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| Flowers - ink and acrylic |
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Very Easy Abstract - Flowers Again
The other day I just wanted to throw something together very quickly and saw an ink and acrylic work on the net that was quite pretty, so I had a go too, and this is what I came up with. Love the colours. This is definitely not an original one.
An Abstract (Barb Style)
As I mentioned some time ago I am studying painting at TAFE, and part of our course a few weeks ago required us to paint an abstract using a formula of some straight lines, circles, zigzags, and curved lines. This is the painting I did in class - rough but quite interesting.
As a result of that I decided I needed to do a real canvass abstract at home. For my colour scheme, I thought I would try an analagous colour scheme in the blue/blue-green/violet/red violet range. However, when I put the painting together I thought it was pretty boring, so I decided to ditch it. Which led me to throwing the rest of my leftover paint at it, using a palette knife (my absolute favourite tool). I began to like it, and then added some extra colour with a little lemon and some magenta. I still reckoned it needed something, so after a little thought I decided to sew some very very bright orange string onto it as well. (I have been wanting to sew onto a painting for a while, and this was my first attempt!!) So here it is - unfortunately the photo is not so good!!
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| TAFE Class Work - abstract |
As a result of that I decided I needed to do a real canvass abstract at home. For my colour scheme, I thought I would try an analagous colour scheme in the blue/blue-green/violet/red violet range. However, when I put the painting together I thought it was pretty boring, so I decided to ditch it. Which led me to throwing the rest of my leftover paint at it, using a palette knife (my absolute favourite tool). I began to like it, and then added some extra colour with a little lemon and some magenta. I still reckoned it needed something, so after a little thought I decided to sew some very very bright orange string onto it as well. (I have been wanting to sew onto a painting for a while, and this was my first attempt!!) So here it is - unfortunately the photo is not so good!!
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| "Orange string" |
Mixed Media - Going Shopping
It was time to have another go at a mixed media using collage and acrylic. This painting originated from a photo of a painting by collage artist Mike Bernard (who does heaps of paintings of buildings), but once I got going on it, I thought the original needed something extra, so I added the lady on the rickety old ladies bicycle. Then a couple of days later, I added the little dog, which I now think really finished the painting off.
I have used newspaper to give texture to the walls and road surface, serviettes with aqua surrounds for the windows of the shop, and cutouts for the shop names, some of the washing on the line, and the face in the window upstairs. The little dog was also a find on the internet, and I have painted over the original cutout to give more texture to it. How many dogs have you seen running along the street, just like this one, chasing after a bicycle?
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| "Going Shopping" or alternatively "Face in the Window" |
I have used newspaper to give texture to the walls and road surface, serviettes with aqua surrounds for the windows of the shop, and cutouts for the shop names, some of the washing on the line, and the face in the window upstairs. The little dog was also a find on the internet, and I have painted over the original cutout to give more texture to it. How many dogs have you seen running along the street, just like this one, chasing after a bicycle?
Monday, March 7, 2011
My effort at painting in the impressionist style
Thanks to ABC2's Forger's Masterclass again, some friends and I decided that we too needed to try our hand at a Monet, painting in the impressionist style. So we arranged a day in the country, at sister-in-law Barb's place at Leneva, and set up our easels in her lovely olde worlde garden. Barb had mowed the lawn for us, and there were heaps of things flowering, including lots of roses and the oleanders you can see in the middle ground. The day was lovely and cool, and just perfect for painting out of doors. We had a lovely day, and we promised ourselves that we needed to do it all again soon.
So here is my effort in the Monet style - that is, lots of daubs of colour to create an illusion of light. In this case, I was surprised to find that by following Monet's technique, I was able to use colour to reflect the dappled morning light that shone through at about 9.30am when we started painting. By 4.00pm, the light had completely changed, but thankfully the morning light effect had already been captured. I'm not sure if Monet would have used the tree trunks to frame his painting, but I just liked the look of it.
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| Garden at Leneva |
So here is my effort in the Monet style - that is, lots of daubs of colour to create an illusion of light. In this case, I was surprised to find that by following Monet's technique, I was able to use colour to reflect the dappled morning light that shone through at about 9.30am when we started painting. By 4.00pm, the light had completely changed, but thankfully the morning light effect had already been captured. I'm not sure if Monet would have used the tree trunks to frame his painting, but I just liked the look of it.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Colour and Fauvism
Thanks to ABC2 I have been captivated by their TV program Forger's Masterclass on Sunday nights.
One of the recent shows was on Andre Derain, a fauvist painter of the early 1900's. From Wikipedia:
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.[1][2] The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.[1]
So here is my version, in my own simplistic style and with my own choice of colours - I like 'em bright!! The painting is called "Cityscape - Santiago, Chile" and is taken from memory and from photos. The old church, the railing. and the distinctive building on the right are taken from one of Tom's photos of Santiago. I love the way the building on the right glows - one of those things that just happens when I painted over the dark red background!
One of the recent shows was on Andre Derain, a fauvist painter of the early 1900's. From Wikipedia:
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.[1][2] The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.[1]
So here is my version, in my own simplistic style and with my own choice of colours - I like 'em bright!! The painting is called "Cityscape - Santiago, Chile" and is taken from memory and from photos. The old church, the railing. and the distinctive building on the right are taken from one of Tom's photos of Santiago. I love the way the building on the right glows - one of those things that just happens when I painted over the dark red background!
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| Cityscape - Santiago, Chile |
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Another Landscape - South Georgia
A couple of blogs ago I promised an Antarctic painting coming on. So here it is. This painting is set in Summer, on South Georgia, in the Antarctic. We visited there in 2007, and this painting is a composition of things we saw. The painting is set at Gritviken, an old whaling station, and now a museum and scientific base. Gritviken is also the place where the explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried. So, I have called this painting "Graveyard - South Georgia", and as you will see Gritviken is a graveyard for old exploration vessels as well. Shackleton's grave is in the graveyard at the left rear of the painting, across the harbour. To contrast against the dead ships and the graveyard, and the stark mountain sides and scree slopes, I have included a sign of life in the form of grass, and a baby seal. There were hundreds there when we visited - this one looks as though it has been disturbed whilst sleeping in the tussock. The colour of the sea is a very cold-looking blue. Funny enough, my husband recognised the place when I first showed him the painting, so there must be some resemblance. I would love to add somer red to the painting to give a lift to it, but there just wasn't any around.
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| Graveyard - South Georgia |
Started at TAFE
Just to log the milestone in my blog, I started TAFE Cert 3 in Visual Arts this week, doing painting. Hope this helps!!!
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