Thumb painting?

Squeezing a tube of paint for today’s picture and the top of the tube was blocked. I tried to gouge the piece of card stuck to it and paint squirted out all over my hand! I cleaned most of it off but then thought it would be interesting to take picture of my thumb….

It’s an occupational hazard, that and getting paint on my clothes too. I managed to get blue paint on my top. Most of the paint I use is waterbased, like acrylic, but if you don’t wash it off quickly it can dry and form a skin of plastic on your clothes. In the case of oil paints, they stay wet for longer and can be cleaned by wiping off the excess with a cloth or paper towel, then using synthetic turpentine to dissolve the oil paint and wash it out with detergent.

Add a filter

Just by adding one filter I was able to give this sky scape a liquid, oil paint looking vibe. The edges are softened and emphasised. The colours remain the same but are smeared across the photo. I used photodirector again. The style can be altered in various ways, I chose the second option. I find the effects vary depending on what photo I chose to work on.

Cat box

I painted the leather seat if this stool/box about thirty years ago. It used to hold all my old oil paints but they dried out years ago. I unearthed it recently. One of the problems with being an artist I have found, is collecting art materials. I have stuff that goes back years. I tend to think one day things will come in handy. Is anyone else here an artist? Are you the same? Materials cost so much its almost a sin to throw things away.

This is a cat on a mat on a parquet floor. As you can see even then I loved patterns. It’s varnished, but you can see where I must have left a thinners can on the surface that left paint rings…

Blue

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I just watched a programme on TV about colours, one of which was blue. They showed the rock, Lapis Lazuli, which can only be found in a small number of places in the world including Afghanistan and California.

Lapis Lazuli was used as a paint pigment in paintings by artists like Titian. The rock is ground down to fine powder and then mixed with oil and wax to make oil paint. The resulting colour is called ultramarine and is a superb blue used in things like the blue paint in the robes of the virgin Mary in Titian’s paintings.

So how did Lapis Lazuli become blue? Sulphur rich rock, which was a pale grey brown was heated up 30 or 40 kilometres below the Earth’s surface. The intense heat and pressure apparently compresses the mineral and makes three atoms of Sulphur line up in each molecule. It is this geometry in the molecules that causes it to reflect pure blue light. (Sulphur is usually found in nature in a yellow, red, orange, brown or black form – the Volcanic moon of Jupiter, Io, is coloured by Sulphur).

Blue sky

Blue Sea.

Blue life.

Blue me

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Artist Rob Pointon

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I was at a meeting at the local town hall tonight and saw a huge painting (made up of four panels) by one of my favourite artists Rob Pointon.

Over the last few years he has become recognised as one of the best known artists in Stoke-on-Trent. His characteristic fish eye lens style adds animation to his colourful paintings.

Recently he has painted in towns all over the country and I think he has exhibited at the mall galleries in London.

Whatever your feelings about his art I think it adds energy and interest to the local arts scene.

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