Advanced Painting at City Lit : mark-making and oil transfer technique

Nearly 2 weeks since my last post  - too busy drawing, painting, stitching and visiting museums and galleries  not to mention sorting out  things in the house ( like finally getting round to hanging some pictures!)

I missed the first session of my 'Advanced Painting' course at City Lit  as I was in Weymouth so I was a bit concerned I  might be  a bit behind, but the main thing I missed was  finding out what all  the other students are interested in ( and no opportunity to present my own work).

It's a very different dynamic having just an afternoon rather than a whole day - it goes in a flash and as we're a large group, don't get much of the tutor's time.  We started  the second session with a demonstration of mark-making techniques  and then had a go ourselves - great fun and very messy , I'd forgotten the joys of scraping with a credit card and splattering! After looking at what others had done, we then aimed to use techniques we hadn't tried yet on our own subject matter ( I've chosen boats as my theme) .

  The  next session was a demo of oil transfer techniques as used by Paul Klee ( yet another discovery about one of my favourite artists)  to get an interesting drawn mark on top of already painted surface.  We prepared  the transfer sheet by painting some newspaper with oil paint  and the paint surfaces by applying acrylics neat,  brushing them out and building them up in layers. As  I didn't really want to save the paintings I'd done the previous week, I used the  mark-making one  torn in 4  as the basis resulting  some lovely complex surfaces

  This one I used a picture from a magazine of pans on a stove (  circles are still a source of fascination) I didn't have quite enough oil paint on ( the lines are a bit faint) so after reinforcing , I used a photo of an industrial site and did some additional scribbling  ( below) Very satisfying,

  The 3rd one I  drew the boat again!

 We were supposed to keep reinforcing the I oil paint but I quite liked the variation in line ( and the oil transfer sheet itself at the end -  wish I'd kept it! )

  Liking the rich surfaces of multiple layers, I ripped the boat painting in half and applied more layers of paint in preparation  for next  time .

 Besides the tuition in the class itself , we have access to 'Google Classroom where various video clips , links and handouts are posted ( and we can post our own work for comment) . So far we've had ' Steal like an Artist' and notes on working in a series besides a video of Gerhard Richter in action. For homework  we're to try and draw in a sketchbook daily  from observation, memory and imagination.  The aim is to  stretch yourself and work outside your preference.

  I was catching up on the train  heading into London , inspired by the  circles and limpets at Margate  and the mussels from Puglia. observation is definitely what interests  me at least in sketching  and my ' memory'  drawings are  where I'm not looking directly at the object .

I was struggling  with the 'imagination'  part but then I realised that is what all the ' fabric sketch postcards ' I've been doing are.  Memory comes  into it in remembering a place or colours but usually  it's the fabric scraps themselves that inspire me.
I started in response to a prompt in the ' Sketchbooks and experiments for textiles Facebook group  but I now find they're addictive  - I put together about 20  when I was in Weymouth  and enjoy stitching them on the train.