New paintings and regular art updates.
When I finished college I still loved Celtic art so I tried very hard to create a Celtic cat including Celtic knotwork. This was really difficult to do.
I was pleased with the work and glad I did it. I don’t do such complicated things these days. Very difficult to follow the rules of knotwork so that the overlapping patterns need to follow. Oil on canvas think.
Squeezing a tube of paint for today’s picture and the top of the tube was blocked. I tried to gouge the piece of card stuck to it and paint squirted out all over my hand! I cleaned most of it off but then thought it would be interesting to take picture of my thumb….
It’s an occupational hazard, that and getting paint on my clothes too. I managed to get blue paint on my top. Most of the paint I use is waterbased, like acrylic, but if you don’t wash it off quickly it can dry and form a skin of plastic on your clothes. In the case of oil paints, they stay wet for longer and can be cleaned by wiping off the excess with a cloth or paper towel, then using synthetic turpentine to dissolve the oil paint and wash it out with detergent.
Painting of a seascape done at a Jo Watson workshop. It’s not finished but I ran out of time. The top photo was taken in bright sunshine, the second at home in a darker space. Interesting how the second one has warmer tones, but it’s exactly the same painting. I went a bit Bob Ross, but I’m after more of a Turner feeling. Acrylic, ink, emulsion on canvas. Using brushes, palette knife and scraper card. Although I might have added orange later.?
A little owl on a little canvas. I have several tiny paintings in a box because I’ve basically given up craft fairs. I don’t have the energy or health to do them anymore. I will have to see how I feel later in the year.
You can tell it’s a small canvas because of the size of the weave of the material. It’s an acrylic on canvas. I love painting but I’ve hit an artists block situation. X
From a painting I did of the Chinese willow pattern I did a few years ago. Based on a couple of Spode platters. It took a long time to paint the details. It’s an acrylic on canvas. This is only part of it, concentrating on a temple and pine tree. (I think). I’m sorry it’s so dark, it was copied off my screen saver background and it’s really far too dark. But anyway, I just wanted to post a random piece of my art. I’ll have to try and lighten it.
I worked a bit more on this digital drawing. I used a filter in photodirector to invert the colours, then an eraser that took out some of the dark colours and revealed the underlying colours. I think this looks a little like marble?
A painting I did in the 1980s when we still had our beautiful mainly white cat. She would sit and watch the goldfish in the tank, sometimes raising a paw as if to try and catch them, but the tank had a lid and a pump so they were perfectly safe.
I painted this on a board that used to have a mirror attached to it but that was long gone. I used oil paint I think, it gets absorbed into the wood rather than sitting on the surface like acrylics. It’s about 2 ft long and is hung in the living room above the archway that divides the room in half. I often look up at it and smile at the memories it brings.
Section of a painting I did about 1993. It’s interesting to look at how I painted the pattern on the carpet. It was actually a large rug on a terracotta and black tiled floor. This was in our old rented house which was quite delapidated. The cellar underneath this room was very wet and the mortar was rotting. It was held up by an acroprop and you could see the floor was bowing downward so we didn’t use the room much and I used it as a studio. When you changed a light bulb you needed to take insulation tape with you. The wire was cloth covered and would fall off when you changed the bulb. There’s a lot I could say about that old house, but that’s it for now. It is funny how a painting can evoke so many memories.
One of my murals from the Leopard Hotel in Burslem. Stoke-on-Trent. Sadly lost in a fire. Brindley, Wedgwood, and two other people involved are depicted meeting at the Leopard to plan the work. It’s been several years since I painted it and I can’t remember the other names so if anyone knows please tell me. This was emulsion paint directly onto lining paper on the wall.
I’ve just been told the other two were Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Bentley. Thanks to my friend Greg Stephens for the info.
I started this at art group last November and I hadn’t touched it till today’s art group. That’s about 2 months. I feel guilty that it’s taking so long but with illness and one thing and another it’s taken me this long to get going again. It’s a work in progress and I want to try and get a better feeling of three dimensions to the teapot.
I working the pattern out as I go along and I need to take into account the lighting aswell. It’s been four hours and I didn’t want to stop, but the session only lasts till 2.30pm
Mallaband-Brown