New paintings and regular art updates.
I’ve decided not to do any more on this, called Tiger Lily. It’s just a bit of fun, something different, a cross between a green man and a cat. I could do more. I think the colours are probably too confused. I could keep messing with it but I’m busy trying to finish other paintings as well, like my poppy painting….
I seem to be using a lot of cadmium red at the moment! The contrasting green is pthalo green which is such a deep emerald colour.
Onwards and upwards hopefully.
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I’ve started work on this painting after a gap of a few months. I think it just over faced me, it was too big, to difficult (I’m working on it by looking at my phone).
And this last few days I haven’t felt well enough, but I started work on it this morning and did a good few hours on it.
So, where am I painting? In the house, not my studio. That’s the other thing, physically I feel awful. Mentally, I’m OK but don’t feel like I want to go out. We went for lunch with a friend today, but came straight home afterwards because I was exhausted, literally shaking. I don’t think I’m getting worse, but it’s taking time to recover and I know I’m pushing myself. But I have an exhibition next week and I haven’t got everything done. It’s very last minute……
This morning I realised it will be forty years in September since I started my degree in fine art painting…and I have never stopped….
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An acrylic on canvas from 2013. This was one of my favourite paintings and I used it as my profile picture for a few years. I’m no longer sure it’s as good as I thought. I would change the background to a darker grey green now to make the red Zing even more.
I think I will base another painting on it though. I’m thinking of doing a long thin painting that could be hung horizontally or vertically. The design would have to work in both directions and perhaps even upside down.
It’s forty years since I started my Fine Art degree. I’ve changed a lot in that time but I still paint and enjoy art. I’m trying to make a living at art which isn’t easy, but at least I’m trying.
The world has changed too. 40 years ago we had a female prime minister?! But we didn’t have food banks, we hadn’t had the collapse of the banks we hadn’t had partial privatisation of our health service. But it all started then. Politics is mad. People vote for making things worse for themselves. I think I shall keep calm and carry on painting.
It’s funny what goes through your mind when you are painting, something made me turn this into a mosaic of cracks with added patches of gold and silver. I was a bit dubious at first, but I think it’s an improvement on the first picture.
Acrylic on canvas, it’s only about 6 x4 inches.
Time to collect my painting blue Jupiter tomorrow. Its been up for a month at an open exhibition in Newcastle under Lyme and I’m hoping people liked it. I think it will be up in my exhibition at centre space at spode visitor centre in a couple of weeks.
If you look at my art you can see I’m not painting to a theme. I just love images. I love experimenting and trying new things. I like challenging myself.
That’s exactly what I’m doing now.
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I’m having fun painting this Australian kestrel.
About half way through. I went out to paint with some artists called the Orme art group. Today was a self development day which means you could paint and draw what you want. I had seen the photo of the kestrel my friend in Australia had taken. I asked her if I could paint it and she said yes. It’s quite difficult but I’m getting there.
X apparently it’s a Nankeen kestrel at Woolangong Harbour.
Don’t ask what I am?
I’m not what you think
I was to be
The Tiger that hid.
Now I’m out in the open
Between land and sky
I could be a tiger
Flying up high.
I could be a kite
Streamers in the wind
Kicking back and forwards
Strings all spinned.
I am a little painting
Of a tiny tiger face
Or a cat with whiskers flaring
Out into space.
I’m still in the process of painting this, but I wanted to add a presence to this painting… 
There are tales of grey ladies haunting old buildings. Why does she look slightly surprised? Perhaps she hasn’t seen her own reflection for centuries, but the dust motes caught in the light of a setting sun have made her image come to life in their brownian motion. Is she looking out over her land, not realising that the past is gone? Seeing people in outlandish clothes? Women in trousers or short skirts? Men in more dowdy attire than she remembers? I toyed with trying to paint a ruff from Tudor times, and her hair up in braids, but I decided she would be in a night shift, hair down, caught between dusk and dawn.
More work to follow on this and other paintings.
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This cheeky horse appealed to me the moment I saw the photo by my friend Eve. I was going to paint it in naturalistic colours but started underpainting it in red and that grew on me. I added a metallic blue sky to give contrast and atmosphere. Grey ground to make the land look dark and gloomy. This is another work in progress. I have a lot of ideas but I’m not sure if I will get them all done in time for an Exhibition at the end of May. X
Mallaband-Brown