Welcome
Thank you for staying with me and it’s good you are here. Today I wanted to talk about the reason for taking up art. I’m not really used to saying it, but I have to concede that after 18 months of regularly producing something I’m happy to call myself a part time artist, even if I don’t use an adjective like successful, famous or popular beforehand!
It is art, none the less and I produce it with enjoyment and find it brings me happiness. It is really that simple.
It was quite strange how I got ‘into’ it. I always consider myself a practical person, not completely academic but successful enough to have achieved well at school and obtained a first class honours degree very much later in life. I prefer doing practical things, with more than a passing interest in how things work or more precisely how they come apart! You know the sort, we’ve all seen the child dismantling pens and other gadgets- I’m a fixer. I lean towards thinking I can do that rather than I could never do that.
We would always buy prints for the house and they were just…well ok, mass produced nothing particularly special. In my mind art was for the wealthy and gallery dwellers always need to know something about art. This of course is a misconception but I had them anyway. I decided I could produce something for my own walls and save money at the same time - win win!
And so it started- taking frames to pieces, throwing colour on paper trying to produce stuff I liked. I made this picture more by chance than skill and decided this was the first one that was ‘deserving’ of a mount and frame. Since then I’ve learnt the horizon line should probably be horizontal but as you can see I put it on a slope!
I just started by copying pictures I liked and watching tons of reels and youtube videos about using watercolour techniques and mixing colour
I made more art to hang in the months that followed, cut the mounts, had some prints made, learnt some photography skills and photo editing skills. Tried to sell some, made some for family, but mainly I just enjoy doing this… I started this gallery page to
document this and some earlier works will appear in due course.
I particularly found buying the frames and then trying to get the work I’d already done in the frame all very tedious (and expensive) so I got the mount cutter and again learnt a bit about standard sizes for frames, papers, mounts and print on demand.
I would call all this faffing, as now I’ve done some of that I find myself enjoying the sketch book format, the challenge of being outside!
This was something I tried in the style of Nick Veasey who uses actual X-Rays to make art. This was my watercolour and pen attempt. It now hangs in a 24 x 18 frame with a large 3” border
I suppose what I’m trying to say is there is no master plan here, if it takes your fancy just go with the flow, wherever this takes you. If you find enjoyment then go for it and this platform along with others have plenty of enabling ways to gain access to people who want to share their experiences and help you. I realise there are some more experienced people here too and am pleased you get something to take away from my ramblings!
More Summer visitors
It has been another busy week in the Jackaman household with a son, partner, cat and new granddaughter staying with us, more baby & cat stuff than you can shake a stick at!
There has been a little creativity going on amongst all this too. I was able to get out and sketch and take some pictures with the middle top two paintings at A3 for their new nursery, the bottom giraffe was me messing about with faces as I thought I might create some characters for a set of themed paintings, but it’s just an idea at the moment. The other ones are views in Cornwall, Perranwell Station pink cottage, a great name I know and of course more from St Ives with the guest house.
The last one is at our local park in Truro where there is a project to link both sides of the river for walkers and cyclists and they had a massive crane on site while I was out for a ride, I couldn’t resist!
Other topics
I’m happy to help on a one to one level completely free of charge. I ‘m able to zoom if there is anything you would like to know or draw along to. We can work around time zones if you are not in the UK. Drop me a message with a clue to your time zone and I’ll reach out to you (I’m GMT but use any format you like and I’ll do the rest)
Prompts
This is a prompt #18 from the chat thread, feel free to join in and ask questions. see the chat topic below.
Chat
If you’ve made it this far don’t forget I have an active chat thread which will have regular prompts should your artistic well run dry from time to time. It will be encouraging and should have some tips to keep you active. Come over as a subscriber and say hello. We are at #18 but you can join in any that are open and I promise to read and view all content.
Ps don't forget the Gallery page.
Also…
Capture your World in a Sketchbook is a free newsletter. Your Coffee donations are greatly appreciated, they help to support & motivate me to carry on writing and sharing. Click the link below if you feel like donating a little to support my writing 💚
(Sometimes, I may not be able to trace you back to your Substack name from Kofi)
Thank you for reading, I’m always happy to hear from fellow enthusiasts in the comments👇 Anyway ‘till next time, happy sketching. CJ
Your granddaughter is gorgeous and I’m sure when she is older she will appreciate the drawings you did for her. You certainly have a natural talent for sketching and art for sure, and don’t worry about your horizon, I think we all do that. In fact our son who has just been out from the UK took some paintings back with him, one he chose is sooo out of whack with angles, but it didn’t bother him, in fact he didn’t even notice until I pointed it out.