December 2019 - Margaret Hall Fine Art

Ideas for Christmas Paintings

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Here are some ideas for Christmas paintings.

Small box canvas Christmas paintings in acrylic- Robin, Christmas tree and snow covered village scenes.

The box canvas Christmas paintings

I love this time of year but the downside is not having enough time to paint as well as get the house Christmas ready. Of course you have to buy and wrap the pressies, decorate the tree and so on.

So it’s a good idea to : 1] Paint Christmas paintings and card designs the year before and then have them printed in time to send this year.

A watercolour painting of a boy dragging home this year's Christmas tree in the forest. A forest landscape.

This year’s tree

And the second strategy is to recycle artwork from previous years, dust them off and arrange them somewhere different in the house.

Mother and child walking through the snow to the Christmas service at church

Going to Church

Last year, I took part in the Angel Festival of Hoylandswaine church with my art group. I must say, the church looked brilliant – full of beautiful angels.

A traditional angel walking down the path from Heaven to Earth .

Angel of Peace

Do you know , I got so enthused this year that I arranged an angel painting evening at Barnsley and District Art Society. And it was great fun. See more angels in my January post ‘ Mythical Creatures – Including Dragons ! ‘ here

Angel in a golden robe

And I did it all before the festive season to cut down on creative stress.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Lights at Barnsley Town Hall 2019

Barnsley Town Hall at night with red, purple and blue light installation - our Christmas lights. — **Moody Blue and Purple**

I went to Barnsley Bright Nights Festival at the weekend . The Christmas lights were very spectacular – there were lots of installations around the Town Hall area. Barnsley Town Hall itself was used for a stunning laser light display, focusing on the windows in this splendid building. My photos don’t really capture the beauty of the changing colours but, even so, they gave me some inspiration for Abstract Art compositions. The two photos above made me want to create a painting based on the idea of extra bright blocks of colour against a jet black background. ( Keep an eye on the Abstract section of my Gallery – you never know what might turn up ! )

The Unknown Soldier against the blood red light — **Blood Red**

The tower of the Town Hall in silver and the Christmas tree in blue at Barnsley Bright Nights . — **Silver, Red and Blue**

The floodlighting of the building in a deep red was particularly effective. The idea of blood dripping down over the scene was quite moving. Especially so as the First World War monument, showing the Unknown Soldier on a tall plinth, was silhouetted against the red.

I think I might combine some of the elements of both of the photos above into one painting. So many ideas, so little time ! But I really ought to get a painting of Bright Nights down on canvas .

The Gaia Installation at Barnsley Bright Nights

A photo of the Earth in the Gaia installation at Barnsley college , taken from the balcony above it. Part of Barnsley Bright Nights . — **The Beautiful World**

The Gaia installation in the Barnsley College was ‘out of this world ‘ if you know what I mean. In fact ,it was suspended in space from the top of the huge atrium. As we walked up the winding staircase, we could see it from all angles. And if that doesn’t convince people of the urgency of our situation, I don’t know what would.

But quite apart from climate change worries, I started thinking about painting an abstract , I was inspired by the beautiful globe of green, blue and quite a lot of brown ( taken from NASA photos ) . I imagined a composition of swirling shapes, wispy clouds and the Deep Blue. Quite a lot of inspiration for one day.

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