‘Running boar’ Painting 170917

I have long wanted to depict a wild boar, as painting or print, as my computer desktop testifies, with a folder entitled ‘boar hogs ref’ that has sat there, bulky with digital visual reference of boars in many forms for a few months now. To be honest, I like the idea of hunting one too. Like game fishing, an honest way of earning your bacon. Boars, unlike many other game quarry however, are fearless. They would square up to you in defiance if they found you threatening them or if you had the cheek to be in their territory and I respect that. Visually, they also look great - the stuff of legend, dark, matted coarse hair, thick with mud and sweat and the male boar sports sharp, intimidating tusks. They are built like a bull, all forebody, full of muscle up front and brave as you can be. I’d like to do a relief print at a later stage, (the boar’s textured pelt is perfect for a grainy print) but for now, with an evening to spare, I thought a quick loose watercolour painting would do the job nicely. (Original for sale: £75.00): petergander@gmail.com (prints may be available at a later date).

Leaving my reference at arm’s length, I like to draw my own version (i.e no tracing photos) using or re-using old paper.

Tracing the old-fashioned and unbeaten way

Tracing down onto Bockingford paper

Starting with a warm yellow fill with my squirrel mop brush 

(it holds bathfuls of liquid)

Yellow complete

Timing is everything in watercolour and a barely-visible sheen awaits before adding a dark body colour

My roof-suspended hairdryer helps drying along in my messy studio

Adding my favourite ‘Payne’s Grey’ leaving the warm yellow to shine through

Achieving that ‘grubby pelt look’, scratching away the paper’s surface to reveal highlights

Here I make a paper aperture (in this case used tracing paper) which keeps the surround clear of spatter...

Flicking paint across the boar in the direction of its movement adds dynamism and a dose of appropriate grubbiness

The final ‘Running boar’ ref:170920: 170mm x 120mm watercolour on 300gsm Bockingford ‘Gran Fin’ paper. • ORIGINAL FOR SALE £75
© Peter Gander

Colman’s Mustard jar, my favourite

Colman’s Mustard. No manly food should do without it. As they used to say themselves ‘Meat needs mustard’. An iconic design and personal favourite of mine, drawn in scratch pen and acrylic ink with watercolour on 300gsm The Langton’ Grain Fin’ paper. Warhol had his Campbell’s, my muse is mustard. Email me if you’d like to give a similar original as a present headlined with ‘(insert name)’s favourite’, to a loved one - maybe a jar of their favourite marmalade, a bottle of beer or wine, or even a pair of Converse, anything goes. petergander@gmail.com

My hand-painted pub sign

The 14th century ‘Old Yew Tree Inn’, Westbere, Kent

I cycled over to Westbere, near Canterbury to ‘The Old Yew Tree’ yesterday to have a gander at my hand-painted pub sign and sketch the pub for some new paintings due to be hung inside very soon.

Red Sands Radio Christmas Card pen & ink

Red Sands Radio Christmas image 2013  © Peter Gander 2013

Latest inky work for Bob Le Roi, radio presenter at local radio station Red Sands. The original is hand-drawn with scratch (dip) pen and ink, with watercolour. Santa is seen descending into one of the ‘Maunsell Forts’, a set of WWII anti-aircraft battlements still seen off the coast here in the Thames estuary in north Kent and once where Red Sands Radio transmitted from in the 60s.

Fishing lure 131015

Imitation and life, as it were  © Peter Gander 2013

Despite being an avid fisherman, I must admit to never having mastered the lure, admiring from afar their beauty as objects but that’s as far as it goes (so far). This one sports a chunky diving vane on its lower lip and a ruddy throat which I understand throws the intended quarry into a lusty attack, thinking that the faux fish is injured. Unusually for me, I used masking fluid for the hard-edged spine highlight as it does give a strong effect (usually I bring wax to the art table for similar effect). The white/cream paper, though full of texture (Hahnemuele Andalucia 500gsm board) lacked a certain something, so I cut out a fish-body-sized mask of paper and lay it on top of the coloured fish. Then sprayed it freely with blobs of watercolour paint tapped over the back of the hand for that more characterful bespattered look.

