Tag: Painting

Poster?.

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I’m trying to come up with a design for a poster. I may have an exhibition at the weekend and I needed to produce something I can put on social media.  The only problem is I don’t know until Thursday night if I can use the room or not. I’m experimenting with ideas and  I quite like the drawing I that I created for the background.

I have quite a few new pictures and I hope people will like them. I have to hang it myself, so it will be a bit difficult. It will beat the Warehouse at the Etruria Flint Mill in Stoke-on-Trent.

Im not sure if there will be more text on it. There will have to be more pictures. Anyway, more to follow I it happens !

Mark making

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This is a digital drawing that I did of a cave painting, ancient and modern in one picture.

The urge to make marks and create images seems to have been with humans since the stone age. I do wonder if Neanderthals were artists too? Perhaps someone out there knows if they were. Art seems to be intrinsic to humans , a way of visualising the external environment. Whether it was animals they hunted, or eventually farmed, they created images of them that are beautifully depicted.

As the millennia moved forward art continued, but also turned into pictographs, such as hieroglyphs, or other ancient languages. The words I am writing now have there roots in ancient art.

Of course painting continued, and people also created sculpture and invented ink and printing. We are the mark making hominids. Without art and language we would not have science, mathematics, map making, books. Art evolved into design, photography, architecture. Art and culture,  I wonder if music emerged at the same time as art. Possibly earlier as spoken language was probably used in parts of the ape family before home sapiens appeared. But to point at a cave painting and use a word for cattle, or hunt, or flock. Thats interesting …I’m sure there is a lot more information out there.

Whatever happened I feel there must be an “art” or “creativity” gene. I know I cannot do without mark making.

View of Dartmoor

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This is a painting I did a few years ago of a friend standing beside one of the outcrops at the top of a hill in the Dartmoor national park.

The rocks have been weathered over the millennia to create flat plate like structures stacked up on top of each other. Sometimes the base will be of softer rock and so the stack will be formed above a narrow neck of rock where the surrounding stone had been worn away. Another place to find these sort of outcrops is in Yorkshire. You can also get limestone pavements where the rock is at ground level but there are large cracks going down deep between the rocks with plants growing up, taking shelter between the stones. These can be found up at Malham cove in Yorkshire.

My friend used to fly gliders over Dartmoor, so he knew his way around the area. It is a beautiful part of the world, high up above the surrounding countryside with rolling hills and wide skies. Sometimes it snows up there and it can be very bleak in the winter . I can imagine trying to shelter behind these rock on a cold winters day with an northerly wind blowing snow and sleet at you. I guess Dartmoor ponies might even have sheltered there.

The painting was quite small and was painted with acrylic on canvas. It went to a good home.

X.

Twins?

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One of the things about being a painter is being asked to do copies of your work. This was the case with these paintings. The original was painted by looking at the photo on my mobile phone. The second was copied from the first.

Question, can you tell which is the original? When I asked my husband he recognised the first one straight away ( although he had seen both of them being painted so that was not difficult).

It’s actually quite hard to copy a painting, especially as I do it free hand without drawing it out first. I think I didn’t make a bad job of it and I hope its new owner will like it.

Why this painting? Because I like both the colours and the challenge of painting her hat/snood? Trying to get the colours and details right. I hope you like it too….

Rejection

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How to deal with rejection?

I entered three paintings for our local 3 Counties Open art exhibition, but yet again all of them have been rejected. I thought they had a good chance, but no, nothing. I’ve entered in the past and been successful on a few occasions. …maybe my idea of art is too different from anyone else?

I have not added photos if them I don’t want to remind myself…

It’s a hard thing to accept, I know its nothing in the middle of all the bad things happening in the world. But I feel a gut wrenching sadness…I’m clearly not good at this….

Thinking about it, really it is a personal choice by the judge’s. There is nothing in the entry form to give you a clue what they like, and in any case, I think art should be original not made for a criteria. I guess they didn’t fit in with the rest of the show. I don’t know if I will bother with the opening, I can be very self critical and I might end up getting upset.

So, I will do what I always do, carry on with my own ideas. Not get too despondent. Life carries on. I need to take a breath and relax, get over it and start over…

I try too hard

To make you see,

My art is mine, alone to me.

