New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m painting a green woman and I’ve been trying to sort out how to differentiate the foreground figure from the background trees. I’ve accentuated the stripes on the bark and made them more black and white than in reality. Since the figure is abstracted in a different way I think it’s starting to work.
Imagined view, I think I need to have a look at some real clouds. I’m not sure if I’m going to call this finished. Acrylic on canvas. I just wanted to paint something calm and peaceful so I created this sketch view X
I’m sad to say that I didn’t get my painting of Molly Leigh the Burslem witch into the three counties open exhibition this year. (Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire).
I know they had over 200 entries and it depends who is selecting the works of art. I also know that the exhibition has to be cohesive and not too eclectic. So will I enter again? Yes, but I will probably choose to do something less specific. But I’m glad I painted this.
The reason why? I painted something similar to this as a mural in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, several years ago. The building burned down a couple of years ago and I wanted to try and recreate the memory of it. The painting means a lot more to me than getting it in this competition. X
I had just gone through an artists block. Sometimes I can’t paint, I come to a standstill. I don’t think what I was painting was that good, but I’m sure I felt better being able to pick up a paintbrush.
Since then my painting work has been up and down. I don’t always feel up to painting, and various stuff makes it more difficult. Painting isn’t just a physical ability, it’s a mental one as well. Both of those things are affecting me. Life sometimes gets in the way of intention. But I don’t give up. I will probably carry on somehow till the day I die. Art is my imperative in life.
My painting of a green woman is coming on. I did some more today. I’m adding more metallic colours, to bring out the sheen on the leaves. Also I want to improve the background of the image. Hopefully it will feel more coherent when it is finished. Acrylic on canvas.
I added shading to a rose painting I started a couple of weeks ago to give it more depth. It is one of those blush roses, with pink and red on the edges of the petals and some yellow further down. Roses are beautiful flowers, but the simplest of them, like wild roses, Rosa rugosa, are better for insects to pollenate and collect nectar. That is because the petals are open and the central part of the flower is easily accessible.
Unfortunately a lot of flowers are now being bred to have twice the petals (doubles). They look beautiful and interesting, but they make it hard to pollenate by insects like bees and they are frequently infertile so they don’t produce viable seeds.
Look for bee friendly plants if you are looking for flowers for your garden.
Looking through some old photos on my phone, I found this painting of a hare I did a few years ago. I posted it to a group on Facebook which has weekly prompts. This week’s was #animals. This is an acrylic on canvas.
Painted on canvas in acrylics. Took about an hour, just keeping my hand in. I worked from a photo I found on the Internet. I just liked the colour of it. Hard to catch the subtleness.
A bit splodgy… Sneak peak! Work in progress. I’m struggling with fine details as I shake as I paint…
A4 size acrylic on canvas, I’m hoping I can refine the details as I go….
Painted last year from a photo of an autumn wood. I’m in another group of artists on Facebook that does weekly prompts. This week was #tree, #trees, #forest, #forests. What gripped my attention was the russet, orange and bronze leaves on the forest floor and following the contours of the deeply worn pathway through it. Some paler leaves are still clinging to the trees, and the distant foliage is pale blue to send it backwards (I might have used pale grey but I liked using the complimentary colour to the oranges.
Mallaband-Brown