EASTERN OPEN - FLYING OVER THE MARSHES

You may remember back in February I posted two images of paintings I had created whilst staying at Anitas when we were playing with interactive acrylics and acrylic inks. One of them was about marshes in the north of Norfolk with birds.

I liked this painting so much that I decided to make a pair to enter into the Eastern Open this year and here is the result. This time I added far more birds flying over and this time much darker and added the inevitable reeds that grow around our marshes and fenland of East Anglia.

Enlarge to see detail

Not only to remind you of the first painting under this title Flying over the Marshes, but to see them together, I took a photo of them as a pair. They are 20" x 8" canvases with both interative and ink acrylics.
Sandra kindly delivered them for me to our local collection point and now one must wait to see if the very august selection committee think anything of them. The panel consists of Artists & Aspire Project Leader, Head of Quality at Liverpool School of Art and Design and Senior Curator of Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I hope I will be lucky a third time having been accepted in 2006 ands 2007. Tried last year with my flowers from my travels in Amsterdam and South Africa, but realise now they were not suitable for this event. I find that one of the hardest things to work out - what is right for which venue.

THEMED OPEN EXHIBITION GREAT YARMOUTH - RENEWAL

Snowdrop walk at Walsingham

Great Yarmouth, a thriving east coast town of Norfolk, recently refurbished its library gallery and Seachange Arts have invited Norfolk and Waveney artists to submit work for an open exhibition under the theme RENEWAL.

I needed a third piece to go with my Cyclamen Glen acrylic and Dandelion Time canvas. Having noted that snowdrop time had come around again, I was lead to the wonderful display at Walsingham, the small North Norfolk village reknowned for its annual pilgrimage. Above is the finished framed acrylic painting showing part of the snowdrop walk measuring 22" x 18". I was pleased with the limited palette and impressionist ground cover and it all seemed to work well together right from the start.

For your interest, I also show images of two stages of the painting.

We were asked to explain how our work represents the exhibition theme of RENEWAL, and here is my response - as ever taking me back to my natural history studies.

• 'All these plants painted herald the renewal of life year on year from the cyclamen in the woodland glen, the snowdrops fighting up through the cold winter earth, to the dandelion seed with its cleverly structured parachute to be carried away by the wind to grow anew far from its parent plant. '

WATERCOLOUR PENCIL WORKSHOP

Our first workshop of the year took place on Saturday when we worked with watercolour pencils. The morning was taken up with practicing the many diverse methods of using this media from dry contour work, to drawing into wet paper, scrapping pigment from the tip of the pencil, cross hatching, blending, lifting to create highlights, etc. Each member attending selected an object from the many objects I had collected and brought in from a mixed supply of fresh fruit, to small ceramic figures, pots, feathers, jugs, cones and on and on as seen in this photo.

Here is some early work by my regulars showing contour drawing, wetting the pigment after applying to dry paper, wetting tip of pencil for strong marks, lifting out colour and scrapping pigment from the tip of the pencil onto wet paper.

We had four new members to the group and some of their morning practicing work is shown below: The first two images show work by two young teenagers who joined us with undoubted artistic talents wishing to develop their skills.

The strawberries and apples were painted by new members who would normally go through my basic drawing skills before embarking on colour work and under the circumstances very courageously tried these rather complex techniques.

Finally, I am proud to say that one of my teenage regulars is embarking on an illustrative project for a children's storybook and found watercolour pencils really interesting to develop her characters.

The day flew by with our usual breaks for drinks and biscuits (am) and cakes (pm) with everyone really surprised to find how this overlooked cinderella media is so versatile.

TEN YEARS IN THE LIFE OF A PAINTER

A sample page from my little artbook with reference to one of the societies I belonged
to and some of the work I sold through their very successful exhibitions.


Well, at long last I have completed my latest project that has kept me so busy. Its a little soft covered 36 page book showing some 70 images of paintings I have exhibited and sold since 2000 - thus the title. Two pages that really worked well were of my sketchbooks, with three samples from my garden floral sketchbook and three from my trip to South Africa.


