Show and Tell at the Surrey Art Fair

Attending the Surrey Art Fair at the end of February was a new experience for me. It was daunting but also exciting. We took 2 days to travel from Nice to Surrey and two days back.
On the return journey we were lucky enough to be in front of 'The Beast from the East' storm all the way, although it was bitterly cold -9 degC at our overnight stop in Troyes. When we arrived home our garden was covered in about 2 inches of snow, with a part of the storm passing over the Alps and depositing snow in the PACA region. This is about a once in 10 - 15 year event but only lasts for a couple of days. Those of you who are used to very cold winters, will laugh at us wimps over here.

We spent a lot of time preparing for the hanging. I cleared a wall and used brown paper to get the general fell of the hand, and then the framed paintings, all the while on tenterhooks hoping the frames wouldn't get damaged. The preparation paid dividends when we got there as we knew exactly which painting went where with plenty of space where necessary.

The show went well with lots of interest and some purchases. I am doing it again towards the end of April.

Here are more images of the stand:

Most works are up on the website, but I have not been able to photograph them all get (computer problems once again!) They will gradually be added over the next couple of weeks.

I hope you are seeing signs of spring wherever you are in the Northern hemisphere. and your weather is warming up. Our daffodils are out and the tulips are going great guns.

Adding Calligraphic Marks using Acrylic Ink

One of the hardest things I find to do is scribble/calligraphic marks which seems to come so easy to many artists. To me, mine don't look natural and I have to manipulate them by painting over them, thinning the lines with paint or using transparent paint to make them 'sit' in the painting. 

I use a range of different tools - oil pastels, pencil and pen, but today I discovered I enjoy making these marks, and they look more natural, with acrylic ink direct from the bottle using the dropper supplied.

I'm great at purchasing art supplies (my favourite hobby) but often don't make use of everything I buy. I purchased some acrylic inks several years ago but only ever created a few ACEOs, so I am delighted to find another use for them.

Some of the marks on current works in progress

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Everyone Likes BLUE

A MOMENT IN TIME

Medium: Acrylic on Panel
Size: 30 cm / 12 inch x 30 cm / 12 inch x 5mm

AVAILABLE

It's always a little disappointing to discover you're average. Blue, along with teal and purple are my favourite colours. Teal and purple all contain blue of course.

"By the 1920s, researchers were just about ready to throw in the towel regarding that straightforward question, “What’s your favorite color?” People’s answers appeared far too idiosyncratic to study in any substantive way. But as statistical tools and color standardization improved during the decades that followed, a pattern slowly but surely began to emerge.

Everyone liked blue..."

Continue reading this article in Artsy Magazine
 

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Adding Texture to Acrylics Part 1

My visitors have all gone home and I am enjoy the peace and quiet lost in painting again.

As usual, I am working on several paintings at once but they all look a little flat so I am injecting some texture into them.

The best way to do this is at the beginning of a painting is using gesso or modeling paste. You can also use these on an in-progress painting but, as they are opaque, you will lose any colour already down.

One method I enjoy using, because it brings up a lot of unexpected surprise, is laying down two, three or even four layers of acrylics on top of one another and then scraping through the acrylic.

Use thick paint for the best results and wait for the paint to touch dry before adding another layer. I like to wait until the top layer is just touch dry before dragging the scaper through the paint. The effects are different according to how dry the paint is. Practice this to see the different effects. The wet paint also lifts off some of the dried paint underneath, giving interesting results.

The first photo is the work in progress. The grey is layered on top of the cream which is on top of the base painting colours and the scraper has been pulled through the paint.

This is a closer look at the texture achieved.

In this photo I have added another layer of blue to the top right hand triangle and again dragged the scraper through the paint.

Throw Away Boards

Throw Away board.

Or should I paint over it and continue with it?

Another concept introduce by Nicholas Wilton in the course is the Throw Away Board. Have a board by the side of you as you paint. Use it to wipe your brushes, try out ideas, put your palette paper over it (upside-down) at the end of the day - anything you fancy. Throw it away at the end, or maybe it might just turn into it's own painting.

Play Boards and loosening up.

The first assignments on the course were to creat an inspiration board and a desire board.

It will be no surprise that my inspiration board included the landscape of Provence, trees, flowers, spring and wildlife. These are well represented in my current art.

My desires - well this was harder. What was it I really wanted - make better art obviously but on top of that I want a larger studio, I want to feel confident enough to enter shows including juried shows, loosen up on my landscapes but without loosing the feel of them. The idea behind this is that if we don't say these things they will never happen, but somehow saying them makes them more likely to happen.

Our first painting assignments was to create two boards (12x12inch) by just putting paint down and not overthinking everything or even thinking about it. We were to call them play boards. In effect this is a loosening up exercise and fun to do. I often overthink my paintings before I start, and changing those ideas as the painting progress is hard.

These are my Play Boards

The two boards have a different feeling to them and are designed to show that it doesn't matter how you start as they will be worked on later and covered over with paint.