Collections 2

So, continued to work on sketches / small paintings on paper. Still quite a gloomy palette but I feel that the work is quite free because I am thinking whilst I am doing it that I may well cut it up for the next,' collection.' We will see. Very conscious that I am pushed for time at the moment ( family living with me ) so have to be very focused about the work. That's fine too. These were the small pieces this week.

50 cm x17.5 cm. acrylic and sumi ink.

32x30 cm. acrylic and sumi

35x21 cm acrylic and sumi

23x42 cm acrylic and sumi

33x29. Acrylic and sumi

This was a 32 inch sq.still work in progress.

Collections

So, this week I have carried on with the sketches / small paintings. I have enjoyed them but would have benefitted from a bigger space to spread them all out. I have played around with display on an old 34 inch square frame and although have enjoyed that have felt that it's swallowed up a chunk of time. They are time consuming to arrange and it seems to be one of those areas that's full of infinite possibilities so I have felt that I am putting the sketches down and rearranging them repeatedly. Perhaps that's something that , if I continue to work in this way, I will become more decisive. It's uncertain territory at the moment. I like them though and I like the fact that I would be using work on paper that I never normally do anything with because of the framing aspect. I often don't like my work on paper framed, although I like others framed.Mmm. Strange.

These were the sketches , sizes vary, media varies but I often end up in the paint.Mmm.

Sketch or small painting ? Well maybe neither....just work on paper, that covers it all really. I don't want to devalue the work by calling it a sketch, although the call is mine.

Like the white paper showing.

Like the texture and the warmth. The work on paper seems gloomy this week.

This was part of the underneath piece. The paper was so wet and I loved the piece when it was finished but I laid it to dry on thicker card and the paper was so wet, it stuck to the underneath card. Grrr.

Maybe I will work back into them because I seem to want to make each a finished piece before I put it into a collection

Wanted to try and get canals but unsuccessful so far....need a field trip

Also liked ripped edges alongside the cut ones. I like that I can leave the uneven edges. Just as they are.

First , 'Collection,'....I like that name , it says it all really and I like that I have used older work too. Old and new. Mmm. I like the space contained within the frame, it clarifies the collection and focuses the eye.

Collection 2.... Well it's a Landscape collection....some of them seem to be Canal collections.

Collection 3. I like the final work put together...it seems more readily able to be put together. The colour seems to make it harder.

This was thoughts of a small one. I just laid them on a donated Ikea frame, 50 cm sq. to get a picture of what they would look like. I wouldn't use an Ikea frame for the gallery though. Like it.it feels kind of like a slice of a landscape.

So, the first one I glued the work on paper with acrylic Matt medium. It seemed to make the piece as a whole quite solid. The second, I used Pritt stick because I didn't like the wetness of the acrylic Matt medium , it makes the paper a little cockles and wavy. Not sure which way to go yet.

Research.....needed.....

Start of a new financial year 2017/2018

Worked on standard sized landscapes , 52 cm sq ,this week. They seem so small after the 32 inch square pieces. My palette has changed to light, ice cream kind of colours, which I am happy with, but the paintings seem a little more abstract than usual and a lot about colours as well as a landscape. Happy in paint though.

I do paint and reaping old images. I love that, reusing older paintings.I often start off by mixing colours on the actual painting to be then put into a plastic pot. Yum. Love mixing the colours, love the actual physical mixing of the colours, rather than any colour science. I like randomness and can often not repeat a mix. I like that uncertainty.

Paint mixes on the board

A timely mix . Acrylic on board. 52 cm sq.

A distant space. Acrylic. 52 cm sq.

A gentle season. Acrylic. 52 cm sq.

Colours of land and sky. Acrylic . 52 cm sq.

Just been massively interested in displaying the paintings and how different they look on different colours. Even how different they look on the same colour in different parts of the room.mmm

Paintings going this week to Silson gallery, Harrogate.

