Small Drawings

I arrived late to Billy’s painting studio yesterday and he was leaving early for an appointment in town, so only had a few hours to get something done. No time to get my paints out and then 25 minutes tidying up and cleaning brushes, so did some pencil drawings instead. 58 small sketches for my Heckel’s Horse Jr. series. Twelve drawings per A2 size sheet of paper which I folded into eight. Five sheets finished meaning a grand total of 60, with two rejects. I’ll trace them to make A6 size oil transfer drawings from. Here they are:

Oil transfer drawings are original oil paintings, but done with a pencil instead of a brush. You can easily make 30 in a day, which will help get my online shops up to their target listing total of 1000 by March 2027.

When I got home from Billy's, I continued doing small drawings and ordered a load of small sheets of thick watercolour paper online, as I’ll be needing them for THE CAMDEN MARKET FREE ART MAN display too. There were already some pads of A5 size acid free paper at home, which I’ve started doing oil pastel drawings on. The first nine are finished, photographed and in both my online shops. So much easier when you don’t have to wait for things to dry.Finally, my shops have works available for under £15, which will hopefully open me up to a lot more people. I’m trying to cover as many price ranges as possible, but have only made it up to £50 so far. There must be money to be made selling original art for over £50, but for now I’m focused on the cheap end as I want to get some quick sales in soon to prove that FREE ART FREES ART is, at least, viable.

The new oil pastel drawings are mostly influenced by Ron Throop @ronthroop paintings, and look quite similar to his. Ron and I have collaborated on mostly large oil paintings under the name JonRon. We both make figurative images from abstract beginnings in our solo work, and these new oil pastel drawings of mine finish before much figuration has happened. A lot like Ron’s. I’ll carry on in this vein and expect the overlap with Ron’s work will get more and more obvious. In a similar way, Emma Pugmire’s linocut prints also remain largely abstract despite being entirely figurative. Emma, Ron and I are the three members of Black Ivory. This abstract figurative theme could make for a worthwhile cohesive exhibition of our group, one day. We could show the world the unique and, as yet, unappreciated common thread running between the Black Ivory artists work. It’s not by random that the three of us came from Stuckism and constitute Black Ivory to the joyful exclusion of everyone else.

The next batch of A5 size artworks will by oil transfer drawings. Oil paint on unprimed paper isn't recommended as oil rots paper, but most of the oil isn't transferred onto the paper via a pencil, which also means they're usually dry in a day or two. I tried this method on primed paper once, but the paint didn't transfer well anyway. Thin paper's best for me.