New paintings and regular art updates.
One of the many slides I found last year of my art in the 1980s. I like playing with perspective and I used to do many more portraits than I get to do these days. Maybe selfies have taken over. But wouldn’t you want a special portrait with things that are significant to you included in it? I’m also good at amalgamating photos, so if there are three people each on a different photo who want to be together in an image I can do it – and I don’t need photo shop!
Get in touch, commissions welcomed.
I suppose it would happen. I decided to do a self portrait….. I seem to do them once in a decade. The last one was a drawing about ten years ago.
I’m not sure if painting myself as a Green woman will work, but hopefully it will compliment the portrait of my hubby as a Green man. I’m thinking of offering to do them as portraits for people who are interested in the pagan world.
I’ll share more as it progresses. X
Drop a pebble in a pond, or watch drips of water fall into a bowl. You get ripples moving outwards, they reach a side or an edge, then bounce back.
Sometimes the edge is soft. Grass or sedges perhaps. Then the ripple is absorbed, dampened down. Or ripples turn into waves, waves into swelling storms. It depends on the weather.
I got my paintings up at the Brampton museum and art gallery now until the 10th November. I’m part of a group exhibition with fellow artists from the Orme Art group based in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
I’m quite happy that they have hung my Mars painting upside down! After all in space there is no right way up! The art is along a corridor in the museum but they are well displayed and lit. If you are around you can always take a look. It’s at the Brampton museum and art gallery in Newcastle-under-Lyme .
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Coming up for the autumn / winter. I want to do some more green men and women. If I can do some with frost and snow that would be interesting. I’m looking for pictures of striking faces so that they have character, I’ve found that if I just make them up they get a bit flat and don’t have as much impact. More later….
Sometimes a painting can need work. After a couple of months, and after already exhibiting “my green man” I decided to do more work on it. The canvas was a bit rough, so when you put paint on it, it didn’t spread evenly and it caught on the surface, leaving tiny little dots where the paint hadn’t stuck. That meant that it looked thin in places and the colour wasn’t strong enough so I have tried to improve the pattern of the leaves and the shading on the face. I’ve used some iridescent turquoise to give it the gleam of dampness. If I do another one I might try and paint frost and ice on it.
my hubby finished this. I like the fact he’s done the cat in green. Also that he’s left some of this white. I’m to blame for the beading, it was too fiddly for him.
It’s definitely a riot if cheerful colours. I’m not sure where it’s going. It might go on his side of the bedroom..
When you take a photo do you ever think of adjusting the colours or the hue? It’s easily done on a smart phone. You can use so thing called ‘curves’ where you can change all the colours, tones, contrast and dark and light using one tool. You have a curve indicating the colours and by adjusting the curve in different places…. I’ve taken a few screenshots to explain. First take a picture, then go to photo editor.
I don’t know how anyone else’s phone works, but in photo editor if you find the editing button in editor, choose the one for changing colours. The icon has a curve on it. Click on that and you can adjust the levels, you can see them move on the screen. When you like it choose save. You then have an image that looks completely mad, or subtle, or however you like it.
The complexity of trying to paint the surface of Mars is like trying to knit a complicated pattern of cable stitch, pearl and plain knitting. I don’t know exactly how to do that, and with this painting I’m trying to get craters and ridges at least vaguely in the right place, which is like knitting the whole thing.
If I had large images of the planets I would use tracing paper to copy the main features, then transfer the tracing onto a canvas by drawing on the other side to have at least an outline to follow. But no, I do it the hard way. Holding my phone up with the image then trying to paint the right colours and features and attempting to get them in the right place. You also have to keep tapping the phone to stop the picture going off.
Well so far I’ve splodged in whites, violets, blues, rust colours and dark areas. It’s starting to work but it’s got more complicated as I’ve gone on. I have overpainted several areas. I can see that it will take a while yet.
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I’ve been back to my studio after a couple of months being too busy and hot to go there. This is my Jupiter tryptich which might be on show in the Brampton museum and art gallery soon, as part of the Orme Group of Artists exhibition.
Art and astronomy seem to be getting under my skin. I have tried to accurately depict the planet Jupiter, but I don’t use airbrushing so everything is hand painted with various sizes of brushes.
It’s not perfect, I can see where I’ve gone wrong, but the whole point is that these are paintings, and I love patterns so trying to depict the fluid dynamics of Jupiter’s atmosphere is a real challenge.
I like the idea of having a tryptich. It can be hung vertically or horizontally, or as in this case on the diagonal. I also like using the floor at Spode. I think it makes a great background.
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Mallaband-Brown