Lure 131015  © Peter Gander 2013

Seaside characters for Putterfingers.co.uk

1 of 9  © Peter Gander 2013

Commission for www.putterfingers.co.uk a Suffolk-based mini-golf company. 1 of 9. Original: Ink  and watercolour on 300gsm The Langton Grain Fin paper.

‘Goose’ brush and ink

‘Goose’ brush and ink  © Peter Gander 2013

Card mock-up  © Peter Gander 2013

This is the final number 10 in a series and what more fitting beast for our Have a Gander ‘Menagerie’ range of handprinted cards than a goose? Available on Folksy and Etsy soon. Original: Brush and ink.

‘Skullbikery’ watercolour edition

‘Skullbikery’ watercolour original edition  © Peter Gander 2013

An update of a previous digital edition, this one’s been painted as an original as a gift to a cycling-crazy friend. Hope you liked it Dan ; - ) Winsor & Newton watercolour on The Langton 300gsm Grain Fin paper.

Work-in-progress ‘Hare’

‘Hare’  © Peter Gander 2013

Another work-in-progress shot, this time of 'Hare'. (The curved brown paper surrounding it is greaseproof which protects the detail paper from picking up grease marks from my hands, which would resist the water-based ink and cause patches). Will post the final card mock-up tomorrow. Ink & brush.

‘Fox’ card image

Rough brush and ink sketch for ‘Fox’  © Peter Gander 2013

Card mock-up for ‘Fox’  © Peter Gander 2013

The latest in our ‘Menagerie’ line of handprinted cards. ‘Fox’ will be made into a rubber stamp and each one will be handprinted onto individual cards. Original: Brush and ink.

Inking ‘Swallow’

Inking the Swallow  © Peter Gander

 A 'bird's eye view' of a work-in-progress shot inking the Swallow, one of a set of new Have a Gander 'Animals' Greeting Card images. The painted image is destined for the rubber stamp maker. Once it's turned into a stamp, we'll individually hand-print them onto blank cards. All a very painstaking process, but the result is a beautifully-handcrafted card with a very special quality worth all the effort.

East of London Bridge

‘East of London Bridge’  © Peter gander 2013

Looking east downriver of the Thames towards WWII battleship, The HMS Belfast (where my parents once took me when I was about 12) and Tower Bridge behind it, backlit by the low morning sun. The pointed tower of Canary Wharf, where I am currently freelancing at Ogilvy & Mather, seen in grey in the background. A simple combination of two favourite colours, Winsor & Newton Payne’s Grey and Cerulean Blue capture the essence of the morning light. A dryish brush dragged across the tooth of the mould-made paper acheives the sparkly water effect. The shelter, by Hay’s Galleria at London Bridge (south side) is just by the Clipper pier where I get my morning boat to the Wharf, a mere 10 minute ride, despite the fact that the tower looks like it’s a hundred miles away down the snaking river. Winsor & Newton watercolour and waterproof pen on 210gsm handmade Indian Khadi paper sketchbook.

Lottie the black labrador

‘Lottie’  © Peter Gander

Winsor & Newton watercolour painting on 300gsm handmade Indian Khadi paper. 

‘Couple on seat’ bronze by Lynn Chadwick 2000. Canary Wharf, London.

‘Couple on seat’ bronze sculpture by Lynn Chadwick 2000.  Sketch © Peter Gander 2012

Strong winds again today but dry at least. Right outside the Ogilvy office is this bronze by Lynn Chadwick. I was surprised to see the date of 2000, having presumed it was a 1970s piece, similar to the Henry Moore abstracted figures that I used to see around Harlow, Essex when I was younger. A ring of tiered seating surrounds this and a fountain, so I had a comfortable sketching position. Drawn with a soft (7B) pencil, the paper’s tooth was rather too rough for any subtle variations of tone, but the wash of  sepia over the top helped with that. Dry pigment on the brush dragged upwards (left figure) lent an appropriately rough texture in places. Winsor and Newton watercolour on 210gsm Khadi (Indian handmade) ‘rough’ paper pad.

