Category Archives: Creating my artwork

Arts residency supported by talent development grant

News

I  am really pleased to be able to share that I have been awarded a talent development grant from a space’ arts, the funds will enable me to work with a mentor and photographer to help me to record the experience.   I will be creating new work as an Artist in Residence at the wonderful Furzey Gardens in the New Forest.  I will be starting my time there at the end of September and creating work through the winter months.

I will be keeping a record of the experience and sharing this, details to follow.

Link

As with all creations it can sometimes be difficult to complete a artwork especially when challenging yourself this happens to us all, for me creating my urban paint and pen creations  can be the most difficult of challenges. It is often easy to start but harder to finish and is very much the case when I am pushing myself in a new direction as in the case of using a new colour scheme. Back in December 2014 I started a new colour-full work, my stumbling block came when I was half way through the piece, so I put it away, sometimes its about a emotional space  as much as a physical one and this is reflected in my art work. I am sure that this must say something about my psyche as I have now completed Fred and am now happily creating in colour again.

 

 

Link

Ive been busy again creating new individual works inspired by line work series, smaller and more compact these new art works have been fun to create.

Dancer 1 small

 

mother one

Exploring my creations responding to a jungle theme

 Developing on a initial inspiration and developing a theme

I am often asked about how I create my work so I thought that I would share some of my creative  processes. The inspiration for this series started life with a photograph of the undergrowth in my garden.

photograph of my jungle dreams painting created in acrylics using predominatly greens yellows reds blues and whote

Jungle dreams acrylics on canvas

For the  initial image I drew inspiration from the shapes and colors wishing to develop and enhance these to create a work that  inspired a imaginary magical world revealing  hidden characters within.

photograph of painting leaves designs imaginary landscape - penwork multicoloured

Leaves design colored line work

For this second piece I was inspired to create a work inspiration. I started the process by placing a transparent paper on the top of the painting I then drew around the shapes that appealed to me, I then replicated the section as a mirror image joining the sections together to create a new starting point for my next design.

photograph of my wilderness painting painted in coloured sections created in acrylic paint in white canvas

Wilderness imagined

For the final piece I was then inspired to use color to  place  further emphasis on different sections thus creating my leaves design.

 

Creative craft

Over the last few years I have explored with and very much enjoyed working with willow and i always find mylef being drawn back to using it , it is such a great sculptural material and being organic  has its own memory ,  time and patience are needed and must be given to understand its intrinsic properties . Over the last few months much have my time has been taken up teaching others how to use it to create willow lanterns the one pleasure as well as frustration is that creating willow lanterns is  temporary medium to work in .

I have recently been thinking about creating structures that have a much longer life span and have been considering using other mediums to strengthen the paper, or to replace it with canvas or another material, as I will have some free time I have decided that the time will be well spent experimenting.

 

Freeing up your creativity- abstract freestyle experimentation 1.

For this approach I have found that it is better to work on several pieces  at a time with the theory that at least one will work out and that you can always creative new work from the ones that you are not so pleased with when you finish.

I decided to try out a similar method of working,  using a different pallet of colors for each piece and keeping a very loose theme in mind .

I decided to  use acrylic paints I  was prepared to use up quite a lot of paint  You could equally use this method with a much cheaper paint on board,or use colored sand and chalks and take a photograph, it really doesn’t matter

I also wanted to get away from being finicky and so chose to large brushes,and spoons, droppers and scrapers and a flat service – on this occasion I used the kitchen tops surface as it was near to running water  but a covered floor would do just as well.

Creating textural based artworks 1

Many of my art works are quite textual in a appearance I love to work in layers, changing and adapting as it is created.

I am often asked how I create my work  and although there is no one method I thought that I would start to share some of the methods I use with you.

The first approach links to building up a textual base.

Much of my  naturalistic work is based on one at least one photograph that I have taken. I always use my own photographs for this style of working unless I am provided with images by a a client.

To complete more to follow soon

 

 

 

Kickstarting the creative flow

As with all creative processes it is very easy to become fixed in a particular style of working, what with deadlines and limited time around other creatives this is always a potential problem.It is interesting how by spending lots of time helping others to be creative can effect your own ability to let loose and explore your own creativity.

I wanted to explore this topic by taking part in activity’s that would allow me the time to free up my own creative nature and  fortunately have been able to  enroll on  a free 3 week online course ,recently designed and created by a lovely fellow creative Jani Frank who has  been through the same thought process herself and wanted to share this with others.http://janijellybean.blogspot.co.uk/

One of the questions that Jani posed on her blog is how you go about getting around creative  blocks and creating anyway… one of the ways I find is to set myself a limited time period, I usually set aside  a minimum time of 2- 3 hours, then  try not to think about what I am going to do  and just get on with it,  the starting is often the hardest bit , don’t always expect to get going straight away just doing helps and before you know it will happen.

