New paintings and regular art updates.
Let me just say. I have strange ideas sometimes. I’ve already painted a cat fish, and by looking at this painting of a dog fish you can probably guess what it looks like!
Continuing with my Green Man idea I have also painted another free figure. I decided to use a more graphic style for both of them.
The tablet I use is getting very slow and this bit of typing is taking ages so I will leave it at that for tonight .
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Im doing lots of things to take to two craft fairs at the weekend. Looking for inspiration and the right things to paint on. The tiniest are paintings of baubles. I have ribbon to add to them so you could even add them to a tree. I saw a robin in a photo and he was sooooo fluffy I had to paint him…finally Im trying to paint directly onto the little chalk boards so the abbey will need more work.
Depending on the weather in Britain we sometimes have snow in winter, or not. It depends on whether you live in the north, or are high up as the temperature falls the higher you get. This is a painting I did when I first moved into my studio at Spode, I think it was so cold in there that I didn’t have to think hard to imagine this image.
It’s based on an idea I had of hills in Yorkshire or the lake district , I think it needed more depth so I added the shadows.
I tend to talk to myself when Im painting, reminding myself where the guttering should be or how light would reflect into the shadows at the side of the house.
I like using my imagination. Exercising my visual memory. It’s worth trying to think through how something is put together. It helps you understand how it works.
Two days, one name change from frost woman to druid. The painting is complete. I enjoyed painting as a demonstration while at the exhibition this weekend. Thanks to my friend Raina for modelling for the initial face. Then lots of metallic paints later this image emerged.
I may do a bit more to the dark areas but I’m pretty pleased with it. A good weekends work.
This is a painting called frost woman I think. I started doing it as a demonstration at the exhibition. Someone said she didn’t know how I do it. How do I get things looking right so quickly and someone else said she would need to spend ages working out a design. But I admire both of their work. I guess we are all different. I love patterns and work well with them. And yet struggle with other things. I’m not neat, I don’t really do clean straight lines. I’m often messy, my eyesight isn’t what it was and I don’t think my concentration is as good as it used to be.
But I love painting.
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My winter woman has turned into an early spring woman snow is still on the ground but cherry blossom flowers have sprung from the trees twigs and branches, it feels like an old surrealist painting, and I don’t object to that but I wish I coukd do better details .
This has been a fight! Hours of messing about with the shading and shaping of the branches. It’s not finished yet…..but I need a rest. Night all.
A couple of years ago I did a painting called winter man, two trees entwined to make a face looking out at you. Now I’m working on a profile view of a woman. I hope I can get the colours right and I need to add snow on the branches and shadows on the ground….. More to follow
Green brown woman is finished. Ready to go to her new home. I tried to get a 3d effect with light and dark tones. One thing that happens when I try to imagine a subject is that it needs to look at least slightly like it could exist. With this I wanted to try and make the leaves look like they were real, but when you imagine things it does all depend on what you remember, how it’s put together and what colours it has.
Anyway I want the customer to be happy especially since it has taken a few weeks to paint…. Now all I have to do is finish Jupiter before this weekend!
Wow there’s a lot of things going on down at Spode today. The Stoking Curiosity event is very busy. I’m down at studio 21 and hoping people will pop in. There’s just been a call for a poetry workshop (I’m having lunch at the works canteen cafe) then will be back to continue painting Jupiter today and tomorrow.
So if you get the chance come down and see what’s going on today and tomorrow
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This just popped up in my Facebook memories. A painting on canvas I did of Manorbier Castle in South West Wales (near Tenby). There was a guardhouse near the entrance and a shop and cafe There is a Chapel towards the side nearest the sea. The castle is surrounded by trees and if you follow the road down past it you eventually find a path that you can walk on that takes you out into a shallow bay. The rocks are very interesting with long thin bars of rock separated into long segments lying horizontally ( if I remember rightly) . On the left hand hill overlooking the bay you can see the castle and on the right hand hill, separated by a valley, is the church up in Manorbier village itself.
It’s a few years since we went and my memory is hazy, but my partner remembers Gerald of Wales lived at the castle. I think it’s one of the few privately owned castles in Wales and I’m pretty sure someone lives in apartments inside the battlements.. Its definitely worth a visit, there are lovely gardens there. The only thing is try and go on a dry day as some if the steps are a bit slippery in the rain.
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Mallaband-Brown