A Trip Back in Time

1960's Panda car: watercolour

Last September whilst holdaying in Gloucestershire, we visited Littledean Jail. This is no longer in use as a jail, but now harbours the most extensive collection of memorabillia I have ever seen, especially stage and screen items. Among the many things on display that caught my eye, was a lifesize Spiderman, Darth Vader and a rather sexy looking Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. The walls were almost totally obscured by photographs and trivia of 20th Century celebrities many of whom are now departed.

My encounter with Spiderman!

One of the the things that really turned me off however, was a real stuffed calf with two heads! There were many other gruesome exhibits on display, which by time we had finished looking round, got to be a little bit much of a muchness, and it was with much relief that on stepping outside into the back yard we noticed the Quadraphenia Collection housed in one of the outbuildings. Having spent my teenage years in the 1960's era, this was right up my street! The whole collection was based around the film about mods. The place was filled with lambretta scooters, covered in spotlights and mirrors, parkas, badges and lots of photos from the film. I could associate myself with all this, being a mod myself at that time, having a Lambretta, the latest fashions etc., but I never actually possesed a parka.

Quadraphenia Display

In the yard outside stood a marvelous classic car - a police Panda car from the same era. A Morris Minor, fitted with what was then a high tech police radio, but now looked very antiquated! In fact, everthing about this car looked antiquated, but very nostalgic.

The painting was done rather quickly - I just wanted to get a feel for this lovely old car. Nevertheless, my attempt is fairly accurate I think and was quite a pleasure to do. The windscreen was a bit of a challenge, I have never painted one of these before, the different amounts of reflected light made it tricky to make out the interior. I just tried to paint what I could actually see.

Quadraphenia Display at Littledean Jail.

Acrylic Break

Kate
Acrylic on textured canvas paper
6.5"x10"

For me, watercolour is the most exciting medium for expressing my artistic leanings. But like anything else in life, too much of any one thing is not good for us. In any case, a break is as good as a rest, so they say, and a break in my way of thinking is to do something like pick up a pencil and just sketch or, as in this case, get out those under used acrylic paints and having another go at something that didn't go too well the last time I tried it.


So with brushes in hand and a newly acquired pot of  'flow improver', I set about another portrait. The one thing I did learn from last time is that, unlike watercolour, an acrylic painting is not improved by leaving (either on purpose or accidentally) small pieces of white paper showing through the painting. This in mind, after the initial pencil sketch, I went over the whole canvas with a diluted wash of burnt umber before adding any other paint. Also, unlike watercolour, I've found it's best to paint darker areas first, working towards lighter areas last. This also seems true with regard to detail, just blocking in main areas of colour first, then working finer and finer in detail.


The main sanity saver with acrylics though is the fact that any wrong brushwork can be easily overpainted to correct it, whereas with watercolour you are more or less stuck with it. But the one big drawback with this medium is the fact that, even with flow improver, the paint will set rapidly, especially on the palette. This can be a headache when you want more of the same colour you mixed earlier, only to find it set hard and re-mixing another lot to the same hue can be almost impossible. I now take very great care in remembering what colours I mix together for a particular tone.


The finished painting I think is not bad but took really quite  lot of work - this not helped by the stripy garment Kate is wearing here. The trouble is that I am still learning quite a lot as I go along and have to redo things like her face for example; painted twice once I realised a better way to do it, which adds unnecessary time. Most of you know that I have to finish a painting fairly quickly so as not to get bored and shove it to the back of the wardrobe! Again I got fair hair far too yellow and chunky for my liking - what is it with me painting hair, it's like I get a mental block or something at the end when I do the hair - can't do it at the beginning as I need to flick it out over the background and suchlike.


Still, the learning curve for me with acrylics is steep but leveling. Don't know if I ever will master this medium though, especially when I think of how much quicker and easily I could have done this painting with my favourite medium, watercolour.