A brushy still life. One way to find out what paint does is stick to the same subject and don’t play around with composition. If limited to only brush marks for invention, then you are bound to uncover stuff you didn’t expect.
I like the big circular mark down the middle of the vase. That was the softest of brushes. It resembled a make up powder brush.
“Annunciation” oil on canvas 60″x42″
I recently started back at the studio, hoping to get back into some daily practice. We, at the Courtyard, can’t yet welcome visitors or classes which makes for a quiet day. The first thing I saw was this painting clearly unfinished. It takes a break to see what could be done to tidy up the figure. I repainted the face, hands and the lace part of the top. Interesting I posted the two ages of Kate in the last post. Here is Kate again a bit older as Mary.
A post from 2010. It’s hard to think time goes at such a dizzying rate!
Painted an oil version of Blue Mask for a demo in the HAC for the Wednesday and Thursday classes.
We tried a paintalong on the thursday which surprisingly went well. (I imagined chaos).
Good fun and pretty intense at the same time.
Interesting to see the two paintings of K at different ages. Four and fourteen.
Irvine Harbour
12″x12″ oil on board
Painted on a yellow ground. The yellow unifies the whole by peeking through the gaps in the picture. The enjoyment is in the challenge of where to place the thick or thin parts. It is something that I am looking for, in the process, these days. Why did I decide to put the palette knife blob in the sky over the brushed paint. I have no idea other than at the time I thought it would add an object to break the plain sweep from left to right. Also, as the painting depicts reflections, I had a blob on the water that needed a thing to reflect from.
Slightly more stylised than the last painting, which is based on realistic representation of nature. Which places it weaker in the “Top Trumps – paintings edition”
Back on oils. Back to scrapes, dollops and brush marks.
I much prefer this than acrylic painting, which has it’s advantages, but doesn’t beat the soft, wet feel of oils. My work is disparate and is something I have to get a hold of soon. The paintings will be seen to be improved with consistency. Discarding some styles and subjects will be a positive move in the long run.
I have a series of paintings in mind for this set. View from a train running from Irvine to Glasgow and back again.
A portrait I reworked recently. It was shown last year in the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine but it really was in an unfinished state.
It now has more depth and 3 dimensional qualities. It’s lost the cartoonishness it had.
I also removed the reading lamp behind to create a more peaceful air.
1m x1m Acrylic on canvas
The brother of the girl in the last post.
oil on canvas 14″x14″
This is portrait #4 of this family, and the youngest. A great wee face. Getting her picture taken was good fun until she got teased by her big brother then she got a bit overwhelmed. I cant remember if this image is from a pic before or after the tears. All the same, I think you can detect a stoic, resilient gaze into the viewers eyes!
Peonies II 8″x8″ oil on board
Couldn’t resist another painting today of these gorgeous peonies.
Peonies 8″x10″ oil on board
I love getting the paint on thick and quick. I’ll need to find some way to transfer this to portraits and landscapes. The peonies in the garden are not quite out yet but these beauties were spotted in the supermarket today.
