Littler Lily

This time I was armed ( or legged ) with welly socks, a puffa jacket, a cowl,  plus I had  a pint of hot tea inside me. I moved the heater on to a stool, so it would burn my middle and not my ankles. The things one does to get out of studying.

I was nearly done , when the bit of paper at the back fell down (possibly it froze to death). In trying to get it back, the flower swung round, which meant everything changed. I couldn't get it back right, so that bit at the end where I adjust the light and the dark bits and do finishing touches was all a bit of guesswork. Otherwise , it goes without saying, it would have been a masterpiece . (Ahem).

Flower P gave me ( because parenting was cracking me up)

This lily, ( for that is what it is) didn't fit in my shadow box ( cardboard box), so I had to poke a hole in the corner of the box and feed it through. I may have kilt the poor thing. I nearly killed  myself ( exaggeration) , the studio ( garage) is bloody freezing. Even with a heater, and slippers, and  scarf, and the odd daft dance, I was petrified with the cold. Fab excuse for the next few months.

I couldn't quite decide what overall colour this was, so I kind of put it together with different colours in a kind of  jigsaw way. It makes it too bitty I think, it's not quite obvious what's going on . Also, I think I  made the shadows on the flower too dark. Also, how did I not spot the too regular stamen shadows until now?

Pepper transformation.

The peppers  in real  life are vibrant and colourful. I have cleverly transformed them into a murky smudgy hotdgepodge. That takes real artistic talent :-)

Mind you, I kind of like the colours, or at least, there is a duck eggy blue grey in there somewhere that I like.  It's all a bit flat. I think peppers look a lot easier than they are, I've struggled a few times now.

Large chillies or small peppers

I bought loads of these at the farm shop this morning, I don't know if they are hot or just peppers. I plan to 'stew' them in a rediculous amount of olive oil, with tons of garlic & the odd caper. I suppose then we'll find out. They looked so nice that I went straight to painting and didn't study this morning... guilt overload.

Lousy photo, but there's no way I'm going outside again.

Pas de soupe

This week I've been painting two bowls, each day, paint, wipe. I'm trying to work out what goes first, darks, lights, main bits, small bits. Its fun, but I'm not necessarily sure I'm any the wiser. It it also for drawing practice, especially nasty horrid elipse things.

I didn't wipe this one, but I may. No point keeping everything, but also nice to  keep a record. I like the blog as a record , it's a record without a cupboard full of dead paintings. There is something a bit liberating and a bit destructive about obliterating what you have just made.

I need to have a good old think about compposition too.

The cube

Paul is artistic director  for a place called 22cans ( too lazy to add a link). This week they released a game/experiment called Curiosity, what's inside the cube. Its a sort of virtual cube, made up of layers and layers of little 'cubelets' , that people tap at, to reveal the next layer. Anyway, some of the layers have images, and they plonked 6 of my pics on there. This is when the orange layer above is being eroded and revealing the pics:

 

 

This is when this layer is completely cleared.

 

And this is the picture layer being destroyed again, to reveal a plain red layer.

Its all a bit odd. Last I heard, over 360,000 people were tapping! More than a million registered users! That's a hilarious amount of people seeing my onions !!As far as I know no one knows whos pics these are, which is fine with me. Some layer coming up has photos taken by one of my daughters of my other daughters eyes.

Between this, the Travelling Chicken and the gallery, it's been a darned odd week. I'm not trying to paint pictures for the moment, I'm just painting the same bowl over and over and wiping it. Just for some good old fashioned practice.

First landscape.

I've always always wanted to be able to paint landscapes, especially clouds & reflections, I have a thing about them. ( as is a bit evident from  my pinterest page) . I suppose the gallery person mentioning landscapes, reminded me to try. That and the new working from a laptop idea. There is no way I'm going to actually sit outdoors yet. Quiet places would be too quiet, and busy places would have nosy people!

So this is my first try. I had a blast. It was the most fun thing ever to paint. I could have faffed about with the sky forever ( maybe I should have :-)) I had glorious music on, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

It is the view from the bathroom window in the  house in Dorset, looking across to Burton Bradstock cliffs and West Bay.

Big scary little chicken.

I have to say, quite honestly, this  was quite an ordeal. This is effort number three!

I've not painted under such ( self imposed it has to be said) pressure before. I'm sure there is some awful mean rule of the universe that says the one time you really want to produce something good, is the time it won't happen.

 

I'm happy with bits, and I don't think it's an utter failure of an attempt, but, being entirely honest with myself, it's by no means wonderful, which is what would have been nice for this sort of thing. It isn't loose free and lively. I've discovered before that my best pictures happen when I'm not at all bothered , and when I just try without thinking. This involved so much thinking and bother, it's a wonder I didn't wear through the paper.

 

I suppose it is good to take part in things, but at the moment I feel like scurrying right back into my nice private safe little hole, where I paint just cos I like painting.

 

EDIT: for diary record, this is the first time I've painted from a photo/laptop. It sort of feels like cheating, but I don't know why; it's still trying to translate what you see into marks made with paint. I think it also felt like I had nearly too much information. logically it must be the same information being fed through your eyes, but it felt a bit more stark and all there, whereas just looking, I think I'm more able to break it down into a more  simplified version. Dunno, will see in time.

Chicken Nerves

In a moment of lapsed sanity, I signed up to take part in the Travelling Chicken blogsite. A little ceramic chicken travels around the world, from artist to artist. Each artist does a piece involving the TC, and blogs it, which makes a nice record of different approaches, and is, in theory, a lovely idea.
Where the idea falls flat, is when the actual box actually arrives in the actual post and you actually have to actually produce something. Not only that, but you throw it on out there for others to see. Now I love seeing peoples artwork, brilliant , it's just I'm ever so slightly neurotically wary of people seeing mine. I'm all for great big stonking bushels plopped on top of any glimmer of light. Whatever a bushel is.

Rant over. This  morning was beautifully sunny , so I tootled out to the garden with the TC to meet the girls. This is Bunty. Any diversion really rather than hit the paint. I'm sure I need to clean something.