Dirty Boot - Still Life

Dirty Boot

Acrylic - A3

 

"Dirty shoes and roses can both be good in the same way." - Vincent Van Gogh

Lilies - Still Life with Flowers

Lilies

Acrylic - A3

 

'There are always flowers for those who want to see them'

- Henri Matisse 

Paintings: A Very Warm Portrait.

Acrylic on A1 Paper

This piece is a portrait from quite a while ago but I thought I should probably update this blog with some more art before I completely forget about it.

I completely covered the paper with a thin coat of orange acrylic before proceeding with the rest of the painting. I tried to be quite spontaneous with the colour but the whole piece seems to be biased towards warmer tones, so I think if I were to try again with this I would add some blues and pale greens to defuse this. Overall I quite like this artwork though, especially the shape of it.

Woodland Watercolour

Watercolour on A4 Cartridge Paper

I found this piece that I created a while ago, last spring if my memory serves me well, and thought it was quite an interesting artwork. I remember consciously trying to be uninhibited with the colour; if I got the feeling of a colour being present in the view I endeavoured to add it without hesitating.

 I personally find it really intriguing how if you really look at something, especially natural landscapes, you begin to see all sorts of colours you would never imagined would be present. It is taken for granted that leaves are green and trees trunks are brown, but they never really are.

Whether I succeeded in my attempts with this I am not entirely sure but nevertheless, as a piece of art, I really quite like it.



Paintings: Ruined Window Watercolour

Watercolour and Indian Ink on A4 Cartridge Paper

So I am once again back and blogging once more and I thought I would start this new blogging year with this piece featuring a ruined church window. I created this artwork a while ago and I liked it because  it was all overgrown with ivy, the trees were growing though the window and plants were clinging onto the rocky walls; it already seemed like a piece of art before I even started to draw it.

I worked with some watercolour tablets and Indian ink on this artwork, consciously using quite vibrant colours to try and convey a subtle reminder of stained glass. I am not sure if this worked, you will have to decide for yourselves on that, but I am definitively pleased with the finished result anyway.

Paintings: Summery Tree

Acrylics on Cartridge Paper 14"x13"

Bit of an antithesis to the current season but I am putting this piece up as a reminder of how colourful and alive the trees were in summer compared to now, and because I quite like it.

I used palette knives to apply all the paint on this piece, this was the first time I’d used them on paper, so it was an interesting experience, I still prefer using them on board or canvas though.

To start the piece off, I used some blue acrylic mixed with white to show the patches where that warm, clear summer sky would be peaking through the foliage of the tree. I then started on the branches to get the shape of the tree before beginning the fun part; the leaves. I went a bit crazy with these which is probably why the final result is a lot rougher than I had anticipated but I am not too disappointed with it. I put quite a bit of yellow into the leaves because they often seem to have a yellowish gleam to them where they reflect the sun.



Back Catalogue: An Eerie Ruin in Watercolour and Mixed Media

Mixed Media on Cartridge Paper

Been a while since I put anything up on this blog, I shall try not to leave it so long in the future.

This is a piece I created a while ago as part of a project on Ruin and Decay that I think I have mentioned in one or two previous posts. I chose this ruined tower that I believe was part of a castle keep perched on top of a little hill as the subject for a mixed media painting. It had quite a serious, almost spooky feel to the place that I wanted to try and communicate in this piece.

I went quite ambitious with the scale of this piece being just a little bit smaller than A1 size. I roughly plotted out all the bits of shadows and darker areas in some Indian ink and then diluted some more to create a wash. When I was happy with this layer I proceeded to work into it with some watercolour paints, trying not being too strict with my palette. I also added some marks in crayons and some chalk, and finished it off with some last details in ink with a thin brush.

Sketchbook: Still Life Watercolour

Watercolour on A5 Cartridge Paper

This is the first Still life piece I have featured on this blog and the first that I have done for quite a while. I used a small branch and a sprig of something I discovered in my garden; trying to avoid a very cliché still life I arranged the two bits in a rather ugly plastic soft drinks bottle. Although I didn’t want it to look like a typical still life, I did want it to allude to one, which I think this has achieved.

