New paintings and regular art updates.
Autumn is flying in on strong winds.
I tried to paint its rapid journey. You could almost see the colours changing in front of you as the trees blew in a warm wind from the south.
I ended up with quite a pointellist painting. Lots of tiny dots of colour. Difficult to get the shapes of the branches and limbs right.
These are two small canvases that I worked on yesterday. I used a modelling medium on them to build up textures One had leaf shapes built up on it, and the other a spiral of shallow spikes.
I also bought some brusho. I’d never used it before. It’s a dust or fine crystals that you can either sprinkle on a wet or damp surface or sprinkle on dry and then add water. The colours change when you add water. For instance lemon yellow looks orange in the pot. You also only need to use tiny amounts. I ended up with a paper plate under the canvases to catch the drops. I tried to get the colours to surround the raised sections then used some acrylic colours to delineate the edges of the shapes.
I’ve left them with Etruria Artists at the warehouse to dry out.
I painted this a few years ago. It was an elephant my friend made for penkhull mystery plays. It was used in a procession onto the village green and was carried by shoulder straps. I think it had cloth legs hanging over the edge to make it look like someone was sitting on the elephant.
It was so amazing I decided to record it as a painting. The frame was made of willow withies then canvas was stretched over the frame and painted white. Finally a fringe was attached to it and other fabric decorations.
The painting went to my friends house but sadly the elephant is no more. I think it was burnt in a fire at the garage it was stored in a few years after the play.
Searching through my files found these old photos that were saved in a file that was on my old phone. Some of them I recognise, others must be more than 3 years old. I need to work out how to transfer them across to the other files…..
So there is Westport lake, a wooden screen at a cafe, a window in St Thomas Church, penkhull, a cumulo nimbus cloud, a drink flask, paper butterflies I cut out for a birthday and a painting I did of my friend decorating an elephant she made for the penkhull mystery plays.
I’m sure I will find more to share.
X
Finished or almost finished? Not sure. I’ve spent the last two days painting this while having my studio open to the public. In the end you lose track of what you are doing. What you are saying. I can waffle forever but it stops making sense after a while.
I like people to ask me questions about art. But then I get nervous. It’s like a fog descends over my head and I can’t articulate or describe what I mean. I hope my paintings are pretty self explanatory but I still try and explain what I am doing. Artists on TV seem to be able to tell people what they are doing, but I can’t do that. I’m a painter not a public speaker…..
So anyway, I finished this painting today. It’s called mermaid.
X
I decided to paint a mermaid but didn’t want it to be Disneyish. So I’ve used a photo of a victorian painting to work from. Obviously that face was not blue and I have changed the image in other ways to make it more interesting. I don’t have much more to do to it but I have left it for the moment. I will probably finish it off in the next couple of days..
Oh I love pattern and colour,
I love birds, flowers and trees,
Green men, phoenix, mythical beasts.
Who wants bland and boring?
Who wants pale and wan?
Why not get those colours
Under your skin.
Life is so exciting.
Life can be such fun.
If only we embrace it
Under the sun.
Never give me plain things
Always give me jazz
Living in a coloured land
Magic has begun.
I posted a couple of photos of this painting a few days ago but I wasn’t happy with it. I was going to change it but didn’t know what was going to happen to it. I had ideas but as I worked on it I couldn’t figure out whether they would work or not. One side was complicated, the other to simple. How to balance the sides but not paint over the whole thing?
The solution was to paint over a lot of it, but allow the background to show through. I tried to go for an exploded boxes side on the left of the picture and a more curved pattern on the right. Also I added more green and blue to the right. Finally I added some metallic paint on the left to tone down the black I had used to paint the box shapes just on one side of each box/object. Anyway the cat seems to like it!
I had an idea inside my head for a painting from digital (pixels) to analogue .. But it wasn’t like this. I had done an interesting digital drawing a few days ago. It was meant to look like that. Not this mess! Trouble is it’s due in today, but I have got to be somewhere else. I will crave a few extra days but not sure I will get them….
This needs rescuing. Maybe I should scrub it out and start again ….
X
As you can see my original idea is nothing like it except perhaps the colours.
What should I do….? Follow me to see if I can get something decent out of this!
Here are some photos of my exhibition at Etruria. The show looks pretty good. I’ve sold a few pieces and talked to lots of people. I had a chat with someone from tourist information who was very helpful. I’m hoping that I can do more work and that people will enjoy what I do. I’m sure I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m always willing to take on commissions so the choice of subject matter can be yours.
X
Mallaband-Brown