New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m still working on this. I tried to sort out the horizon line as it was wobbly. I think that the land in the background is too dark. I want to try and resolve the colours and waves on the sea…. Is it too light or dark….
This is from my imagination but I might try and find something that is similar. Or I could turn it into a more abstract image?
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.?
The end of the land, a toe dipping into the Atlantic Ocean, most South Westerly point of Mainland England. The destination or leaving point you can go to or from if you want to travel the length of Britain. The other end of the trail is John O’Groats in the very far north of mainland Scotland.
We only visited once in the 1990’s and didn’t get to the actual Lands End sign because the area had been taken over by a company and we couldn’t afford the admission fee! We went up the coast into the next bay and stopped off for a clotted cream tea before going back to out camp site. I’d like to visit again one day, although I think that’s a remote possibility, (pun intended!). This is a painting I did after the visit.
I spoke about doing a painting of Georges the dolphin a few weeks ago and yesterday I got a chance to take a photo of the painting which is acrylic on canvas. I forgot how much I loved painting this. I think he was a bottle nosed dolphin. They have upturned mouths that make them look like they are permanently smiling.
I think I looked at a photo of a dolphin to know where the fins were but the rest is imagined and the landscape is based on the south Devon coastline.
my attempt at the great wave after Hokusai.
I’m writing an assignment about the artist Hokusai and his ink and wood block print, The Great wave, or The Great Wave off Kanagawa produced around 1830. He had previously painted two other great waves in 1803 and 1805. There is a collection of 36 views of Mount Fuji by him.
I found out that he had been influenced by an artist called Shiba Kokan, who in turn had been influenced by Western Art. The Portuguese first started trading with the Japanese as early as 1543 and later the Dutch came along and started to trade with them in 1609.
Hokusai’s first waves were not as stylised as the Great Wave, but over the intervening 30 years he honed his style. His wave painting has a low horizon which gives it a more western and also menacing feel. The wave towers over three fishing boats, threatening to swamp them, Fingers of water claw the air in a very fractal pattern, and a tiny Mount Fuji sits in the background, apparently encircled by a threatening sea and lowering clouds.
Did you know the wave emoji is based on Hokusai’s work, and this in turn is linked to the waving hand emoji. There is a site called emojipedia that gives lots of interesting facts about emoji icons.
I wont go into great detail about the assignment, but I had to link in semiotics and other ways of critically appraising art works. I was up till 4am trying to pull it all together!
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My artistic block seems to have ended with a sea theme now emerging.
These are works in progress. The latest is an homage to the famous japanese artist Hokusai. Based on one of his most famous works The Wave. Mount Fuji is sitting calmly, surrounded by a stormy sea. I’ve left the boats out as this is a small canvas and I’m struggling with the breaking wave. It is not going to be an accurate copy as I say. More a homage.
So why can I suddenly paint again? I think all the art work and drawing in doing might have helped. But I think it’s the thought of having a craft stall this Saturday that I’ve been invited to display my work at. I’m hoping things will be safe enough to do it. If not I will have some new art to display somewhere else.
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Oh I do like to be beside the seaside/estuary.
Lovely sunset, tried to capture the colours but because it was getting dark I couldn’t see the colours if the pencils and if I had put the light on I would not have been able to see the view….
I do like sketching instead of photography but in this case the coloured pencils did not do it justice…
Anyway it was another gorgeous day in the sunny UK. I have just read a short story by another blogger about the world drying up through man’s insatiable needs. I do wonder if this is further proof of global warming.
So much to mull over….
Mallaband-Brown