Adventures in Charcoal: P.J. Lynch's Once Upon a Place Illustrations

There is a nice piece about my work on Once Upon A Place by Jenny Duffy in The Looking Glass Magazine.

New Workshop Dates

I’m looking forward to my next workshop at Kennedy Art on November 1st.

Here is the painting kit I use for my workshops.
I keep my warm, earthy colours to the left of my palette, white and titanium buff in the middle with a splodge of Liquin, and black and cerulean blue are tucked away on my right.
That’s a little cup of low odour thinner, and I always like to open a new set of bargainous synthetic brushes from “Create” using the three flats. The bigger brush is for blending.

There is one more vital part of my kit; a 16 x 12 inch canvas board prepared with a grey tone. I use a warm grey emulsion. 

It's so much better than painting on a white surface.

My workshops at KennedyArt are proving to be very popular, so as well as 6th December, we’ve added an extra date on the 13th December.
Kennedy's
12 Harcourt St, Dublin 2
Tel: +353 1 475 1749
Email: info[at]kennedyart.com

Naked Portrait of Darren: Process Pix

Some process pix of a life painting I did of Darren.
The technique I use at my workshops is a simplified version of this.

 My portrait sketch workshop in September at Kennedy Art has been set for Saturday the 6th.
I look forward to seeing some of you then.
info@kennedyart.com
ph + 353 (1) 475 1749

The Portrait Sketch from Life

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's workshop at KennedyArt.

I do spend a lot of time reciting the same few principles, so I thought I would put down the basics of my technique in the form of a print-out. The painting I did of Andy seemed like a good one for the purpose.

If you would like to be included on my mailing list drop me an email to info@pjlynchgallery.com

Process Photos of the Andy Painting

 I took a series of photos during the process of painting Andy.

A Portrait Drawing in Charcoal

This shows the progress I made on my demo at my portrait drawing class last night.

The model is someone I have been drawing for many years and she is one of my favourite people to draw or paint.

You can contact Germaine on 087 2142394 for more information about the classes.

Model On A Tiled Floor

I haven't posted this one before either as I wasn't entirely happy with the life painting in it's raw state.
So I have simplified the tonal values and added the checked floor.
The tiled pattern can be a wonderful device for adding interest and depth at the same time.

Workshop News

My next two workshops at Kennedy's are booked out but we have lined up another one on the 26th of October.

If you are coming along to any of my workshops do try to get hold of a set of these brushes. They are super cheap and they have just the right shape, firmness and resilliency for my style of rapid sketch painting.

Contact Kennedy's for information about the workshops.

ph  + 353 (1) 475 1749

info@kennedyart.com  

Giuseppe Resolved

I fixed up a few things that were bothering me about that painting I did of Giuseppe at my last Portrait Sketch Workshop at Kennedy Art.
Working on a picture when the model is no longer there is not something I ever recommend my students should do. You always tend to loose more in terms of freshness than you make up for in in terms of finish. And, true to form, I have probably overworked this one. 
That said, there were areas that I had noted that needed attention but which I didn't have time to fix during the life session, and it's nice to have resolved those. The dome of the head and the shape of the neck were the main issues.

My workshop in August is booked out and the one on September 14th is booking up fast.
Contact Kennedy's if you'd like to come along to join us for that one. 
Hopefully I will be able to devote more time to the demo element at each of those workshops.

ph  + 353 (1) 475 1749

info@kennedyart.com  

Bustling London...... Final State

Here is a scan of the finished painting which I have tweaked a little bit in Photoshop.
This is very much a picture to be looked at up close so that the viewer gets to scan over the various details and incidents.
It will be the first spread in the book and is very much designed to set the scene, to give a sense of the time and the place for the action to come in the rest of the book.

Bustling London....Almost Done

I've pretty much finished this illustration now.
I have scanned the painting and am giving it a final tweak in Photoshop.
Here are the final three shots of the painting process.

Bustling London; Three More Process Pictures

Here are three more pictures showing the progress of my Bustling London illustration.
I've begun adding the characters on the streets and a lot more detail all over.

Painting Giuseppe at Kennedy Art

We had a lovely bunch of artists for my Portrait Sketch Workshop at Kennedy Art at the weekend, and happily one of my favourite models, Giuseppe, was able to sit for us.

We all worked very hard in spite of the heat and I am delighted to say that everyone achieved really impressive results.

 We are still having lovely weather here in Dublin so we were able to stroll across to nearby St Stephen's Green for déjeuner sur l'herbe.

Happily, my workshops at Kennedy's are proving to be extremely popular.
I'm told that the next one in August is already booked out (although there's always a chance of a late cancellation) so we have scheduled another one on the 14th September.
Contact Kennedy's if you'd like to come along to that one. 

ph  + 353 (1) 475 1749

info@kennedyart.com  

Bustling London.....Progressing

I'm really enjoying working up my painting of 17th Century London.
Although I did a very detailed drawing for this piece I have been changing elements and adding details as I paint.
Emmersing myself in the life of this late medieval market I find I naturally come up with details or incidents that I hadn't thought of at the drawing stage.
This process is great for my confidence in my technique, especially as I haven't painted in watercolour for a few months.
I had intended that the foreground houses would be all darker in order to show that they were closer to the viewer than the main action, but as I was painting it in, it struck me that I could vary the tone from darkest to lightest to imply that a cloud was passing overhead.

Please note that some of the photos are a bit darker and more contrasty than others depending on the time of day they are shot.

Happy St George's Day

Happy St George's Day.
I haven't ever illustrated that saint's story but this has similarities.
It's video of me doing an illustration showing the Bee-man of Orn tackling a pretty scary dragon.

A Boggart with a Bag of Moonshine

Here's another from the same period when I had just left college and I was using a strong black ink line to define my forms. It was a technique inspired by the wonderful art of Arthur Rackham and others working during the Golden Age of illustration at the start of the twentieth century.

This was in fact the cover image from my very first book, A Bag of Moonshine  by Alan Garner.

I was very fortunate with that book as it won me the Mother Goose Award and it very much set me on my way as a young illustrator.

The character above is a Boggart, which is similar to a Goblin but a little bit nicer. Below are some of my Goblins that I did when I was considering illustrating The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald.

The Old Man in the Library

I like posting some of my illustrations from years ago.
This was one I well remember doing as a portfolio piece in those difficult months just after I leaving college.
In terms of subject matter I can only say that it was heavily influenced by Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books.
Back in those days I was still trying to develop my own technique and I was using a very dominant black ink line over which I would apply watercolours.
I'm still very fond of this illustration.