A painting I never wish I had started 🙂 It’s a great subject, full of colour and a lot of time and thought went into the composition for what would be a square canvas work.  But oh those patterns !  I do not want to fall back into painting too tightly, too realistically, as I believe I am too impatient for that; but how does one achieve these geometric shapes with all their beautiful angles, colours and tones ? Answers please, on a postcard to…… The solution possibly this time around is going to have to be a fairly realistic take on the patterns, but go more freely when painting the woman and the foreground. Will be interesting to see how this one pans out. My aim is to paint a series of Bristol based works with recognisable backgrounds for the trademark woman in the foreground, and then in similar vein for Cape Town which I know pretty well now and have a deep abiding love for.  Both series will involve a lot of colour 🙂 I am thinking about adding more words to some of the paintings, along the lines of ‘Don’t Be A Dick’ as this brought a…
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‘All students need to know about color is the basic color wheel and complimentary colors. There are many books on color theory; do not waste your time and money’. (Sergei Bongart) I don’t know this artist, but his quote about the colour wheel is spot on, and something which I find myself doing without thinking these days. Â Red always compliments green as can be seen in so many portraits painted by many artists. Â Green is nearly always used as an underpainting before the pink and red tones are painted on of the skin. Blue and orange are my personal favourite and I use these colours a lot, as shown here in the front of the cafe. I could have gone for the original brass finish and darker browns and golds, but to me that is too boring. Â Colour brings life to a painting. Â These two colours are very Mediterranean and symbolise warmth and sunshine. Lastly, purple and yellow, again a Mediterranean feel to these two colours. Â If I need to shade down yellow in one of my works, I rarely, if ever, use brown to provide shade. Â A touch of purple does the trick. So this painting is finished and…
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‘Bristol’s North Street Blues…. Oranges & Reds’. 4/5/17
This is a new painting I am working on alongside ‘Don’t Be A Dick’ which is nearing completion. As with ‘Don’t Be A Dick’, I am interested in painting local, recognisable, sometimes iconic scenes as a backdrop to my usual trademark female figure. Â So for Cape Town, we have the House Of Machines cafe with its eye catching Dont Be A Dick (no apostrophe!) and the bright red walls of the State Of The Art gallery where I show my art (http://stateoftheart-gallery.com ) to set off the girl with her ubiquitous mobile, a statement of our times. So it is with ‘Bristol’s North Street Blues…’. Â North Street is the lively, vibey street where I live, Â home to cafes, bars, independent shops and of course the street art festival Upfest held every year when graffiti and street artists descend on North Street from all over Europe to paint their distinctive scenes. Â I am particularly drawn to this recent street art which appeared and I decided to place my model in the front of part of it, sliding by in a bright red dress, oblivious of the scene beside her. Â Again, possibly a statement of our times. Â Hopefully, when this painting is…
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