on the last proper walk that we have done (see: Out and About Again At Last) – it shows the pub closed and on a rather dull day so perhaps it was not the most inspiring choice. Nevertheless, I am still quite pleased with how it came out and that I managed not to over complicate it.

Having completed this picture I was still in the mood for creating art and so I switched my focus to another photo taken on the same day showing a view from the woodland path between Meavy and Burrator…

View from path between Meavy and Burrator

I’m reasonably happy with this second picture. I think the Silver Birch tree on the left has come out fairly well and I like the clump of trees on the horizon but I don’t think I have fully captured the texture of the leafless trees in the middle ground or the spires of gorse in the foreground. Despite its faults, I think I have captured the general impression reasonably well and I’m also pleased to have got in a bit more practice in quickly producing this kind of miniature landscape picture. I’m thinking about trying to produce pictures of this type more often (‘dailyish’ if I can) and I may have a go at seeing whether they might sell for a few pounds somewhere one day.

Stone Circle, Dartmoor #art

Back in April I decided I would like to have a go at sketching and painting. I have often thought about trying to do watercolour painting but my natural tendency towards perfectionism and my inability to carve out time for such activities has always put paid to those ideas. Back in Primary School – 50 or so years ago – I was quite into drawing and painting (without any particular flair) but in the intervening years I have hardly picked up a sketching pen or paint set. So, it was a bit of an impulse decision when I decided to work my way through a free video course on drawing and painting with ‘loose lines’ earlier this year. The course consisted of ten short videos that gave prompts to follow and, importantly, encouraged imperfection and embracing of mistakes (one of the practice tasks included instructions to deliberately make mistakes which I will admit I found hard to follow).

After just a few days of working through the course I was branching out to do more ambitious pieces and soon found myself starting to develop my own style. Since then I have been producing pictures on a fairly regular basis – mostly quick (15-30 minute), small watercolour landscapes and usually with quite a lot of detail put in with black ink. Producing these little works of art has been something I have greatly enjoyed and even though I say it myself the final pieces have been pretty good and certainly much better than I expected them to be given that I have a complete lack of technical training and zero experience to guide me. I just try things out, play and see what happens.

Over the weekend just gone I sat down for half an hour or so and decided I would have a go at producing a watercolour painting without doing what I usually do which is to first draw out the subject in a fair amount of detail in ink and then subsequently add more detail in ink on top of the paint. I have called this a ‘minimal ink’ watercolour (I did put a few small details in after I had completed the painting). I chose a photo of a stone circle on Dartmoor as my subject matter. The result is the picture at the top of this post and it is one that I am really pleased with. I am pleased with the sky as I have captured the colours and cloud shapes better than any sky I have painted previously and I am pleased with the oranges and pinks in the colour of the moorland. Most of all I am pleased that I have extended the range of my art a little more by limiting my use of ink and creating something that is a little less detailed and a little more impressionistic. It is certainly a style that I will have a go at again sometime.