Of me painting.
Stitching an image together
Section by section
Gradually integrating
Joining blocks together
Like a jigsaw puzzle.
Pieces don’t always fit
They have to be adjusted.
The progress of a rake
Is in jeopardy!
Someone took a photo
Category: Fine Art
Fire
Today I painted a fire for the play Who is Molly Leigh…. Not the fire surround or the hearth, or the objects around it, but a piece of cardboard with a brick chimney backing painted on it and a coal fire burning strongly in the grate.
I asked another maker what she thought and she felt the flames should be more yellow and red, but the photo I worked from showed bright white flames surrounded by glowing yellow, orange, and red. It’s funny how people’s imaginations have stereotypical ideas of how things should look. I really enjoyed adding bright colours in between the coals to make it look really hot.
How to paint panels
Someone asked me how to paint wood panels today so I got some cardboard and some acrylic paint and did this. It’s meant to look like oak, which I painted grey brown and added shading and highlights and a sort of wood grain effect… It’s quite deep looking due to the shadows.
Painting and reading
Which activities make you lose track of time?
When I paint I lose track of time, the world goes away. Sometimes I lose myself completely. I know I feel pain in my arms nowadays, and I can’t always focus on the tip of my brush because I get slight double vision. But I have to do it. I’m under a compulsion to spread liquid onto a hard or soft surface (board, wall, or canvas) and recreate images or come up with ideas of my own….
My other passion is reading, I rarely read a book from cover to cover anymore unless it’s very short, my hands stick in place, my trigger fingers play up and I get cramp in them. But I do like using reading to send myself to sleep. I’m currently rereading The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. It’s a sci-fi novel set in the 1960’s? It’s also a very good film…. He was the author of Jurassic Park by the way.
Goodnight, off to bed to read….I might just lose track of time again. X
Another picture
Quick painting of one of the project owners dogs. I painted for a few hours but came home shattered. I explained that I was really tired but I’m not sure they understood. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. You can’t always see disabilities. And people mask how they are feeling to try and feel as normal as possible.
Rakes progress, after Hogarth
With poor brushes you can still paint. This is about A4 size. The trouble was when I painted this, I couldn’t get a point on the brushes they provided. That made it hard to get detail on the faces and hands. It ended up looking very sketchy but I did my best. This took about 2 hours to knit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Hogarth would be spinning or laughing in his grave! Acrylic on board.
By the time I finished I had to be helped up off my chair. My left hand has been cramping up ever since and my left leg is in spasm. I’m hunched over after leaning in to add details. It’s been a hard, hot day and my Parkinsons is making me shake like a jelly!
Haywain, after Constable
Scenery painting for a cottage scene. They wanted some old style pictures you might find on a cottage wall. So I decided to try and do a quick (1 hour) painting of the haywain. It jiggered me up! And the image I copied from wouldn’t expand so it was the size of a postage stamp! Lots of sketchy work on this but it looks OK at a distance. Acrylic on board.
Creepy cave
How do you know it’s creepy? It’s written on it…
Mystery Play set. In the past I would paint 2 or 3 8x8ft panels for the Mystery Plays. The last time was 5 years ago just before Covid struck. Then a year ago I was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease. Now it’s taken me all my time to do this and a cottage scene on the back of it. Luckily we have old bits of scenery to fill the gaps. I wish I could do more….
Square pig
I once saw a pig so square
And it’s body was very bare
Not a hair on its chin
It was a real sin!
But clearly it didn’t really care!
A square cow
Loose copy of a “square” cow. Farmers didn’t have photographs of their animals so they often had portraits painted to show how much flesh the animals had. This led to distorted images with massive, square bodies and small heads and legs! I’ve seen paintings like this in old pubs in the countryside.
It’s a small acrylic on canvas covered board. I’m helping a group create some paintings about the witch Molly Leigh and they wanted pictures linked with the countryside and farming. I’m doing more. I’ve also done a square pig!
Mallaband-Brown 