Who am I? painting figure portrait

I've been working on the portrait for a couple of days. I wanted to see what happened if I allowed the brush mark to make the "outline" rather than create the outline and then work into it, if that makes sense. I then came across a painting I did three years ago of a man pushing a bike in Amsterdam and I can see I was beginning to use some of the same approach there. On a completely different note I can see the blue is different and I think in his case I must have used ultramarine. I'll try it again. There is no end to this game - ever - that is what I am learning. The portrait, by the way, is I suspect, not finished but I'm happy to keep working on it over the coming weeks if need be.
ps. my favourite bit of the portrait is the red sleeve against the aqua background on the bottom edge of the frame.

A painter's question

Let me ask all the painters/artists out there this question:
I have just looked at some work of a painter which almost made me weep, it was so sensitive and apposite (opposite of “opposite”) and it “spoke” to me. I then realised it was similar to the work of x, x and x, all of whose work I have greatly admired – and I’ll admit it – envied – in the past. What advice would you all give to me – to try to paint more in that style, to push myself, or to limit myself to what seems to be “within me” and accept its limitations?

Figure drawing drawing life costume model male studio atelier gallery

Charcoal on paper 23" x 16"

Not had time to do any painting lately but I did manage to get to my figure/life drawing session on Monday evening. Most people (in fact everyone I think) did a painted portrait of this handsome young man but I want to practise drawing the whole figure. I love to include the background as well as you can see from one of my fellow practitioners working away there.

Madonna of the catwalk (re-worked)painting figurative bird girl red blue green

Acrylic on stretched canvas 16" x 16" approx

I wanted to do a painting about "celebrity culture". It annoys me so much. Models, WAGs, people of no significant talent or contribution are put on pedestals by magazines like Hello, OK, etc. Anyone "overweight" with bad hair doesn't get a chance in these circles. Now you can ignore it all - and I do by and large - but it does have an impact on our teenagers growing up today - who are all beautiful without any embellishments! What's valued in society? Where on earth are we going? External standards of beauty have always been valued but today they seem shallow and almost "cloned". Sad. Just read the story of the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 (whilst I was reading it, incidentally, a man broke into the Gallery of Modern Art in Paris and stole 5 important post-impressionist paintings - Braque, Picasso, Leger, Matisse, Modigliani). Anyway, Mona Lisa - the book was pointing out the different "interpretations" of her "beauty" (some people finding her not beautiful at all). I rest my case.
On a technical note, this is the first time in a while that I've worked on canvas. Enjoyable it was. I might get a few more.

Since first posting this I have re-worked the image - the pigeon looks less ratty and the madonna sits more comfortably against her background.

Life drawings drawing figure atelier studio nude

Last night I went to a new Studio session at one of the big local art galleries. It was wonderful to work in a room where the walls were covered with paintings by well known British painters such as John Bratby and Bernard Dunstan. I felt like I had stepped back in time and was part of a long tradition of many centuries of artists coming together simply because they wanted to draw and paint. I think in the old days it was called an "Atelier" way of working.

The drawings measure 23" x 16". The first is in charcoal, the second in pencil.

The Establishment painting abstract figurative blue orange

Acrylic on hardboard 15" x 15"

There is something about three figures together which fascinates me. Two people can have a more in-depth and personal conversation but three can come to agreement or "consensus" and it often becomes their purpose rather than trying for greater understanding. Three is almost sinister. You know - we'll all get in a huddle over here and we'll decide what's best for you kind of thing.

Room in Tameside painting figure room england dark blue

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 7.75".

Yes, it's dark I know. Every time I do a dark painting I think - oh, I'd better lighten it up but something stops me. In the 50s and 60s quite a lot of artists did dark paintings - Ad Reinhardt and Robert Rauschenberg spring to mind. I think it was Rauschenberg said colour was too much of an interruption and he resented it. He ended up painting entirely in black.
This isn't black though. I haven't used black at all. The dark blue is Prussian blue mixed with a tinge of violet iron oxide.
I was inspired to do this from browsing through one of my Hopper books and soaking in his painting "Room in Brooklyn". It's the only painting of Hopper's I know of that contains flowers. He didn't like painting flowers - something about their beauty being too contrived. Don't you just love him.

