THE FINAL RESULTS OF THE TWO WORKS IN PROGRESS

These are the completed 16 x 16 inch acrylic canvases I was working on last week. Unfortunately, the first one has come up somewhat pinky in colour in the photoing, but I really did use the same colours for both paintings. The second one has more collage ie the two pots themselves but they are both based on window backgrounds, one with the effect of lace curtains and the other with bowed Georgian style window. Ive added close up images to give you a better idea of the colour of the first painting and see the textures of both.

EARLY SNOWDROPS IN NORFOLK

Its been a glorious sunny January, bright blue sky day today and I went for a walk by the river in my Norfolk village. Alongside were thousands of snowdrops and yellow aconites in full bloom dotted amonst the trees and grass. I cant believe I went out on such a day without my sketchbook or my camera, so to remind you (and me) of how delecate these blooms are I have posted an image of a painting I did a couple of winter's ago after digging out some roots with a plastic spoon I had with a yoghurt in the car when I was driving through Lincolnshire!!! It was getting dark and I had to have the headlights on to see what I as doing. I only took a small handful to keep fresh for me to paint the following day. I put them in a small vase on my dressing table. I was pleased with the lace!

LIFE DRAWING SESSION

Its Tuesday - so life drawing get together at Foxley. Here are my efforts today. Mostly pen plus a little soft pastel rubbed in with a cloth. Either 10 or 15 min poses held most wonderfully by our model. She sure gets herself into some awkward places - and awkward to draw!!!!

STAINGLASS CHURCH WINDOWS PROJECT

STAGE 1 STAGE 2

STAGE 3FINISHED



I have been asked to show the stages of some of my work so have uploaded 3 stages and the finished acrylic canvas from a series of stainglass windows I have painted from imagination. My love of flowers and church interiors gave me the inspiration to join these subjects together. I did a pair 14 x 36 inches and sold the following one based on irises at the Kings Lynn Festival last Autumn. In both works I added a great deal of texture to the surrounding stonework and kept it stonelike with very thin mat varnish but glazed the window areas with a number of layers of gloss varnish.

NORFOLK CHURCH SKETCHES

This is a pen and watercolour pencil sketch of St John the Baptist in my village of Coltishall.
It has a thatch roof and wonderful bells ringing out especially Monday evening practice time. Viewed from my art room window over the village rooftops.


This is St Margarets at Stratton Strawless together with a gold candleholder I was able to sketch as this church is open through the Diocese of Norwich project pilot scheme with 20 churches open to the public around the Norfolk Broads. The leaflet I picked up said the tower was rebuilt in 1400's with plans for a higher stage which never happened. The roof is slate. By the way the name STRATTON STRAWLESS means the street on the heath where no corn grows.



This is sadly all that remains of this church with the rest of the structure collapsed into undergrowth and hardly anything left. Strangely, the lower grave yard is well maintained and used to this day judging from the date on some of the new stones. It is near a village I think is called Waterloo near Hainsforth. Pass it regularly on my way home from various trips and spotted the top of the tower on a slope amongst the trees. Hope to find out more about its history.

Other churches are open under this pilot project but eventually there should be some 40 open by 2009 with visitors access and information about each church. I plan to add to my church sketchbook by visiting the ones currently open in the Broads near me but waiting for better/warmer weather. I was 'stone' cold sketching the candleholder in St Margarets!!!

LIFE DRAWING WEEKLY SESSIONS

Here are a couple of pastels on coloured pastel paper I did before Christmas break -
surprised how well the soft colours worked on the pink background.


After a holiday break yesterday the interesting 5 position sketch was an idea of our model (who is also an artist) to stand with arms out and move every 5 minutes around in a circle. I used my new Inktense pencils - different colour for each pose. It was great fun with not a moment to 'think'.

To be able to hold her arms above her head for a length of time, our model brought in a cane to hold onto and I did this in pentel black pens of varying width and added some skin tones in watercolour pencil and then added water with my brush that holds water in the handle

Since moving to Norfolk last summer I attend these weekly life drawing sessions at a gallery in Foxley and the model is wonderful putting herself into awkward, tense positions for short sketches and even standing on a stool holding onto the beams in the gallery... must have been a barn conversion. . As you may see, I love just doing a portion of the pose where the lines attracts me most. Simply did her feet when we arrived yesterday to get me into the right mood/mode.

