‘When I’m painting, I feel 30. It’s only when I stop that I know I’m not’. David Hockney. A statement I totally agree with. When I am at my easel, in the zone, I feel energised, alive, full of ideas etc. When I stop, I feel the back pain from having stood badly all my life at the easel and now at 63 paying the cost. But how lucky I am to have this passion to paint, a feeling which will be be with me till I die. Building up on last week’s painting and it seems the title has hit a chord with a lot of people, male or female. Misunderstandings happen so quickly and can take a lifetime to resolve (in some cases). I am longing to add in the touches of colour at the end which make the painting ‘sing’ like cerulean blue, turquoise and maybe vivid purple, but I have to be patient and press on with the underpainting for now. Likewise I am itching to ‘blonde’ up the girl’s hair but …. My recent oil paintings and Line Arts are on show with Clifton Fine Arts in Bristol and they are opening their second gallery…
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A new work, and as I said in my last blog, a quieter piece after all that sunshine and high heeled shoes 🙂 Originally the couple were further apart in the photo I am working from, but decided to draw them closer together and crop the scene. Cropping nearly always improves a painting in my opinion. The title for this is, I think, what I am trying to convey. It is so easy in a relationship for something to said in the heat of the moment, and once said, too late to backtrack from. You are left with regrets. Alternatively, she could just be wishing she had asked for an Aperol rather than the red wine…… At the moment, the colours are muted, and most of the lines of the window are skewed, but with patience (never easy for this artist) all will be resolved soon. Can’t wait, as always, to add the splashes of pure colour at the end to lift the whole composition. If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am up to in the near future, please sign up for my Newsletter at the top of the Home Page. I send…
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So we have a title. I just hope you won’t all think of Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story….. I had so many great titles suggested from my friends on Twitter, it was really difficult to choose. However, I like the idea of our lady staring out to sea, to the infinite possibilities ahead of her, or indeed the infinite possibilities of what she may be leaving behind. Thank you to all who came up with suggestions. I loved putting detail of light reflecting off the water onto the beachball. To me it makes a real difference to the look of the ball, and also I have been playing around with the reflection of the ball in the water. In fact I have liked as always, adding in the details, the shine on the shoes, the subtle tones to the flesh etc etc. Decided to add a touch of blue from my palette to the mix for the flesh of the legs and am glad how that has turned out. Sometimes art is just about happy accidents in getting something to work. If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am getting up to in the…
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Week two and a lot more colour being introduced into this fun piece. I had endless problems trying to mix the colours of the bright fuchsia pink on the beach ball. I Googled pinks, I haunted my local art store, asked other artist friends, most of whom gave me different advice, and in the end had settled for a rather dull pink and went off and painted another part of the painting. When I came back to the work a couple of days later, I looked again in my box of paints and there tucked away in a dark corner I found ….Quinacridone Magenta. Perfect with a touch of white. Obsessed, moi?! Will get the horizontal lines right by next week when the paint is dry and I can get the masking tape out. Also itching to get down to the detail of the water now. The ground the lady is standing on needs more definition too…. It is never ending, the joy of painting, for me. If you would like to be kept up date with what I am up to in the next few months, please sign up to my Newsletter at the top of the Home…
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A new painting started, always exciting. I am in the process of completing 4 works to go to the Spectrum Art Fair in Miami in November, and I thought a water-based theme might work for a lovely hot place like Miami in November. I make no apologies for leaning towards the early David Hockney swimming pool paintings as they are so vibrant and full of colour. I can give full rein to my Mediterranean colours in these works. This work will go with ‘The Pink Hat’ and ‘Is He With Her Now’ both shown on the website and all 24 x 18″. I have had to show these two as being ‘not in stock’ as they are going to the States, and I did wonder about the wisdom of putting paintings on the site that are not available to buy. However, I do want to show the different range of my artworks to prospective clients like you who are reading this, so onwards and upwards! Very early days with this new work, and I would welcome a title from any of my Twitter followers please, or indeed anyone who is reading this, because as I have said before, I…
