A WORLD OF COLOUR
I just finished the fourth in my flowers in acrylic on small canvases – so I can’t call it a triptych anymore ! Do you know , I always find such a lot of inspiration in flowers . And I think that these purple flowers are some kind of ornamental thistle . Anyway , I’ve just bought three 8 by 8 inch canvases so I can paint some more . Happy Days !
See ” Floral Art – a Triptych “ here to see the other three pictures.
I went to see a great exhibition at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield a couple of weeks ago . And it was called Nomadic Tales by Richard Bartle , including lots of story pictures .
Honesty , we were so delighted to be able to walk round with Richard himself . Because he told us the fascinating stories behind his huge paintings . As you can see , they were painted on canvas material , just like banners . I know that Richard took inspiration from the medieval illustrations of a 14th century artist and storyteller Siyah Kalem . Interestingly, the artist used the motifs of men and demons in his paintings . In this way , he could comment on the everyday life of the nomadic tribes .He concentrated mainly on those who lived on the Silk Road in Asia .
Richard lives part of the year in Istanbul , Turkey. And he has put his own interpretation of the life and political turmoil of the area into his story pictures .
Its a really inspiring show – try and catch it if you are in the area . So , I hope you enjoyed my exhibition review !
To tell the truth , I do enjoy painting story pictures myself . And , funnily enough , I painted the story of how the secret of making silk was smuggled out of China . Actually, it was done by a Chinese princess . To explain , she hid the silkworms and cocoons in her huge headdress , according to the legend . ( See more Story Pictures here )
This is a romantic version of history , of course . But I am also drawn to putting social comment into my pictures . In fact , I have painted a series particularly highlighting the problems of women in our modern world . Just like this one in the image below.
This one ‘ Caged Bird ‘ was painted for the exhibition ‘Vote 100 – a Century of Change ‘ for the Cooper Gallery ,Barnsley here .Now , the exhibition was last year and all about the suffragettes and their struggles to get the vote . Incidentally, I was lucky enough to sell this one to a lovely lady at the exhibition !
As you can see , in this painting , I explored the idea of the restricted lives that some women lead . Subsequently , I followed this theme over quite a few paintings . And I sort of brought it to a conclusion with this last one below ‘ Women in Chaos ‘ . Here I show a woman trying to deal with all the pressures and problems modern life can throw at us .
Perhaps this is pretty heavy stuff – I suppose it is . But I like all kinds of art . And that means including the kind that really makes you think and I particularly enjoy a story picture.
This is my latest acrylic abstract painting. So I thought that I would explain a little bit about how I created this. In effect , how to paint an acrylic abstract ! Firstly, I followed a suggestion online to play with these three colours plus black and white and , literally , just see what happened. I did find this brief quite inspiring – choosing the colours had already been done for me . So if I could ‘ let go ‘ , I thought it might be relaxing. As opposed to the hard thinking and research that goes into , for example , one of my Story Pictures.
Anyway, I usually work in this ‘ portrait ‘ format and I didn’t realise how used I was to creating a rectangular composition until a friend of mine gave me some lovely square canvases. So , that was a challenge I set myself and this was the first version.
I was pleased with the movement but I realised that the ‘white ‘ shapes were not working so – on to the next version.
So next day, I worked on the painting some more and took away a lot of the white. But meanwhile , I had been far too busy and I had added so many ‘ interesting ‘ little sections . Really, they were cute in their own way , but all together , it was too much and just confused the eye. So, they had to go – it was quite a painful experience to paint them out . In fact, I think this is why some artists find it difficult to judge when an abstract is finished . I certainly do . What do you think ? Is it finished ?
Well , that way of creating an intuitive abstract seems to me completely different to the way I put this next one together
Believe it or not , this composition came to me as a finished design in my imagination. Actually, this hardly ever happens for me . So it was just a question of trying to put it down on paper ( or canvas in this case )
Well, that’s enough waffling from me. I hope that I have shed a bit of light on how to paint an acrylic abstract . If you want to see more of my abstract paintings , have a look in my gallery here . And , don’t forget , all of my work is for sale at reasonable prices.
How do you paint your abstracts ?
What’s a triptych ? Basically , it’s a group of three paintings shown together and sharing aspects of subject matter , colour or style – or all three ! In fact , just like these three flower paintings. Originally, I think it described three paintings usually above or on the altar in churches. Actually , it’s a really popular way of presenting artwork at the moment in galleries . And some artists are very creative in the way the pieces are linked together .
Anyway , this is my version of a triptych disguised as floral art. In fact , I had to come up with something for an art group I belong to and I was a bit stuck. Then I remembered that I had decided to paint a series of flower paintings in acrylic on small canvases a while ago . However, life got in the way and I had only completed two, Sunflower and Oriental Poppy.
So , I decided to paint one more – for the art group theme , a triptych of flowers. That is , three flower paintings. This is Cone Flowers.
Easy ! One triptych delivered .
I must just mention that I have entered ‘Bluebells’ ( and two other paintings) for an open call for an exhibition. Luckily , Bluebells was accepted ( hurray ! ) .And to my delight, chosen for the publicity image – two reasons to be cheerful, I think !
I must admit , I do love painting flowers. And , if you would like to see more , there’s loads more in my Gallery – ‘Still Life and Flowers’ here
So, to finish up with, here’s my favourite – going to a new home when my solo exhibition finishes today ( the image at the bottom of the page )
Well, there are all kinds of floral art – on canvas, on paper , in vases , in a landscape , as a triptych or stand alone .And , I wonder which kind you like best ? Or , do you like them all , like me .
We went a couple of times to our local stately home Cannon Hall quite recently to look at the “Mythical Creatures” display, taken from their famous ceramics collection.
It was really very impressive. And I felt quite inspired by the fascinating dragon vase and the plate upstairs in the gallery. In fact , they were produced by the famous Victorian designer William de Morgan . He married Evelyn , whose family lived in Cannon Hall. ( She was , of course a famous artist in her own right ). Actually , this particularly caught my eye as it was a medieval depiction of a dragon . As you can see , it looks like a huge worm or serpent, with no wings. So I painted my own version, first in watercolour [ see above] and then acrylic.
I modelled my acrylic painting on this style of imaginary beast – it still took me a while to figure out how to make the body look realistic without the wings.
I had a great time sketching the ceramic bust of the Greek god Pan that was also displayed upstairs .Surprisingly ,the porcelain piece was so delicately coloured that the flesh was quite convincing and realistic ! In fact , I really enjoyed the challenge of drawing his crown of leaves, pointed ears and horns too.
Back downstairs, you could see all the mythical creatures you could think of . And a few you never would have thought of . So , there were fairies, gods, dragons, angels, unicorns, sphinxes and other strange hybrids of human and animal origin. To be honest, I was even inspired to paint my own angel this Christmas. To see more angels, look at my December post ‘ Christmas Paintings in Acrylic on Canvas ‘ here
This is a real treasure house of plates, sculpture, vases and tableware. So I’m looking forward to the next display that the curators will, no doubt, put together.
Finally , the image above is from a sketchbook kept by one of the residents of Cannon Hall , in the past. As you can tell , the beautiful detail on these imaginary beasts is quite exceptional.
To sum up , there was loads of inspiration for creative work, if only I had the time ! I hope you enjoyed my little exhibition review .
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Here are some ideas for 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.
And the second strategy is to recycle artwork from previous years, dust them off and arrange them somewhere different in the house.
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.
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
And I did it all before the festive season to cut down on creative stress.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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 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 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.