I have often started with a inspiration , a photograph that I have taken etc which has always been a good place for me and in the past I was often  able to draw inspiration from my imagination.

With time constraints I have found that the  my ability to create ideas from my imagination has been overtaken by this method of working and although useful I find myself  considering how to free up the more exploratory side of my nature, hence my reason for joining Jani s course.

I have decided to share this journey with you and will be setting up a page to share my explorations

Update re my art exhibition at Greyladies Art Centre

Leave a Reply

If you are reading this post because you  have attended this exhibition I just wanted to say thank you for all of your support and kind comments.

Now into our 4th day I am glad to say that I have have had much interest and have sold my sunset seascape mentioned recently, to a lovely gentleman who had actually been to the place in Montenegro that the painting was based on.

We have all been having a great time and received some great feedback , it is always great speaking to other people especially when as in my case my work can often be interpreted   in different ways.

Getting ready for our art exhibition launch this weekend

Well we are nearly there, Ive created several new pieces ready to show (Ive added them to the gallery if your curious). Ive never shown as many pictures in one go I usually show one or two pieces and a gallery or a exhibition. This time around I am showing 9 paintings , so I am both apprehensive and a little bit nervous as to what reaction I am going to get.

It will be  very different being there to hear visitors reactions , also Ive been asked if I can create a painting  while I am there which will again be a new experience. Ill let you know how it goes.

If your curious to attend I am exhibiting with Noel Barker, Peter Jarvis, Graeme Hodgson, and Kevin Longstaff as part of the Hampshire Open Arts studios. so wish me luck.

For more details http://www.gaf.org.uk/Events/events_hantsopen.html

Working on a new painting

I decided to start a new painting of a fish under water, recently water related paintings seem to be of interest to me.  This is the first version  once again I need to decide on which new colors to include as I want to make the image more fluid with more balance I will let you know how this goes

Recreating a new

Leave a Reply

Several years ago  ago I created a seascape painting of a sunset I experienced in Montenegro, I was never completely happy with it and so decided to put it away and re visit it when I felt ready to do so

The original painting

Seascape v 1

Seascape v 1

I  have recently returned to the piece , deciding that I needed to make it more vibrant in color,  contrast, tone and depth .

Using the original as a under painting  has allowed me to create a greater depth of color and a much more vibrant piece. I still have a little more to do before it is completed however I am now much more happier with it now.

Seascape 2a

Creating my second commissioned sea landscape

Leave a Reply

My Final version of the painting now hanging in the clients surgery

 

a photograph of my first version of my painting of

 

Bantham beach version 1

My second  commission was an interesting challenge for me as I had never created this kind of work before and I rarely work in a limited range of colors and usually would include colorful sky which he didn’t want. The client  wanted me to capture the flavor of the place linked to specific memories of his childhood.

a second version of my painting now including thurlesdon rock

This painting started life as a compilation of different images of an area called Bantham in Devon. An interesting challenge for me as I had never created this kind of work before and I rarely work in a limited range of colors and usually would include colorful sky which he didn’t want.

 

a abstract painting of Thurlestone Rock

Thurlestone rock side view

 

Creating my first commisioned seascape

Leave a Reply

Posted on January 29, 2012 in sister website

I was recently contacted by a gentleman who runs an osteopath practice in Southsea Portsmouth who asked me of I would be interested in creating  two   paintings to hang in his reception

As I am usually interested in challenge, I thought what have I got to loose and as I normally only create art work that I am interested in this would stretch my abilities once more  … So I agreed to meet him.

When we met  he said that he would like me to create a couple of paintings that would remind him of two beaches in Cornwall that he loved visiting as a child.

as this was a new experience for me especially as I don’t usually create seascapes  I thought that I would like to share the experience with others so…….

Ist pic waves

I usually use my own photographs  I am very aware of the issues relating the copyright and the fact that it is only ok to use an other artist work as an inspiration  but that it is never right to produce work that could be seen as copy of the original .

 

Creating my first commissioned painting step 2

Second wave pic

My first draft of the painting has lots of physical texture in it as well as visual

I decided that although it  needed more depth of color.

The second draft now has more color depth and detail as I have added flecks of green into the darker sections.  I really enjoyed the challenge of building up the different layers of color and depth which are revealed when it is viewed from  different angles.

The final version can be found in my painting section.