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A smaller, quieter and reflective piece – and as yet unframed. Decided in the end not to give the book a title, as it might look a bit too ‘precious’; better to let you, the viewer, decide what she is reading. I do feel, though, that she is searching for something in this book, hence her deep concentration and the title of the painting. I had intended to soften her blonde hair to have it more in keeping with the smooth fabric of her red dress, but in the end couldn’t bear to tone down her unruly hair, which was such fun to paint. I was surprised how much the red tones of the dress played onto all the surrounding areas, her flesh, the book, the chair etc ., so much so that I could not resist adding a touch of red/burnt sienna into her blonde hair ….that’s the fun of being an artist, you get to choose! This work is 14 x 10″, 35 x 25 cm and is available for sale. If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am up to in the next few months, please sign up for my Newsletter…
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‘People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It’s because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved and to be an artist. And they can’t; it’s impossible.’ Marina Abramovic I love this woman and some (but not all!) of her work. Have a look on YouTube at a short film of when she meets Ulay, her ex partner, again, after so many years, at one of her ‘performances’, it is utterly moving and compelling. What she says in the above quote is pretty much accurate for me. I have struggled most of my life to balance my art with my personal life and after three children and two failed marriages, I finally have the time and energy to be selfish with my art and am getting somewhere at long last. So to this painting. I am grateful to one of my Twitter followers for the title which I love. Regular readers of this blog will know that titles are not my forte, so any help is always gratefully received. Enjoying getting down to the…
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I have been reading about an exhibition in London at the moment of photographs by William Eggleston and very much want to go and see his wonderful works. I read somewhere that he photographs ‘inconsequential moments’ and ‘alluring mundanity’ and that the colours in his photographs ‘practically glow’ . I am a painter, not a photographer, but would like to think I am trying to achieve the same result. I try to capture a moment in time, usually a woman comfortable in her own skin. So to this piece. After the bright colours of my last work ‘Is He With Her Now’ I felt it was time for a quieter painting. Originally the composition had a modern lampshade above the girl’s hair but decided this did not benefit the scene, so it has been painted out. Not sure whether I will keep the very matt black background and may introduce more light to the left of the work with a touch of red from the dress added to the black on the right hand side . Time will tell! If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am up to in the near future,…
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“A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art” so said Lucian Freud, and I am not sure I agree with him. There have indeed been many moments with this work when I have been frustrated, angry, anxious, tentative etc etc, but every so often and usually by complete accident, I will put a touch of paint somewhere and the painting will just ‘sing’ and then there is indeed that moment of complete happiness. Or I will end the day thinking something is not working here, only to come in to the studio the next morning and wow, the picture looks great and again then I have that moment of complete happiness. As an artist, you can get so involved in your work and in a particular part of the detail that you can’t see the wood for the trees and get overwhelmed and lose confidence. That is the moment to step away from the painting and go for a walk, have a beer, read a book, whatever suits you, because when you return to the piece, you might just find that elusive dart of complete happiness. My apologies for being absent from Twitter…
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‘At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can’. Frida Kahlo I put this up today as it is Frida Kahlo’s birthday and she was so inspirational to me as a self taught artist, something not easy to be I find sometimes. The words are very true for all of us, not just artists, and female artists at that, who have always had it tough anyway. So to week 2 for this work and working up the colour before I get into the detail. There is an interesting exhibition just beginning in London of David Hockney’s latest portraits and I have been struck by the similarity in the colours I am using to his palette, entirely coincidental, although I have always been a fan of his colours and ideas. I need to get the hands right by next week, as I really want to give the impression of tension in these hands. This woman is beautiful ( under that hat !) and has a charmed life I would imagine, but to my mind she is worrying about where her husband is and who he is with……what do you think? I wanted to hide…
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