New paintings and regular art updates.
I’ve had some new business cards. Shiny, new and based on one if my paintings.
My previous set were based on a painting of a spode plate but it’s good to have a change.
Not much else to say really. I’ve decided to just sign my paintings Mallaband-Brown as fitting the Christine or C in takes up a lot of space. These also reflect my love of colour and experiment.
Maybe one day I will be better known, but I’m trying..
I’m watching a programme about artists and bankers. A massive amount of money passes through the system and the super rich pay hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds or dollars to get hold of fashionable art. The programme is about collecting art and how much its value can inflate over time. But the art market can go down as well as up. Someone may be a fashionable artist now only to be dropped in the future.
Much of it seems more like luck than judgement. Art investors collect from many artists to cover the risk. Apparently artists were treated in the same way in the past. Canaletto painted 100 paintings in 9 years, his art became famous but he had a workshop where he had assistants to help him finish his paintings.
People looking at the art may find some of the images in the programme very bad. But like the emporers new clothes that does not seem to matter. In fact sending art abroad can mean you don’t have to pay tax. There seem to be some very dodgy practices that the programme raised. The whole basis of the show seems to be how to make money for the rich. Art is an industry and artists need to know about it but it would be very unlikely to get taken on by a rich patron. There are still artists struggling to make ends meet who do it for the love of art.
Good to get a good image of this painting I did a year ago. The owner has kindly sent me a HD image of it.
Acrylic on canvas, it is a lake view where the trees are back lit by a setting sun. Approximately 12 x12 inches square.
I wanted to paint a view that was crisp and fresh. The colours contrast nicely and the reflections in the water Shimmer with ultramarine blue.
I’m happy to paint anything you would like to commission. Just contact me to discuss.
Here are coloured pencil drawings I did a few years ago. They are views of church rock at Tenby, Tenby beaches, Tenby Harbour, Laugharne Castle and the boathouse at Laugharne where Dylan Thomas lived.
Tenby and Laugharne are both in the county of Pembrokeshire in South Western Wales. It is a beautiful place. Its known as little England in Wales. It is also the location of Pendine sands. A long flat beach in the Laugharne estuary where several land speed records have been achieved..
These are a couple of photos of when I painted a willow pattern plate painting. I did it because I had moved into my studio at spode and I had done a series of paintings of pottery.
I looked at various tiny images of the willow pattern pottery by various manufacturers and selected about 3 plates to do the design from. Sitting holding my phone in one hand with the canvas on a table easle is quite difficult, trying to look at photos about 2 inches Square. I made up the outer border mostly from my imagination.
I’m trying to get this very complex painting finished for tomorrow. It’s going from OK to not sure. I don’t know if I like the brushstrokes. I’m trying another brush in a minute. I’m staying another hour or so. Will post more if it improves.
I’ve been doing some more work on this painting. I want to get it finished this week. It’s a painting of one of the poles of Jupiter. In the photo it has a bluish tinge but I’m trying to make it bluer as the exhibition title is “an Exhibition of Blue” on in Spode exhibition space at Acava Studios, Spode Site, Eleanor Street, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent. From 2nd February 2019.
When we got married we stood on the steps of the local registry office and had a few group photos taken. I have the album somewhere (it was full of photos taken by friends as we didn’t have a photographer).
I decided to do a painting of the occasion. I used two photos, because faces and people were not posed I had to take figures off two photos to make a nice composition. (By the way my sister is that tall!)
I apologise for this photo, it’s not very good. I should really take better ones with lighting etc but I don’t have those resources.
I will say it was a good wedding. We only spent £300 and that was including our clothes, the food and our honeymoon!
How did we do it? Everyone bought food for a buffet at our house. We got a barrel of beer in. Friends made and iced the cake (shaped like a cat with a blue and pink cat on top). We held the reception at home. The honeymoon was two nights in a posh hotel, two in a bed and breakfast and the rest of the week in a caravan!
I thought I would post this progress picture even though I haven’t progressed that far since the last one. I do need to change some of the angles. I’m trying to give it a late afternoon glow to brighten the brickwork. I’m going to add some clouds to the sky to give it more depth.
The canvas is about 30 inches by 24 inches. I’m using acrylic again. I need to get some more blue and white for the sky.
Well that’s it for now. Christmas is coming and I’m getting busy, but I will try and post more over the next couple of weeks.
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I have just learnt of the sad loss of one of the nicest people I ever met.
Enos Lovatt was born in 1937 and died yesterday of pneumonia after being diagnosed with alzheimers disease a few years ago.
He was a contemporary of and studied painting in the same group as David Hockney.
I wish I knew more about him. He was a lovely person and I had the luck to have him as one of my tutors at the North Staffs polytechnic. I think he was on the interview panel that offered me a place on the Fine Art course there.
Enos was then living in Wolstanton and on one occasion I had the privilege of visiting his house with other students. The house was full of wonderful, colourful paintings. I remember some of them being stacked up the stairs.
I lost track of him after finishing college but he continued to paint and I went to see an exhibition of his painting a few years ago at Burslem School of Art. It was there that I heard he had been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. I know he then moved away to be closer to his family.
I regret not talking to him more. He, like another of my tutors, Arthur Berry, was an inspiring teacher. I am sad to hear that he has passed away.
The painting in the photo is one of his still lives. I’m glad I have it as a memory of him.
Mallaband-Brown