Art wines

Working small for a change, I have decided to try my luck at the Oxford Wine Company Art wines competition. The call for entry is to design a wine label for a new wine. The competition is run also by Oxfordshire Artweeks which is a huge creative event which takes place every May.
This little acrylic painting started life as a sample for a commission. I have dozens tucked away in the studio and I have just spent a fruitful few hours revisiting them. I have chosen this one because a)it has all my favourite colours in, b) it was the right size and c) it had a gourmet theme and d) there are strong design elements in it. Some of you may recognise the composition as its based on work by the cubist George Braque.

Happy Christmas everyone

This is me, anyone care to guess the year? ;-)
Every christmas, my Dad's workplace (INCO) used to have a kids christmas party when we'd be dropped off, loaded onto a coach to go to the Alexandra Theatre in the centre of Birmingham for a panto, then back to the works canteen for party food and a present from Santa. I remember we also stopped at Quinton on the way home for chips.......happy days....

Christmas commission

Painted on canvas paper with acrylic. I have a few this size (15 x 15 cm - 25 x 25 cm mounted) for sale, all different flowers and ready to post in time for christmas if anyone is looking for present ideas. Just drop me an email. :-)

Christmas turtle with all the trimmings

School christmas play season is upon is and for some reason, I drew the short straw in the make an outfit in under 24 hours stakes. A turtle shell. To fit an eight year old. Dress rehearsal Monday....
Truth be told I have rather enjoyed myself. Off to the local DIY shop for chicken wire, scrounging old newspaper for papier mache......and I bet its just for a walk-on part too!!

Finished work: "Sideways"

It has been a while but I am finally ready to step back from this canvas. I always find the last stages of a painting a bit fraught....when to stop fiddling and tweaking.

As a painting nears completion, I sometimes wonder when to stop... the best clue for me is when I start painting the next one in my head. (Kathryn Mullaney)

Snapshot from the studio

After a break I have decided to go back to bold florals. The Autumn colours are particularly vibrant this year and have prompted the colours behind the latest canvas. This one is big: 30 x 24" and destined for the Arts Group exhibition next week (if I can finish it that is). Today I started it and this is just getting some paint down to get the feel and atmosphere. Much more to do yet.

River studies

I decided to do ink drawings from the photos I took of the river the other week. I want to do a set of three for the upcoming Eynsham Arts Group exhibition next month.

More Mona Lucy

Her eyes are following me round the studio today! Blocked in the hands and glazed the face again so she is less greenish. ....still a work in progress but an interesting project nevertheless, trying to get an 'old' oil paint feel with acrylic.

Gabriel's Wharf

Is one of my most favourite places to visit in London. I've been lucky enough to go here many times and each time is always a delight. Such a mix of people, street entertainment, refreshing art, unusual design and quirky architecture...all under the gaze of Saint Pauls Cathedral and the OXO Tower.

This is a work in progress ( I am dabbling with colours) so this is merely felt tip and ink pen at the moment. I'm not sure yet how its going to finish up. For some reason this pic is much more washed out than the original version - I want to use deep deep coours but I obviously have yet to come to grips with the new camera phone...

Mona Lucy

Its a work in progress .....

Messing about on the river..

Such a gorgeous day yesterday. We went out on a boat with friends and just pottered along the river between Bablockhythe and Swinford. Its been some time since I blew the dust off my 'good' digital SLR and I thought I would tke the opportunity to take some shots with the potential view of garnering some watercolour ideas. Lucky for me the river was relatively calm as its hard to stand and take pics whilst bobbing up and down!

Send in the clowns...

I am often asked to facepaint at kids parties and for once, I got to face paint at my own as it was M's birthday. Me and Mr C dressed up as clowns to entertain for the afternoon, and clowns don't come complete without custard pies do they?

Dragon

Been creative in the kitchen rather than the studio today. It's M's birthday party tomorrow hence the cake. I used a mixture of sponges to make the body held together with cocktail sticks, marshmallows for eyes, and Toblerone for spikes. Green icing does not come off dog fur very easily though.....

Poinsetta

I know I really shouldn't mention the 'C' word in October. But I have been painting a card design today. Its just short of A4 in size on canvas paper and painted in acrylic, and the plan is to produce cards and postcards from it. Of course the original is for sale if anyone is interested, just email me.

New in blue

Started on this one today. Inspired by a talk given by Ron Freeborn last week at the Eynsham Arts Group. This one has been painted directly onto canvas without prior sketching and working the paint whilst still wet.
This is just the background. The plan is to work some yellow tulips into the foreground.

New blue

Have started changing this over from red to blues. An improvement in colour scheme for the subject I think.

Postcards from France

I took my watercolours and a postcard pad, and here we have an offering from my son James, and a view from the balcony. I posted all the others before I took pictures of them (duh). I actually think James has the better composition.

Lots of painting to catch up on this week, I have 3 new canvases which should get finished. Busy busy :-)

South of France

For the next 7 days I will be here:
The light in the south of France is wonderful for painting so I hope to get some ink and watercolours started here.

New work in progress

Time for a nude.....in red.
I haven't painted a BIG canvas for a while, all the recent commissions have been small-ish. So it was a real treat today to unwrap a new 3 x 2 foot canvas. I love the smell when you take the cellophane off. With this one I have painted pretty much straight onto canvas. The canvas has a coarser tooth than I am used to so these pictures just show the blocking in (which I have yet to finish).

I have a new website!!

I knew having the laptop in the kitchen would pay off eventually.... I've been able to build a new back-to-basics website. Thanks to some tremendous help from Arianna at Ihelm and and there have also been alot of near misses for the laptop being thrown out the window.
Any feedback would be much appreciated, especially from those of you with different browsers!
Cheers.!!

www.picturedreams.co.uk

Been away....

and not painting much alas. Off to south of France on Saturday but I AM going to take some paints with me this time. I figured its high time I dug out my watercolours. In denial about the summer being over, moi? Damn right!

Alice dressing up

Did some more work on Alice ( as I have decided to call her). A way to go yet but I am pleased with the colours and contrast, This painting is destined for an exhibition in Oxford at the end of this month.

Work in Progress

I am in the middle of building a new website for my portfolio and have just spent most of the day investigating photo galleries for websites. So a bit boggle eyed this evening.

Something new

Finished this one today. The canvas used is quite bijou in being only 8 inches square. Its been an experiment in trying to employ a different viewpoint in terms of both composition and lighting. And for once, no red!! I'm quite pleased with this, and I've already started on a much bigger bolder version. I am in love with the greens.....

Non Florals

Most of these paintings have been commissioned over the past 12 months or so.

Raising funds

Its funny (in a not so funny way) how the older you get, the more prevalent cancer amongst friends and family becomes. I am reminded recently of lucky escapes and have decided to do my bit. I am selling 4 originals on that well known online market place, and donating some of the proceeds to Breakthrough Breast Cancer. You can support this charity buying a wide range of stuff (not just mine) (link here).

I am selling these:

They are all that remain of my 'Painting a day' project from last year. Each is 10 x 10 inches mounted. I hope they find good homes.

Hide

Triptych 60 x 90 cm and a favourite of mine. For those of you familiar with the Saatchi Online Gallery, this one is in the showdown for next week. I might not be blogging quite so frequently over the next week or so since my laptop was treated to a milkshake at the weekend and is still drying out. ...( a four-year-old involved).

Florals