This week in art class : wet pavements. Also, dog leggies.

[bunn]

JRR Tolkien & Bilbo Baggins strolling along Merton Street, Oxford after the rain, smoking their pipes.

The exercise was supposed to be a seasonal one about how to paint wet pavement reflecting evening lights, since the rain is here for the autumn.  I'm not sure I entirely got the wet reflected light as shiny as it could be. but I'm quite pleased with the cobbles and the figures. Also pleased that I managed to restrain myself from drawing 999 details into the buildings and just going for light and shadow.

Also, here is Rosie Roo putting on a fine display of Celtic Knotwork Legs.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely picture - very evocative.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean - I think the pavement is half dry after earlier rain :-) But as a picture of that state, it's very very good!

I can't see it as a city, though - I don't know Oxford, and it reminds me very strongly of some of the Fife villages.

*boggles at Rosie*

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oxford is odd as a city because so much of the centre is colleges and libraries rather than shops and businesses. This is definitely Merton Street, though I wonder if I've changed the proportions accidentally very fractionally, so that the buildings aren't quite as tall as they should be. Ah well. The paving was the focus, and I was deliberately trying not to overwork the buildings so it makes sense they might be slightly out.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Sorry - if that was a criticism, it was of Oxford for not looking citylike, not of your painting, which I thought was wonderfully clever in evoking a certain type of place! :)

Fife has quite a lot of 'leftover' medieval, mostly, I think, because it was never so rich again - no one afterwards could afford to knock down and rebuild on a grand scale. Presumably Oxford kept its old buildings for more enlightened reasons!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Oh! I think the wet pavement effect really works! I am impressed.

Rosie Roo's legs are also impressive!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like it! I don't know how Rosie sleeps like that but she seems happy.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

A lovely painting of a lovely topic.

Rosie the yogini -- who knew?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

She's definitely a yogini (what a great word!) Very flexible!

[chainmailmaiden]

I thought of Oxford as soon as I saw your painting, was very pleased to see I was right :) I like the pavement effect and also the light from the lamps.

Rosie looks very snug :)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad it's recognisable. I had to make a couple of attempts at cobbles, but I think this works now.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

Wow, Rosie is an impressively supple lady! :D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

She certainly is! I'm not sure quite how it's comfortable to sleep like that, but sighthounds seem to do that sort of thing...

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

I love that painting!

Somehow the photo of Rosie reminds me alarmingly of the anamorphic skull in the Holbein painting, "The Ambassadors"...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

How strange! My mind went direct to Northumbria's Golden Age...

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

I think it's her colour and notably skeletal appearance.


It's the sort of pose my cats adopt, too. And advanced yoga practitioners...

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Lovely picture, very atmospheric :)

Wilbur is doing that exact same pose next to me on the sofa right now!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Nice work, Wilbur. Sleeping sighthound legs are so decorative and intricate!

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Looking at Rosie, the tangles of Celtic and Norse knotwork make SO MUCH more sense now. I can totally see those pointy hounds from the Book of Kells.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! I had always assumed those were very stylised, then I adopted sighthounds and realised they really do lie like that!

(This is the perfect icon for this : it's actually a drawing of one of my old lurchers also doing knotwork legs, but it looks like jewellery.)