Susan Daisies

Art Weeks is nearly upon me. I have 2 nights left and 2 paintings to go.
This is Susan. 12 x 24 inches. Acrylic on canvas.
I've been working on a lot of reds lately (pics to follow) so this one felt very refreshing to do.

First painting for April

This one is destined for Artweeks exhibition. I wanted to portray fabric using paint....and gold leaf.
Every now and then I like departing from my usual compositions and style just to experiment with something new. Works like spring cleaning in your head.
I really love this time of year. The light is better. People are happier. And the cricket season and long sunny weekends are just around the corner.

I have gone and done it now by mentioning cricket which probably means it will rain constantly throughout May.....hey ho.

"Qui audet adipiscitur",

I am working in what can be said is more than a handful of paintings at\the moment

Pain (in the knee)

As opposed to the neck.
I have managed to sprain some ligaments in my knee. No walking. No standing. Certainly very little painting. I am very fed up. Today, a random door caller turned up selling oil paintings. They were extremely good. He was french and represented a number of artists in a collective who preferred to sell their art (very cheaply ) in this way.
It was such a ray of sunshine in my enforced recuperation to meet with and look at other peoples' stuff...and it was all good too!

Bugger. I want to be back in my studio.

Disclaimer: Please forgive this somewhat self pitying post. I have been confined. And for someone who never sits, thats torture.

Spring greens

Colour at last!!

Blocked in this morning. I am painting a series of exotic flowers from more unusual angles on 10" square canvases for Artweeks in May.

Ne me quitte pas

Sunny day and some Nina Simone.
My submission for the RA Summer Exhibition is finally finished, after many many hours and a lot of silver leaf on the studio floor.....mobile....laptop.....
I will be a little bit wistful to see them go, after they have kept me company in the studio awhile.

Update

I have decided to remove the studio cam as it was so s- l-o-w-. Webcams in studios are a nice idea in principle, except that sometimes there is little activity worth watching and so it rather does become a 'watching paint dry' exercise.

That said, you can always video call the studio when i'm online and painting to see whats going on. Using MSN. My MSN address is in my profile.

What a difference a scan makes....

This is a digitally remastered crop from a painting done some time ago. The original was in black and red...

Steve Taylor at Art Fusion did this for me and we are going to experiment with putting this image on different media. I would like to see this on a sheet of metal.

The whole idea of revisiting work using digital techniques opens up a mind-boggling number of possibilities and you'd be hard pressed to know when to stop. There are so many tools at your disposal these days, makes you wonder if the days of brush and canvas are numbered....

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Aristotle

Background

Some work on the background this morning. I think I am almost on the home stretch with this one. I have really enjoyed the exercise of painting in 2 colours...but I have some exotic flowers on the go with lots of bright vibrant colours which I'm looking forward to splashing around with later this week.

I am not convinced about the circles.....I am half tempted to paint them out again and blend the background with just a few bright highlighted spheres here and there. What do you think? C'mon you lurkers....

A mornings work

Finished off filling in the cloth (I have always avoided painting material in the past and now I remember why...). And done some on the body of the child. I'm aiming for a 'rough' brush work feel to this. ..rather than smooth and realistic. I want people to have to stand back from this one to see it. How on earth I am going to get it to London on the Oxford Tube doesn't bear thinking about at this stage....

I used my webcam to take this picture as I was too idle to go back into the house to fetch the camera and plethora of wires required to upload to the laptop...and I'm quite pleased with the photo. I might more use of this video cam in future.....

All you need is love

Working on the clothes this evening. If technology doesn't let me down..you should see this on the studio cam....if I disappear...its because the other half wants to check the footie results.....

Up close and personal....studio cam

O the wonders of modern technology. Thanks to those clever peeps at ustream, you can now see into my studio when I'm online.

Also if you click on the Verve link...you can see blogs from all over the world and what they are up to.

Technology rools.

Serendipity

Out last night for the Arts Group meeting. I was lucky enough to get picked out of a hat to have some work digitally fiddled with (for want of a better term) by Steve Taylor at Art Fusion. He creates the most fantastic prints on whatever substrate you can think of, then paints in some more, and photographs them again!. The end result is amazing. This is one of the samples he has to play with. Exciting stuff.

"Adventure is hardship aesthetically considered"

Barry Targan

Only vegetables are happy

As if I don't have enough already! Meet Ronaldo and Cootie, 7 week old boy rats. They like the studio.

"People need trouble - a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy"

William Faulkner

Flesh on bone

Did some more on the RA painting this morning. I am exploring a new technique with this one. Using acrylic more like oils. I have still a long way to go but I am pleased with how this one is shaping up. All I am using is titanium white and mars black. To give you an idea of scale, this canvas is 30 x 40 inches. You are probably best off clicking on the image to get the best view :-)

Too tired to sleep

Visions for those too tired to sleep,
These seeds cast a film over eyes which weep.

Amy Lowell

The latest offering from the studio. A christmas day commission

Thought for the day

I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for

O'Keeffe

Proper work

Enough taking the mick out of the late night wine-induced ramblings of a fellow artist, I have actually done 'some' work today.

Toast

Just for Graham.
Heh heh heh

One more....

Project that is.

You may have been following the progress of a little wodden box. Well this is where its at. A fair few layers still to go, but you can picture the final piece now I think.