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is the textured base painting - the pair having been painted together with the same colour scheme and some grid collage added in areas.

This is probably the third or fourth stage, as at one time I had a pair of the warm curtains, but removed the left hand one which appeared about two thirds across, and the small lemon round pot full of small flower shapes developed later . I was so engrossed I forgot to photo the earlier stages!!!

Latest stage, awaiting result of working on the second painting. Then I can view them together and see where I need to go.

I have been asked to create a pair of contemporary style 16 x 16 inch canvases for a bedroom based on creams, greens and lemons using floral images and any other additions I prefer. Its been great fun to have such freedom and I have glued gold ribbon down the left hand side of the window and textured grid on the lefthand side of the windows. The window boxes arrived when I was looking for somewhere to create some more of the inevitable darks in the painting. In other words the painting talks to me as I progress never knowing where it will end.

OPENING A GALLERY BLOG

Anita came over during the weekend and helped me set up a GALLERY blog- see LINK on the right. Ive only just started to post completed works but hope over the next week or so to add pairs of original work in various media from acrylic, oil, watercolour and mixed media to build up a significant viewing of my typical work. Then I can use this first blog for my sketching, planning and project work, which you might find of interest. Wish me luck. Please take a peep at the gallery from time to time.

SECRET GARDEN SERIES

I wanted to move on from the small square MAGIC GARDEN SERIES, so decided to paint some 16 x 20s (inches) acrylic canvases and put something in the garden that you had to find. Thus I created THE SECRET GARDEN PAINTINGS. This is the first one with a BUMBLE BEE amongst the flowers, imagining him flitting from bloom to bloom. I sold it so it gave me encouragement to continue and another one was born .... I think I painted four in all.

MY THIRD DAY AS A BLOGGER

I'll keep to posting images of my textured, layered acrylics but this time I thought I might show you a couple of my MAGIC GARDEN SERIES. The second painting above sold at the OPEN STUDIOS EVENT in Cambridgeshire - in fact it was in the event catalogue and brought a number of people to my studio to buy it. Fortunately I had created a series and so managed to sell a few. They are 16 x 16 inches square box canvas and show my love of colour and gardens. They were created after a lot of experimentation of applying the paint layer upon layer.

A PINK COMMISSION

So its day two for me on my blog and I promised to add an image daily of my typical work. This one was a commission last summer for a lady who visited my OPEN STUDIOS and fell in love with one of my large textured red and gold floral based pieces that looked like a Persian Carpet by the time I had spent many a month adding from week to week until I felt it said all I wanted. Happily she purchased it and commissioned me to do same size 24" x 30" but in pinks to go in her main lounge. I visited her and found she had lots of art nouveau touches around her home including tiles around a black Victorian fireplace, some glass and pottery and her tapestry covered sofa. So they all came into the painting as you can see on the image posted. It was great fun developing the composition with layers of varying tones, acrylic paste, beeds, seeds, silver and pearlarised paints.

I asked Clive (my husband) to give me a call when it was 6 pm so I could prepare supper for us ... cant believe how the time flies not only when you are painting, sketching, planning the next piece but blogging as well??!!.

I have a double commission ( a pair of 16" x 16" box canvas) to start with creams and soft greens and lemons so thought once I start I might post the stages of the work , so you can see how they progress.

Would be nice to hear from anyone out there??

NEW BLOGGER

I am an artist working in acrylics, oils, watercolours and pastels. I have such a variety of media at my fingertips because I am one of those 'retired' people with supposedly lots of time on my hands and I have been painting over 3o years. I'll tell you the rest of my story in the PROFILE but for now you might like to know that I have over the past 5 years been successfully creating contemporary free expression of basic floral forms in acrylics, using texture techniques resulting in decorative box canvas pieces of varying sizes and formats. Here's an example or two.

PEONIES ON CINNAMON - part of my SPICE SERIES this one on the left is 17" x 40" and framed in plain dull gold at £285 - the petals are in acrylic paste to stand proud of the background and you will find seeds, golds, gutta paint and other decorative media.

I'll try to add a new post each day for a while so you have something to look at, but at least Ive made a start - thanks to my pal ANITA (see link on the right - an avid blogger) . At the moment I dont know how to add a link to my email address, so if you are interested please contact me on email: joansandfordcook@hotmail.com