The book is available on http://www.blurb.com/ - the link is alongside above my profile - if any one would like to purchase and have a record of my efforts over these ten years. Below is the contents page to give you an idea of the range covered and my art connections here in England. Many of the images would have been posted over the past two years of blogging, but you might find the text alongside of interest.

Below is the page detailing very briefly my studies and contact details, with a little painting I did when I arrived in the Fenland region of East Anglia, England in 2000.
(although I have removed my address details for this blog entry).

Please don't feel obliged to purchase, just thought you'd like to know about it. Hopefully they will all enlarge with that magical click! Just in case there is a problem due to quantity of content, I have uploaded them the largest available. If you want to see more pages you can preview some of the book at the blurb website - under Public Books click on the book cover and then on Preview.

LOADS OF ADMIN FOR EXHIBITION ENTRIES

It's been about ten days since I lasted posted anything new or, in fact, looked at

anyone's blog. It's like being cut off from an essential part of life. Now in half an hour I am off to my daughters to look after the girls, so she can go out for the evening to celebrate her man's birthday.

I have spent so much time of late on my new project, which is almost complete and ready to reveal to my blogger friends soon.

On top of that, it's taking ages to complete entry forms, CDs, CV's, etc for many shows that have deadlines for entries during March/April. Biggest problem has been deciding which works go where and where I need to get down to creating more work. Here are some floral studies of old I am using to build up the number of paintings.

This first one is originally a watercolour to which I added acrylic to build up detail. Its in a square format with double cream mounts and light wood frame measuring 19 x 19 inches. It will be going to the church Celebration of Art at Grimston near Kings Lynn for an end of April annual show.
Number two is an acrylic on flat mounted and framed canvas for the Renewal Exhibition at the recently refurbished gallery at the Yarmouth Library . These cyclamen renewing in the woodland year on year reflect the theme of the show.

Must dash now as I am due to leave any minute. Happy blogging.

ST NICHOLAS CHAPEL WORKSHOP OIL PAINTING

I have at last finished my other project and and sent it away to be printed. More another time.

... so today I had the joy of getting out my Michael Harding oil paints and starting the second in the pair of paintings for the summer West Norfolk Artist show. Fortunately I had already worked on the composition so I could get the paints onto the palette, get out my brushes and wonderful Liquin orginal which improves flow and transparency.

Above is the first stage and as you can see (or remember) I am starting with much softer colours and application than the Rehearsal piece of work I posted some weeks back. I have used Kings Blue Deep, Brilliant Pink, Raw Umber and lots and lots of Titanium white, all blended with a wonderful soft mop brush to create a mix of tones. All these colours were in the other painting when I allowed the blue in the mix to be more dominant on the walls and screens.

For a first painting session, I am really delighted. I'm really looking forward to applying my shiny floor technique and hope I manage the figures well. . To vary the heights of the people, I added a young girl, which I might paint in red as a focal point - Sandra's idea when she saw the original sketch. Don't think this second piece will be as busy.

By the way, that painting hung on the right screen is Sandra's of Beckett's chapel in Wymondham. Maybe you'd like to pop over to her blog to see her stunning Norwich architectural pieces. http://sandrarowney.blogspot.com/

HILLSIDE RETREAT

Sorry I have not posted for nearly a week - due to two reasons. The first I had trouble with all scrolling. The minute I tried to move down or across screen, it jumped right back to where it had begun!!!! Absolutely no way to try to add text or images. Anyway completely sorted at last including purchase of a brand new ergonomic Microsoft keyboard as the other one was 10 years old. However, it turned out to be the wireless mouse I have had for some years.

Oh! yes, the other reason - I am in the middle of a major project, I will tell you about when its all finished. Patience now!!

Anyway, to return to my stay at Anita's, I played with another acrylic in the style of Mick Waite (remember the DVD we watched?) and here is what developed based on an Italian photo in a holiday magazine. Bit heavy really, with lots of thick paint applied with big brushes. Needless to say, being me, I really developed the flower border in the front.

Just a couple of close ups for you to see the simplicity and different ways the strokes were applied. Maybe these images will enlarge with a click to get even more detail.

Very bright colours though, but then I suppose I was thinking of the strong light in Italy, even if the sky looks overcast. It all really reminds me of my very early work when I first started using acrylics umpteen years ago.