London lunchtime sketch: Sasso Cosmico, Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London

Sasso Cosmico, Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London  © Peter Gander 2012

A grey day in London. Raining, in fact, so nowhere to sit down and sketch but would have sketched this standing up anyway, for the best viewpoint of this dynamic view down to the famous Canary Wharf tower. In the foreground is a sculpture entitled ‘Sasso Cosmico’, by Do Vassilakis-Konig (bronze and steel) 2007. This view will be familiar with commuters like me who get the Thames Clipper boat into the wharf. The very fine rain added an interesting dotty texture to the painting, visible in the sky especially. The woman pushing the pram, lower left, circled the small park continuously for as long as I was there, a good 40 mins! Staedtler Permanent Pen and Winsor & Newton watercolour on 130gsm cartridge paper (the latter was too thin/non-absorbent for such a well-soaked job really).

London lunchtime sketch: Knocker White, West India Quay, London

‘Knocker White’  © Peter Gander 2012

A windy lunchtime today, had to batten down my own hatches with bulldog-clipped pages held down to stop them blowing around in the wind. A few spots of rain too but nothing really threatening. I am currently freelancing in the Docklands area of East London so thought a boat would make a good inaugural sketch for this area. The rust-coloured autumn leaves floating in the water were a good match to the tug’s warm orange paintwork. This little tug sits just outside the Museum of London Docklands and here’s the official history: 

KNOCKER WHITE is a traditional Thames tug, built in 1924 by T. van Duivendijk, Lekkerkerk, Netherlands as CAIRNROCK, for Harrisons Lighterage Company, London. She was traditionally steam-powered. She later passed into the ownership of W. E. White & Sons, Rotherhithe, and in 1960 was renamed with the nickname of one of the White family. She was converted to diesel power with the installation of Petters engines, and alterations were made to both the funnel and wheelhouse. In November 1982, she was sold for scrap, and parts of her engines were removed. In 1984, after a 60 year working life, she was reprieved and became part of the Museum of London Docklands. Source: Paul Brown, Historic Ships The Survivors (Amberley, 2010), updated Feb 2011.

Winsor & Newton watercolour (squirrel mop brush) on 210gsm rough Khadi (Indian handmade) pad (from Paperchase).

‘One for the pot’ (lobster)

‘One for the pot’  © Peter Gander 2012

A poor photo of this painting (at A3 or 42cm x 21cm it’s too large for my scanner), but hopefully you’ll get the gist. The outline was done with a jumbo bamboo dip pen and Ultramarine ink. Watercolour and ink on The Langton Prestige 300gsm rough paper. • SOLD

McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce bottle

McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce  © Peter Gander

Some objects at first sight at least, appear quite bland, yet always look great painted or drawn, I always think. Whether it’s a tin of soup (Warhol), a smoker’s pipe (Magritte) or even my loosely-painted sketch of a tabasco bottle, their representation as a screenprint, sketch or painting, brings interest anew to an erstwhile uninspiring item. Forgive the pun, but that’s what draws me to bringing them to light. As a graphic designer, I love the simple label typography, limited in colour, but on a richly-hued pepper-red product. An icon-in-the-waiting perhaps. (Black) Indian ink, Winsor & Newton Polar White ink and watercolour on Paperchase Kraft Cream hardback sketchbook.

Ruby port bottle & glasses

Port bottle & glasses  © Peter Gander

Mosaic painting. A particularly nice chance effect of transparent blends on the bottle. A wax candle was used to provide glasses highlights.

Herne Bay Pier Trust’s web page

My recent postcard for The Herne Bay Pier Trust (THBPT) appears on their website today. The demolition of the Sports Pavilion, which the postcard commemorates, begins this week. The original painting will either be auctioned or raffled off soon, so we are hoping to recreate the success of the recent Pilgrims Hospices Charity Postcard Auction with the sale of the painting, 100% of the proceeds of which will go to THBPT.