Where do you start…?

Posted on November 25, 2018November 25, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Abstract, Acrylic on canvas, Design, Face, Frost woman, Green man, Leaves Autumn, Winter2 Comments

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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.

Twigs and blossom

Posted on November 22, 2018November 22, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blog, Blossom, Design, Painting, Surreal, Trees2 Comments

IMG_20181122_004229_653 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.

Winter woman

Posted on November 21, 2018November 21, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blue, Design, Ice, Painting, Snow, Winter womanLeave a comment

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

Finished

Posted on November 20, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Blogging, Design, Fun, Green and brown woman, Green man, Painting3 Comments

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!

At stoking curiosity

Posted on November 16, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Jupiter, Painting, Spode, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, Stoking curiosity, TryptichLeave a comment

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

Manorbier castle

Posted on November 14, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Castle, Manorbier Castle, Painting, Tenby, Wales7 Comments

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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.

Progress!

Posted on November 12, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic, Acrylic on canvas, Art, Autumn, Design, Green and brown woman, Leaves, Shape2 Comments

She’s almost done. I’m just trying to get a bit more of a 3d effect. I’m liking the more sombre colours but I’m putting a glimmer of gold into this. The face is quite controlled, I’m trying to go for a medieval look. Hope you like it (and the person who has commissioned it)

Dog commission.

Posted on November 9, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Dog, Painting, Portrait3 Comments

This was from 2017 I think? It’s an image of a friends dog sitting in a grassy field near the sea. I used their photo to work from and it’s quite a big canvas. I wondered whether to add all the grass and weeds but I think it worked quite well. This is again acrylic on canvas. It was a pleasure to paint it.

Green and brown woman

Posted on November 7, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Design, Green woman, Life, Poem4 Comments

Progress takes time and thought,

Progress means learning,

Finding your way,

Looking back as well as forward,

Learn from your mistakes,

Find your technique,,

Give time a chance and

Catch up with yourself.

Mind is strange,

Mind knows and sees.

Mind gets ahead, sees a solution

Before you know

How to

Do it

Paint it.

Grow and progress

I was just going to write a short note about how this is progressing but it turned into a little poem. Better get back to work.

Jupiter progress.

Posted on November 6, 2018 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Complex, Jupiter, Nasa, Painting, Photo, Science, Space, Tryptich, UniverseLeave a comment

Note the first photo is the latest version.

For some reason they came out opposite to how I posted them. Here are two parts of my Jupiter tryptich based on a photo Jupiter in the rear view mirror by Nasa. Taken as the Juno probe flew by Jupiter.

The challenge is to finish one panel by Friday. The other two will be painted on our Open days, 16th and 17th of November 2018 when we join with the Stoking Curiosity event. Run in conjunction with Keele University and Staffordshire University. There are a series of talks and lectures over the two days based on the integration of art and science.

Given I love astronomy I decided on this subject. Forgetting that I don’t have a working printer and that my computer is on the blink. I have to thank Mike and Nick at Spode for printing me off black and white photos and then colour images. I would not have got this far without them….. So I’m struggling with the complexity of Jupiter. I’m working on an image from above one of the poles where the oranges and reds of the main bulk of the planet turn to sombre blues browns and dark greys.

My shoulders and arms ache. Although I’m just trying to get one panel finished I have to work across two of them so they fit together and I can orientate where the blotches and patterns are. Please don’t expect perfection..I will try to see how it comes out. If you are around Stoke for Stoking Curiosity come along. I will be in studio 21 at Spode.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Acrylic on canvas