So this week also , I had decided to make the commitment of a daily sketch throughout 2018. I love to paint. I love to create but then sometimes ,out of necessity , I haven't enough time. I don't like ( as much ) many other aspects of being an artist...the delivering of paintings....the networking....the business side....the organisation......I thought that by doing a sketch each day, at least I will be able to do exactly what I want on that day....so no limits of subject matter / medium.....these are the first few ( thought I would catalogue them on. Pinterest, just for interest....I often work on appear but then don't do anything with them only put them in the plan chest / drawers....because I never like them framed....so this little project will help me with addressing that dislike of framed work .mmmm.

These are a few of the sketches. Tonight's job is to catalogue and list them on Pinterest. Why ? No answer at this stage....perhaps to accredit them with some importance.mmm

Poem lines . April 2018.

So, continued with the Poem line series this week. Filled the walls in the Art lounge once again with 32 inch sq canvases. Enjoying he e paint at the moment but the process is very wet. Lots of spraying and dripping. Still caught up with cerulean colour, although it's not in my landscape at all. Will definitely use different colours this week to stop this kind of obsession with the cerulean blue.

With these, it is kind of putting down the paint instinctively and intuitively and watching for something to come out of the mixing and laying down of paint.

I am still interested in abstract images.....is there any painting that's a complete abstract ? Not sure on that....does an abstract image require an element of dispassionate observation to just be about the colours or the lines or the edges or the paint ? Thinking out loud and not sure of the answers.....

I know that I have also been influenced by seeing a distressed wall at Emmaus, where i run an Art group.They are turnng an old scrap shed into a kind of display space and when they cleared out the space, the walls looked amazing.....but of course, for them to have got like that, there must have been water and damp.mmm. Will continue to try and see if I can't somehow incorporate that into my paintings .

Far Away. Acrylic on canvas. 32 inches sq. This one is all mid toned, so shouldn't work, but it like it just as it is.

Texture of far away . Acrylic on canvas.32 inches sq.

These two mid toned pieces displayed on the chimney breast.words that come to mind when I look at them....calm....reflective.....subtle....hidden....they massively change when the light changes in the  room. Fascinating.

above and below, I did last week, but I have carried on the blues.

A cerulean feeling. Acrylic on canvas. 32 inches sq.

The three cerulean ones displayed in the Art lounge. They feel very uplifting paintings. Interesting.

This was the latest , again 32 inches square. May well work back into it, not sure of the green. Although I hadn't put any green down, there was paynes grey still wet on the canvas when I put a mixed gold down. He ho.

Poem lines March 2018

So, continuing with the poem line series, 32 inches squared, acrylic on canvas. Creating paintings to fill the spaces in the Art lounge that had gone to Hope gallery, Redbrick Mill, Batley. It's lovely to be able to create paintings for my own space. No pressure.

' My air.' Acrylic on canvas, 32 inch sq.

This was the first. Worked on it intermittently throughout the week. What's it about ? Well, a lot of things really , colour, space, air, maybe the feelings that I experience in my landscape. The sublime ! Well, sometimes as an artist, you only know what they are about somewhere down the line.....

We have been looking at abstract painting in the Art group that I run and that makes me revisit abstract paintings. I think of my own paintings, in the main, as contemporary landscape paintings with an element of abstraction. I think of them as not completely abstract but rather based in the real world, my landscape of woods, hills, moors, water, weather. Love it . Love where I live in the Saddleworth hills.Bleak sometimes, wild sometimes, comforting at others.

' Cearuleun air,' acrylic on canvas, 32 inch sq.

I do paint intuitively and am aware that certain elements come through and appear time and time again. Strange isn't it ? But that the creative spirit for you. I think my own mood affects my colour choice but I am also aware that I do get caught up with certain colours at certain times. I am so into Cearuleun for the moment but it's not really one of my Saddleworth colours...it feels like it belongs to a warmer climate. And sea appears ! 

The two seem to be related. It seems like the first one was an arrangement of colours that almost settled itself into the second. If I take the images out of it, the first one seems vertical and the second horizontal. The palette is the same in the two so I think I will try to keep more to grey in the next ones. Maybe I will have exhausted my interest in Cearuleun, hopefully.