Offering painting girl doves blue green orange

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on hardboard 15" x 15"

Two figures in a town square (re-worked)painting landscape blue grey red figurative abstract>

Acrylic on wood 12" x 12"

I saw a woman in the Grande Place in Brussels some years ago. It was winter and she was wearing a 50's "swing coat". There was something quietly interesting about her and I always wanted to put her in a painting but whenever I tried it always came out wrong. Yesterday I took out the laptop and did the painting of the woman in the swing coat yet again. Then I did the usual, propping it up in my bedroom and in the last 24 hrs kept looking at it and feeling increasingly sure it was wrong. Today I put the photographs away, forgot about the "identity" of the woman in the swing coat and developed the painting into this, I suppose, more autobiographical piece, entirely out of my head. It features a number of my favourite things in a painting: architecture for one - archways, steps, (shop windows?); it has geometry - straight lines, angular shapes; it has figures which are more contemplative, quieter, inside their own heads. I suppose they're in a space within a space. Putting away the photos really helped me to "see" differently. You might say more truthfully.

Since first posting this I have done some more work on the figure in the background.

Triad painting figurative green blue abstract

Acrylic on hardboard 14" x 14"

Well, we'll see. I'll live with it for a bit.

This was posted on 10th and its now the 12th and I'm still feeling comfortable with this one. Once I'm comfortable with a painting I can kind of forget about it. It's the ones which are not quite "right" (in my books) which keep calling me back. (Hence, when they see me coming, the paintings hutch up against each other and try to hide behind furniture, LOL).

De-posting paintings

When a painting isn't working for me, then it isn't working. And usually some time has to pass before I realise/accept it isn't working. Propping a painting up in the bedroom so that every time I go in I see it, is usually the best strategy for me. I don't even have to always work out "what it is" that isn't working about it. That can be worked through as I paint - the next one and the next one.

This means of course that sometimes I post a painting which initially I feel sort of satisfied with but then later I take it off. I have done this with the last painting "Interlude" and an earlier one "The Observer". I know I risk alienating those people who liked those paintings but I can only say, although I appreciate all your kind support (and although I really enjoy sharing this weird activity), this endeavour really is first and foremost for me. I don't want to open the blog and see work I am less than satisfied with. It irritates me.

In case you are interested, one of my favourite paintings is "Invisible" (below) and I have to try to aim for that self-set standard in my work. Thanks for listening and sorry for the disruption!

Invisible painting figurative abstract green blue>

Acrylic on wood 12" x 12" £125 British pounds plus postage & packing (£3.50 to UK; £7 to rest of world)

I love the idea of figures stretching beyond the top and bottom edges of the support. A bit like those distorting mirrors at the fairground.

On the edge of the town painting urban town abstract figure orange blue

Acrylic on hardboard 7.5" x 8" £85 British pounds plus postage & packing (£3.50 to UK; £7 to rest of world)

I had three figures standing at the left hand edge of this but I couldn't settle with it so I painted them out. Almost immediately I knew what was needed - a figure with rounded shapes emerging into the picture from the bottom of the frame. Am happy with it now.

Paintings selected for the Society of Women Artists exhbition, London, 2010

I am pleased that four of my Stalybridge landscapes have been selected for the annual Society of Women Artists' exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, July 1st - July 10th 2010. These are "Ploughed Field"; "Shining Water"; "To the Hills" and "The green, green grass". Sorry, I'm not sure how to do the linking here. You will have to go to my Stalybridge blog to see them.

Red dress painting figure girl red green

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on wood panel

I don't often indulge myself. I think the world is far more interesting than simply pretty ladies in beautiful dresses but when this red dress suggested itself to me it was hard to resist. I used just three colours for this one: violet iron oxide; indanthrene blue and cadmium yellow.