I know I am frustrated by rejection

But life’s like that,

I must temper my reaction.

My pain will be brief

No death here,

Just feeling bereft

Not shedding a tear.

I will carry on

I will go ahead,

My art is my own

I will not regret.

Xx

This years mystery

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This afternoon (Saturday 7th July) I will be in the Mystery Play. This is the scenery that I have painted for it. The last photo is the two boards joined, the grey bars of cloud is not the finished effect because I decided to change them to flatter clouds. Unfortunately I could not take another picture because my phone went flat.

I have lost the book I was working from so I just tried painting cumulus and stratus clouds.

I think the looming clouds make it feel more oppressive. The play is about war, family, and woman’s equality. I hope it does work on the day.

Our play starts at 2 pm and only runs for 20 minutes, I think it will be good.

I am still here!

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Just busy at the moment. I’m painting some of the scenery for our local mystery play next Saturday. The theme is the Tittensor Evictions by the Duke of Sutherland, and including two wars and the suffragette movement all in twenty minutes.

The scenery is based on a painting by Corot. I think it’s a landscape in the south of France. I’ve added a thatched cottage and there will be figures in the foreground. This is half of the panel (or flat as they call it in the theatre) its 8ft by 4ft. There will be another panel of the same size attached above it which of sky. I’m also going to add the hall where the Duke lived to this panel.

I’m painting with acrylics and emulsion on hard board. This took me about two hours to paint. I also have a sign to do…. so I will be very busy again!

The Mystery play has been happening for over 10 years now at Penkhull. It started out being purely religious but has taken on different themes over recent years, including one about the river Trent. Apparently it’s the largest community arts event in Stoke-on-Trent and there were 400 people participating in putting it on last year.

It’s on 7th July if you feel like coming along…

 

Paint

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Paint is a wonderful thing,  a riot of colours, a rainbow of tones.

Acrylic for ease of colour use, oil paint for staying damp to ease blending. Water colours for transparency and simplicity, Gouache for more opaque colours over watercolour. The types of paint are fascinating. Each has its own method and technique. Even paints such as emulsion and gloss can be used in Art, and of course spray cans are used for graffiti.

From millennia ago humans have made marks, on cave walls, on rocks, papyrus and paper. Canvas and screens. The need to make pictures seems to have been with us almost from the cradle. Children learn to draw at an early age. Scribbling, then with improved hand eye coordination comes drawing, painting, even writing. For what is language, it is an abstract representation of what was once pictograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics show the link between art and language.

Paint and art invade our society. Art and colour are used to design every day objects. Architecture is a form of art. We need artists and painters in our visual society. Art is there in video games, special effects, what colour your clothes or car will be next season. What palette you decide to use to decorate weddings and birthdays. The list is almost endless….

 

Maiden castle

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This is a painting of maiden castle that I painted a few years ago.  The place is an ancient monument, an iron age hill fort, near Dorchester in Dorset which is in the south of England.

The dancing figure in the foreground is meant to signify the age of the place. Her bones, and the rabbit skull below her are collapsing into the ground, what would archaeologists find if they dug there. The slopes of the hill fort are built up in steep steps. Like huge waves breaking on the coast of an island. The grass really does like to grow in waves and clumps.

So why did I paint it? I don’t know. Except that the place is full of mystery and ancient history. I probably would just paint the landscape if I was doing it now, but I’m glad I added the figure.

Poppy painting

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This is a painting I did 6 years ago outside in the garden. I love these large poppies. I had decided to  paint outside because it was a beautiful day and why not paint in situ instead of from a photo. I think then decided to take photos of the process. I guess I painted the poppy first as it was the focal point of the painting.

I added all the other flowers to make it more interesting.  One of the things with creating art is the idea if artistic licence. The other flowers were in different parts of the garden and I wanted to add their colours to the mix.

I’m not sure whether I like this painting, its a bit flat, maybe I should have used more shading as the colours are all of very similar tones, but I was looking at a shady garden and the light was changing over the time it took to paint it. it reminds me of an illustration in a book or magazine, I almost coukd see it next to a children’s story.

I love to paint, and it is always a challenge to improve.