Travelling

I won't be posting for a couple of weeks as I am going to visit my daughter in Belgium and then I'm off to Wales for a week with my other daughter. Nice to catch up with families. I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully will be posting again around mid-August.

(nodp - no daily painters post here please)

Rustic

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8" £65 (British pounds) plus postage & packing (£7 to US; £3.50 to UK and Europe)

At Auntie Edie's house

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8" Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing this painting

I had an interesting time yesterday. I went through all my unsold small paintings and created three piles: keepers; rejects for recycling; salvage pile. The salvage pile is those painting that I think can be rescued and I was eager for the opportunity anyway to re-work some stuff and see how I got on. I like that idea, because if it was important enough for you to paint in the first place, you have to learn what it was that attracted you and build on that, not just throw it out. For this painting, which was quite a recent painting, and you may remember it had a huge vase of sunflowers on the table, I really was remembering visits to my Auntie Edie who was not my real aunt but was my grandma's friend. She was a Victorian spinster lady but very kind. She lived in a fairly poor terraced house near us and she still had gas light even up to her death. I wanted to portray how it felt as a small child in that house. A green chenille table cloth, gloomy walls and interior, one or two inherited ornately framed landscapes and the gas light on the wall. I was not afraid but I did feel small. If I was good she let me read one her small stock of Victorian children's stories, very morally driven they were too but I was at the age when even reading the cornflake packet was riveting! Sorry this painting does not photograph so well because of the darkness in it.

Blue stripe and vinegar

This painting has been sold



Oil on hardboard 8" x 8"

This painting started off with the two pots and a fig. I didn't like the fig. the shape didn't go. So I substituted a cherry for the fig. I still didn't like it and in the end got a baby onion out of the kitchen. At least that went with the vinegar bottle. It still looked like it was missing something though, then I remembered the blue striped tea towel from Ikea and the whole thing started to look a bit more wholesome. It took ages and I ended up doing what some people call "noodling" LOL ! I am learning though that almost any painting can be salvaged. There must have been a grain of inspiration somewhere for you to even begin and it's trying to locate that grain and build pictorially around it I suppose. I also know now that just because it is oils doesn't mean you can't wipe off sections and repaint. I thought I could only immediately repaint with acrylics. The other thing is about "realism". I wanted the objects to be "realistic" but not "photo realistic". I wanted the cloth to "feel" soft and the pot to "feel" hard and shiny and the onion to "feel" potentially scaly. Well I could noodle around with that onion till the cows come home but I think I'll leave it alone now.

Simplicity

This painting has been sold



Oil on hardboard 8" x 8"

I love the quietness of seventeenth century dutch still lifes and interiors. Makes me breathe a sigh of relief to escape from the noise and clamour of everday life today.

Objects on a brown shelf

This painting has been sold



Oil on hardboard 8" x 8"

I don't often paint things with quite a lot of space around them but I like this one. I think the space gives the objects a bit more 'presence'. The bit of greenery there is a seed head from my honeysuckle in the garden. Little does it know, poor thing, that it is for the big chop when it finishes flowering.

Apricots in a dish

This painting has been sold

Oil on hardboard 8" x 8"

I think this is the last of the apricot paintings for a while. Actually I know they keep looking like peaches but they were big apricots, not those little yellowy ones! They were nice to eat too - we have only a couple left. I "finished" this one yesterday but when I looked at it this morning, no, it wasn't finished, so I did more work on the plate, then on the apricots, then on the bottles, then I said stop!! Good fun though.

Apricots with red stripe

Oil on hardboard 8" x 8" £65 (GBP) plus postage & packing (£7 to US; £3.50 to UK and europe)

What can I say, it's just a bunch of apricots - same bunch as yesterday.

Apricots with blue pot

This painting has been sold


Oil on hardboard 8" x 8"

I wanted to escape from the park for a while. It's too flippin green! Had the urge to do some still lifes and these apricots are about to turn so must paint a few before they have to be eaten.

A cheetah in the conservatory

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8" £65 (British pounds) plus postage & packing (£7 to US; £3.50 to UK and rest of Europe)

The Conservatory

Acrylic on wood panel 12" x 12" Currently not for sale

The park seems to have lots of curvy and sloped lawns. It gives variety and a bit of mystery. I have always loved the old Victorian conservatory. It's a grand building. This painting has gone through many revisions as I have worked on it. It had no conservatory to begin with but eventually it almost demanded to be placed there. It had two different and separate children until it found this lady whose place it is. One of the advantages of acrylic is that none of this matters - painting out can be done in a few seconds and original marks soon covered with new ones. Altogether it took me about 10 to 12 hours. Using mostly greens is a big challenge for me but I'm glad I persevered with it.