Old friends

Inspired by a bright red telephone box found on a local cycle ride, Wendy Jelbert began a search for her next painting subjects

Be inspired by old red telephone boxes, try freeing-up exercises and find creative ways to handle materials and colours, by

Wendy Jelbert

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Try these loosening-up exercises

Be creative with materials and ideas

Follow a watercolour painting process

Until recently, our lives had become increasingly limited, but making just small changes made a huge difference to the quality of my days – and set me on a journey of discovery.

I decided to add new activities to my daily routine. I set myself fun physical exercises to do, played more with my art, and connected with at least one of my art friends or family daily. As my new regime came into play, early each morning I cycled or walked into the countryside or a local park, carrying basic sketching equipment. Arising from this, another task flourished – writing and illustrating a diary. This was a great success, as I added maps, entry tickets and newspaper cuttings alongside my artwork. Today, I am already entrenched in volume two – and loving every moment!

On one of my cycle rides I visited the village of Braisfield and discovered an old-fashioned red telephone box, nestling under a canopy of trees and simply bulging with newly erected shelves and several stacked boxes full of books. I was instantly attracted to this tiny space and began to make enquiries about how a telephone box could have changed into a library for the local community. Were there others and what were their histories? Little did I know how much I was to learn and how my friends and students would help me to find many more examples of these characterful icons.

An idea began to shape itself and I returned to the scene the following morning to capture my subject quickly using a minimum of materials (Figure 2, above right).

Loose and lively detail

Painting these little subjects was more complicated than I expected, as I concentrated on accurately portraying each box’s proportions, the many tones surrounding it and the situation in which it belonged. I also had to remember to highlight individual features, such as notices and instructions to the visiting public and, later on, with these differently operating boxes, their decorative flags and assorted holders containing books, fruit or flowers.

A lot of thought went into achieving a set of varied finished paintings. With a renewed goal ahead and never caring how long the project might take or where it may lead, I began to feel more curiosity and became creatively more motivated and freer.

Figure 1 Before we begin painting, let’s be adventurous with pens and coloured pencils. Here is a sample of some of the drawing methods I use in my own sketches and paintings. Producing something similar will be a good warming-up session before you begin to paint something more definite. Here, I discovered how I could capture some of the colours and textures found in the foliage, backgrounds and within the telephone boxes themselves.

Twyford Stores (with jigsaw and quiz book swap). I painted this and Braisfield Free Library from a series of photos and sketches I made in situ and completed at home. These confirmed the complexity of each small character and the information needed to complete the change to their current use.

Figure 2 On my second visit to Braisfield I used a Biro, blue coloured pencil and HB pencil to highlight the proportions and construction features of the box. I added the tones with both pencils, for a varied effect.