New paintings and regular art updates.
Autumn puddle, a rather strange painting I finished today. Acrylic on canvas.
I started by picking up some leaves and tried to paint them and get the colours right. It then got left while I was not feeling well so I decided to try and do more work on it. I think I’ve not done too badly. The leaves are now floating in a puddle reflecting a blue and white sky. Should I do more to it?
Leaf leaves tree
How long will it be
Before naked branches
Are clothed again?
First frost, then rain
Maybe snow will come again.
Icicles hang on gutters
Defrost as cold rain sputters
Then one day a bud bursts open.
Spring comes slowly,
Time is sullen.
In these months leaves are rotten
And autumn colours are forgotten.
Farewell friend
The end….
I went out and picked up a few leaves today as there hadn’t been much rain lately and they are starting to turn interesting colours. I might paint the background as a puddle with sky and clouds reflected in it. I will have to consider it. Acrylic on canvas, work in progress….
A writing prompt from Esther Chilton.
My favourite season is Spring. The anticipation of warm weather to come. Flowers and buds emerging after a bleak winter, and birds, bees and animals taking advantage of the newly green fields.
But to be honest this year the, spring seems to have started, but winter is still here in July. Low temperatures, low pressure and 80% of July’s rainfall in just 10 days in the UK has made for a dismal start to the summer. The jet stream is south of us scooping down cold and wet air from the Arctic.
Meanwhile Southern Europe is baking in record breaking heat with numerous deaths.
Hopefully it will turn into a mild autumn. Unless the weather morphs into a more wintery scene…..
Some leaves are falling despite copious rain. It’s mid may up here in the northern hemisphere, but spring and summer feel far away. What is happening ? Is the climate changing? Maybe it’s a slow motion version of the film the day after tomorrow. Some talk of the Gulf stream current dwindling has been mooted over the last few years. The stream pulls up warm water from the Atlantic up the west coast of Wales and Scotland then on up to the Arctic. This floats above cold water travelling underneath it in the opposite direction. But humans seem to have the ability to mess things up. I have no proof of this. I’m merely speculating. But the weather is cold and grey. I think I’ll take a vitamin D tablet.
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.
Catching up with #bandofsketchers again. The prompt was Fall (American word for Autumn). Various versions of a doodled tree drawn in my sketchbook app. I just saw the news of a new Banksy mural in London and this is my reaction to it. Nothing like his painting except for the feeling of dripping paint. He just used green and black but I went for more autumnal colours. I had fun with this.
My autumn into spring painting at my exhibition. It’s going to a new home as it’s been sold. I love the feeling that someone has found something special about it.
But I have to say I find selling art difficult, it’s not my thing, I’d much rather just create. I think that’s why I paint what I want, I can’t paint the same idea over and over again. I get bored and have to move onto something else.
Mahonia with it’s spiky leaf
Tinged with winter frost
Brushed bronzes
Of Autumn colours
In the Spring.
But orange tints
will be replaced
As soon new life
Engulfs the place
Bright greens and pinks
Yellow flowers
Full of dew
Red, orange, blue
Then colours of
a summer hue..
Till autumn and then
winter comes
And the seasons round
Begins again.
A random selection of fallen leaves, early autumn, now there are far more. Hedgehogs might be using them for nests, squirrels have places to hide walnuts, and the daffodil bulbs they have dug up!
It’s been very cold for the last couple of days, bright sunlight today with wispy fog in the morning. The frost has come, and in the north of Scotland it’s been snowing. A milder spell is forecast for next week. I’m a typical Brit, obsessed with weather and the seasons.
Mallaband-Brown