I used watercolours on this piece as it was only intended as a quick study to begin with. I limited my palette to mostly cool colours, pairing the hues of blue and green in the bottle and the green sprig on the left. The only warm colours used were a touch of red brown and yellow ochre in the branch on the right.

Paintings: Remembrance

Acrylic on A3 Cartridge Paper

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



John McCrae.

Back Catalogue: Colourful Crumbling Church

Acrylic on Board 24"x20"

This was a piece that I created a while ago as part of a project at college, I decided to experiment and not hold back with the colour. As a result I ended up going slightly mad with it and this eventually culminated with the piece above.

The Subject is taken from a quick sketch I had done of a ruined church situated on the side of a hill, though to look at you would hardly recognise it as such if it were not for the tower still somewhat identifiable. The whole place is locked in a fierce battle against the elements that it unfortunately seems to be losing; however it is definitely going out with a bit of a bang, in the form of this dramatic ruin that staunchly refuses to go quietly.

As I said before, I didn’t hold back with the colour on this piece and just went for it, smearing it on in various hues with your bog standard brushes and few different palette knives for the larger areas. I think this has added a slightly eerie quality to the overall appearance, which I have decided that I quite enjoy, although I’m not a hundred percent sure why.

Sketchbook: Some Seasonal Spruces

Watercolour in A5 Sketchbook

Autumn seems to be speeding along at quite a pace so while we are still in the midst of it I thought I would capture a little bit of this all too short-lived season in my sketchbook with this warm watercolour painting of a line of leafy autumnal trees in the park.

I employed a limited palette of some typically warm autumnal reds and yellow ochre’s for the majority of this sketchbook piece, as it was intended as just a quick composition to look back on for future work. However, having completed it, I am quite pleased with the ultimate result. It is quite a simple representation, I didn’t try to capture anything more detailed than a fleeting impression of the subject but there is something in the simplicity of it that I appreciate and regard as quite engaging.

P.S. I googled it and apparently these trees aren't technically spruces but then my alliterative title wouldn't have worked.

Some Arboreal Botherations

Watercolour on A2 Cartridge Paper

I used watercolour to create this piece of a lonely oak tree on the side of a slope. I went slightly mad with this piece, incorporating any colour or means of applying the paint that took my fancy.

I started with the main trunk of the tree, deciding against including a distinct background of any sorts, so I sketched it all out in a light burnt sienna. Then I filled in much of the main trunk and the thicker branches with various brown hues adding touches of sap green to give the impression of some mossy patches clinging onto the bark. I also gave a slight hint of the hill upon which this oak tree grew with a faint wash of sap green at the base to give this tree something to grasp on to. I was quite pleased at this stage, but then I started on the foliage and that’s were it started to go downhill in my opinion.

I started on the leaves with another sap green wash, like with the hill at the tree base and then suggesting some more frondescent details using a hookers green applied with a rigger brush. I was still quite happy at this stage, but this is where I began to go a little bit crazy with the colour. I thought I would give it a more autumnal mood by utilising some warmer pigments to the foliage with some cadmium yellows, oranges and a light red. I applied these colours by flicking them onto the surface with an old toothbrush dipped into the mixed colours in the hope that it would add little flourishes. I’m not totally convinced this has worked but I don’t think the piece is a complete disappointment, and others have said they liked it so maybe my efforts with this piece were not completely wasted in vain.

A 'Back Catalogue' Piece

Acrylic on Board

A piece from my 'back catalogue' as it were, produced earlier this year on a project about Ruin and Decay I was working on.

This painting was a practice piece for a much larger painting that i worked on soon after completing this. I used a old cloth rag to rub the acrylic paint straight onto the surface of the board, creating this blurred, coarse effect that I quite like the appearance of. I didn't mix the paint before adding it to the piece, applying it raw, straight from the tube allowing the blending to happen both on the surface and in the eye of the viewer.

The subject is a completely ruined stone wall where there is only just about enough left of it to get an impression of an archway. I thought that the rough, rugged way of applying the paint echoed the state of the remnants of the ruined structure itself.