Reds and greens…

Hmmm, so I got a strong red from the shop and decided to overoaint the poppy. Then I attacked what I think is a dahlia… In that one I really think I need to look at a real one. The third picture is my attempt at a dragons eye.. Don’t know why? The fourth just is, but I’m not sure what yet. Each need taming. Green might be OK. We will see….

View of Trentham lake.

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This is a few years old but I painted it while I was up on top of the hill by Trentham monument. It’s looking back towards the potteries with Trentham lake in the middle ground, obscured to some extent by the trees on the hill. I’m not that good at landscapes (this is acrylic on canvas). I guess it’s in my own style but it’s a little bit splodgy.

Anyway the reason for posting this is to inspire myself to do a few more. Perhaps we can get out into the open air this week and take some photos to work from.

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Run out of red

I want a light red

Not a pink

Not orange

Crimson?

Perhaps,

Maybe vermilion,

Something punchy,

Not magenta,

Not alizarian

Not a deep cadmium red (hue)

So many names

But which one will be right,

What is the correct tinge?

Works in progress

Paint laid on paint,

Building up layers,

Blood red?

Maybe if I put my heart into it.

 

Painting again

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I’ve just started this poppy painting. It’s on a black canvas about 12″ square.

I’m hoping I will be able to build up a depth of colour and detail  because of the dark canvas. It’s acrylic on canvas and is going to be big and bold. I need to work on the colours in the poppy but also in the greens of the foliage. I should finish it in the next few days. This is like a practice piece as I have another two black canvases to work on. Not sure what the subject will be.

When I was forty

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I did this self portrait. I don’t do many and haven’t done one recently. Maybe I should. At this time I had the front bedroom as a studio, until we got too much stuff and I moved my painting stuff out. My tee shirt was a recycling one but I haven’t seen it for years. I’m not sure what I think about this, but it’s another Facebook memory. It’s a bit blurred. I still have the original upstairs, will have to find it out.. Almost twenty years later.

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Favourite photo 2012.

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Memories, I don’t know when I painted this but it’s just come up on my FB page as the favourite photo of 2012. It’s a painting of my friend when she ran a market stall surrounded by her objects for sale. It’s based on a photo of her that I had taken. The cardigan and hair really added to the vibrant colours in the painting. I can’t remember what it’s called. 

I loved the scarf with the snake on it, and the puppet which may be Thai or Indian. Sometimes it’s good to paint what you see.

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It’s up!

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I’m so pleased with my exhibition which opens tomorrow. Darren and Sarah who run the Centre Space couldn’t have been more helpful.

I will post some photos of the paintings tomorrow when they are on show. I was pleased with the way the exhibition looks and the careful way that it was put up. I hope I get a few commissions out of it.

Will people understand my passion for painting green men? Or my love if planets and astronomy? My quirky ideas about earth, air, fire and water and a series of national and international animals and birds?

I hope whatever people like there will be something that will pique their interest. Like a victorian collector of curiosities I enjoy the odd, interesting, and fun.

Mirror plates

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Ouch… I’ve just finished putting mirror plates on the back of my paintings. You have to make holes in the back of canvas’s wooden supports and then screw them in place with two screws so they can be attached to gallery walls.

The problem is that the screws I have are small and have Phillips cross headed heads on them. The screws are made of harder metal than the screw driver and consequently the head of the screw driver had worn away. You can’t see this clearly on the photos though.

The the screw driver does not sit properly in the head of the screw, this means that they are really difficult to drive into the back of the canvas. I had to do this on 14 canvases, so 28 mirror plates and 56 screws. The wooden frames on canvases are not uniform, some are made with harder wood than others. In a couple of cases I had to use shorter screws because they would not screw all the way into the wood.

Now I have to list all the paintings so that I can take them down to the gallery on the morning.