Signal Studio Residency - working away!

I am having a very productive studio residency at Signal Arts Centre. One of the first things I did, on a sunny morning, was cut some paper, put on my boiler suit, and head outside to do some rubbings of the metal utility shores on the street. I taped these rubbings to the wall near the door and they have stayed there for the duration of my stay. A few of them can be seen in this picture.

My painting station, which takes up half the room, also provides me wall space to affix reference pictures and some finished pastel drawings. A moveable surface under the paints table provides a space for my pastels and I sit in a chair near the window when working on pastel drawings.

This area by the sink is also the selfie station. There is a mirror leaning agains the wall and every morning I do a self-portrait sketch in a sketchbook. I have been using a variety of media for these daily selfies - soft pencil, charcoal pencil, conté, pen, inks, watercolour pencils. I especially enjoy painting selfies with ink washes (I am limited to several bright colours and black) as I have to be loose in the execution. I also really like using my watercolour pencils for selfies and other small works. 

Every day I spend most of my time painting, with breaks to work on a pastel drawing and to do a self portrait sketch. I had prepared all the canvases in advance of arriving at Signal, applying scrim texture and a quinacridone violet groundcoat. At Signal I began the blocking in of the paintings in my first week there.

Although I placed the large canvas on the easel, I simply lay the small canvases on the table or lean them against the wall and pick them up when applying a specific colour. Here are several of them in progress.