New paintings and regular art updates.
Acrylic on canvas I painted today. I wanted to paint a bold abstract which doesn’t have a name and I spoke to a fellow artist to ask what she thought. I almost called it Migraine!
She put her art therapy head on and felt it could represent emotions wanting to escape, perhaps bottled up anger. Certainly it looks a bit like a Catherine wheel. I think the outer part looks like flames. It’s not calm. It’s expressive, but also chaotic. Felt good to paint it. X
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I must have been about five when I realised I wanted to do art. I would make patterns on graph paper, draw and doodle and sketch. I know my mother started to collect some of my drawings. As I got older I put them on my walls. I even strung them across my bedroom held on by pegs because I didn’t have enough wall space.
When I was in my teens one of my paintings was sent to our twin town in Germany to be exhibited. My headmistress was given a drawing I did of my fellow pupils as a leaving present and I knew I wanted to be an artist as I told my careers teacher, not a nurse as she tried to persuade me. On to Art school to do a degree, and even 40 years later an MA in illustration. Now. I’m struggling. But iooking at different methods and skills. I’m not giving up!
A whale that was made for the Penkhull Mysteries plays. It was used in the story of Jonah and the Whale and the story of the river Trent which rises on Biddulph Moor and travels through England in a North East direction to eventually flow through Nottingham and on to the Humber Estuary at Hull. This was made of willow withies held together with masking tape then covered with water based glue and newspapers (papier mache). It was painted white to block out the printing and then painted in grey black and white. The makers added serrated teeth and the jaw was articulated so it could open wide. I think the throat and tounge were painted pink and white. We made lots of props for the plays including a set of horses, butterflies, flowers, plants, and all sorts of other objects. I used to help paint some of them and also large flat boards that were joined together as scenery. I hope we get to do more this year.
Acrylic on canvas.
Little tabby cat lies on a box,
Sleeping with many purrs.
Paw hanging above books,
Resting on my easel
I carefully add whiskers
Tabby stripes match my mug
Showing through the stand
Last flecks of fur
And the panting
Is finished.
Resting on my chair that I use as an easle, a seascape in the background and then a small cat painting I’m fighting with. Either the cats head is too large or the leg and body are too small.
I’m not sure about the book sizes, they might be too small too. Sorry its dark, I need a photo in daylight. The chair it is on is cluttered with mugs, the TV remotes are there too. I need to get them out of the way, will probably continue tomorrow.
I’m so tired it’s just taken me 3 attempts to type in the tags for this post before I managed to save them. I keep nodding off!
When I finished college I still loved Celtic art so I tried very hard to create a Celtic cat including Celtic knotwork. This was really difficult to do.
I was pleased with the work and glad I did it. I don’t do such complicated things these days. Very difficult to follow the rules of knotwork so that the overlapping patterns need to follow. Oil on canvas think.
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.
Painting of a seascape done at a Jo Watson workshop. It’s not finished but I ran out of time. The top photo was taken in bright sunshine, the second at home in a darker space. Interesting how the second one has warmer tones, but it’s exactly the same painting. I went a bit Bob Ross, but I’m after more of a Turner feeling. Acrylic, ink, emulsion on canvas. Using brushes, palette knife and scraper card. Although I might have added orange later.?
A little owl on a little canvas. I have several tiny paintings in a box because I’ve basically given up craft fairs. I don’t have the energy or health to do them anymore. I will have to see how I feel later in the year.
You can tell it’s a small canvas because of the size of the weave of the material. It’s an acrylic on canvas. I love painting but I’ve hit an artists block situation. X
Section of a painting I did about 1993. It’s interesting to look at how I painted the pattern on the carpet. It was actually a large rug on a terracotta and black tiled floor. This was in our old rented house which was quite delapidated. The cellar underneath this room was very wet and the mortar was rotting. It was held up by an acroprop and you could see the floor was bowing downward so we didn’t use the room much and I used it as a studio. When you changed a light bulb you needed to take insulation tape with you. The wire was cloth covered and would fall off when you changed the bulb. There’s a lot I could say about that old house, but that’s it for now. It is funny how a painting can evoke so many memories.
Mallaband-Brown