New paintings and regular art updates.
I have to go and collect my owl painting from the Brampton open exhibition tomorrow. It was for sale and I would have liked to have sold it. I have an open studio day at Spode on November 12th so perhaps I could sell it there. I am pessimistic though. There is less money available and I think things will get a lot worse before it gets better. Being an artist doesn’t make you rich! But I can’t stop painting.
The gallery I have my poppy paintings in has used my poppy meditation to create a jigsaw puzzle. I need to see it in reality to check the colours and clarity of it but was a lovely surprise. Lots of thoughts about other ideas too. Cushion covers, tee shirts? A whole new world of opportunity.
A favourite painting done seven years ago. It was called Autumn Woman and was snapped up by an old friend. I like slightly surreal images, thinking about traditional art and giving it a slight twist. I may do a painting that includes leaves and fungi using this as an inspiration. I’m so happy with the colour combinations, I forgot that you can include blue as an autumnal colour.
I decided to do a bonus small painting to go with my bigger close up of a poppy. It’s called red poppy. It’s hard to come up with an original title. Lots of red used in these but I’ve tried to vary them and give that wrinkled feeling that poppies have.
I think this might be finished but I’m waiting for daylight to check the colours. I might tone down the white and I may add some blue tones to make it feel like the sky is being reflected in it. The poppy was real, but I took this from a painting I did of a photo so I might look at some images of poppies.
Work in progress. I want to try and get more realism into this. It’s based on a previous painting, but I decided to try and get in closer and give a finesse to the petals texture and the central structure of the poppy. I’ll post again when it’s finished.
My phone is doing strange things, especially when I’ve tried to upload images to my Facebook page today. I decided to optimise some of my photos because my phone memory is too full. Usually the images that I have shrunk stay on the phone and the others are deleted. But thus time everything doubled up. I tried deleting the old ones, but I had to restart the phone and my images seemed to get mixed up. I tried finding them and although I did the gallery kept reverting to the older ones. I guess I need to buy a new memory card? I don’t know if I can sort it out otherwise.
One of the hazards of painting is getting covered in paint! I stuck my thumb in my pallette and splodge, all over my thumb. Luckily I didn’t get any on my clothes! I can wash acrylic off my hands, but once it’s dried it’s impossible to get out of your top or trousers. Oil paint can sometimes be removed as it’s slow drying and you can use thinners to remove it, but once acrylic is dry it’s solid like plastic. You might be able to peel a bit off but it gets in between the fibers and sticks. Anyway, I love this colour blue. Ultramarine? Not sure….
Hard work, but I think it was worth it. I think some of my paintings are like knitting or embroidery, pulling all the threads together to bring it to a finished piece. And sometimes it’s knowing where to stop, to feel satisfied. Sometimes my hubby says I overwork things, but I think I know where I am with this. I decided not to add any bees or butterflies, I think that would just distract.
I turned my painting upside down because I’m struggling to reach the top with my aching and shaking arms. I’m working on the background. But it also helps me see shapes and tones and proportions. I need to decide if I want the background to be blurry? Perhaps I should change my brush size and try and blur the edges. I will turn it back in a while….
Mallaband-Brown