‘Herne Bay skaters’

‘Herne Bay skaters’ mixed media  © Peter Gander

‘Lapland map’ Christmas card

© Peter Gander/Have a Gander. Watercolour and ink.

detail

detail

Winter hedges

Winter hedges  © Peter Gander

Inspired by the very straight-cut and graphic hedges I saw on a foggy dog walk last week, my interpretation. Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm grain fin paper.

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

Gurnard (AKA ‘Sea Robin, etc’)

Tub gurnard  © Peter Gander 2013

I bought a small shoal of these sustainable fish (well, half a dozen) at Whitstable fish market a few weeks back, for a fish curry. British chefs are said to remark ‘Ugly fish, tasty dish’. And true enough, my gurnard were very tasty. But I think they are rather lovely-looking too. Compared to the usual cod or pollack, gurnard look like the kind of exotic fish you’d find in Mauritius, not Margate, but apparently they are quite common around local Kent shores. The one shown is a tub gurnard, probably the most colourful, with its electric-blue edging to its huge pectoral fins (the others are ‘red’ and ‘grey’ gurnard). They are also known ‘Croaker’ as they emit a croaking noise when caught. Other names include ‘soldier’, elleck’ and ‘rotchet’, depending on where you live. They are also far more interesting because not only do they have armoured heads, but they also possess ‘legs’ (thus also called ‘feeler fish’) behind their front fins for walking with. And, as if all of the above isn’t impressive enough, they can poison you too with their gill plates and it’ll hurt for a few days. Respect to the gorgeous gurnard. Winsor & Newton watercolour on ‘The Langton’ Grain Fin 300gsm paper. Original: 20cm x 15cm. Buy the original here for £50 (UKSterling): http://folksy.com/items/4885302-Gurnard-fish-painting

Fiona’s Converse

Fiona’s Converse  © Peter Gander 2013

I’ve always wanted to draw these iconic shoes from my youth and my wife Fiona wears them, so I got her to part with them for an hour. The drawing was done sans sketch/pencil 1st, so it remains nice and loose with a spontaneous feel. Ink and dip pen with watercolour (mostly Payne’s Grey) on Hahnemuhle Andalucia 500gsm paper.

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.

‘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.

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).

Red & green hen (• SOLD 13 Jan 2013)

Red and green hen  © Peter Gander 2012

A random hen for the show (it can’t all be about fish, fishermen and that maritime stuff). A big puddle of plain water was laid down for this in the shape of the body and pigment dropped into that puddle once only the sheen of water remained. (You need to use big, bold water-loaded squirrel mops for this). The result, rather like a photographer’s experience in the darkroom, is a joy, watching the colours blend, dominate and develop in front of your eyes. Minor leg and head details/caption were added with a dip pen and ultramarine ink. The downy feathers of the hen’s rear was achieved beyond the puddle area, dragging out the pigment eastwards with a dry squirrel brush, across untouched paper. It’s best, again for simplicity’s sake, to stick to just a couple of colours when experimenting like this. Winsor & Newton watercolour on Two Rivers handmade paper (rough). • SOLD 13 Jan 2013

The long slow road to the Sargasso (painting)

‘The long slow road to the Sargasso’ (painting)  © Peter Gander 2012

Scratching away white highlights with a scalpel

Going back a few years now, I posted a lunchtime sketch on this blog of ‘The long slow road...’, (see pic) with a link to The National Anguilla Club later picked up by a certain eel enthusiast from Cefas . (Hope you’re keeping up). Anyway, I was commissioned by the same person to produce the ‘Eel knot’ invite artwork and the above painting for the delegates of a Fisheries convention up in Edinburgh, Scotland, earlier in May. The original is a watercolour but I employed the fine skills of Michael Setek at www.gicleeprinting.co.uk in nearby Wye, Kent, to supply a number of giclée prints to hand out to worthy attendees. For any other artists in Kent keen on duplicating their paintings, especially watercolours (which aren’t easy to reproduce accurately) I’d recommend you check him out. Such is the excellent quality of the prints that you have to feel the original paper to check which one is the ‘real McCoy’!

The new painting (foreground) and the original sketch from 3 years ago amidst eely reference material

‘Eely happy’ print recipients, from left to right:
John Casselman (Canada), Mari Kuroki (Japan), Don Jellyman (New
Zealand), Katsumi Tsukamoto (Japan), Jim McCleave (USA) and Alan Walker
(Cefas, UK). Willem Dekker (Sweden)

The new painting remained very faithful to the original idea, changing little from my concept of a family and their belongings tied to a giant eel, travelling by night on their arduous journey to every European eel’s spawning ground - the Sargasso sea near Bermuda. In fact, I even kept the Biro element to lend an etching-like feel to the finished art. Also employed were a scalpel to scratch away white glossy highlights of the eels’ skin and candle wax to add texture to the flinty soil catching the moon’s rays. Winsor & Newton watercolour on The Langton Prestige 300gsm rough paper.

St Edmund’s Canterbury, main school painting

© Peter Gander 2012  St Edmund’s main entrance

A second commission from local Canterbury school St Edmund’s. This time the main entrance, which faces the Whitstable road. This part of the building has lovely pale stonework and a gothic lancet arched doorway. The painting was very much ‘dabbed’ at to retain plenty of summery white paper spaces which infuse the work with light, (rather than lay down areas of flat colour). Winsor and Newton watercolour on The Langton Grain Fin 180gsm watercolour paper.

Swing-top flask

Swing-top flask  © Peter Gander

A quick sketch on a new supply of Jacksons Eco Handmade Watercolour Paper (extra rough) 425gsm. The extremely rocky surface is hard work for a scratch pen and the lines bleeds a lot of course, but makes for a rich base for the watercolours. A touch of wax candle in places gives us some white relief within the glass.

Bateaux Mouches, Paris

Bateaux mouches, Paris  © Peter Gander

Mosaic again. Paris by night. Painting of the famous Parisienne boats company sign with the Eiffel tower in the background. Dip pen and watercolour on rough paper.

Mosaic painting: Ballantine’s whisky

Ballantine’s Whisky  © Peter Gander

Another mosaic piece, this time it’s for a client with a penchant for whisky. Dip pen and ink with watercolour on rough 300gsm paper.

Café

Café  © Peter Gander

Using Indian ink and white gouache on Indian Khadi paper, a loose, gestural painted sketch of a waiter through the window of a London café. The heavyweight, cotton rag paper is perfect for those unexpected blooms, spreads and grainy effects that give richness to the piece. Indian ink, gouache on Khadi 310gsm paper.

Misty morning, Swalecliffe

Misty morning, Swalecliffe  © Peter Gander

A recent cool, early morning November cycle ride took me through the coastal area of Swalecliffe, in between Herne Bay and Tankerton, Whitstable. Visibility was poor, but atmosphere rich - dog walkers on the dirt track in this marshy area the loomed out of the fog which unfurled from the sea, merging into the grey sky in a horizonless vista. Despite the fog, I managed to spot my first white egret here in Swalecliffe Brook (on the left of the painting). Like a small albino heron, it stood ghostly and motionless in the water, probably on the lookout for eels. The absorbent paper is a weighty mould-made 560lb and made the merging of colours in the fog a dream, as the paper retains the water for ausefully long period. Winsor and Newton watercolour on Jackson’s 560lb Extra Rough Eco Handmade paper.