The Young Fisherman

The Young Fisherman

(acrylic on board, 9x9 in.)

It sometimes amazes me how a painting takes on a life of its own. Anyone following the history of this picture will be very aware that the figure in it had no personality when I started it. I spent a lot of time looking at paintings of portrait heads and thought I knew how the man would look, but once I started to paint, the face grew into what you see here.

It's a pleasure to make his acquaintance.

Fisherman WIP

Fisherman WIP

(acrylic on board, 9 x 9 in.)

I'd intended to push on and finish the two balcony paintings, but Friday morning dawned and I knew I'd need to find something to do at Gateshead Art Society. Finishing small details on the balconies didn't feel like an option, so I looked at the suggested project for the day - "Maritime Subject" - and turned to a recently abandoned figure painting. My regular reader may recognise it as the man in a garden:

The man in the garden was never going to earn his keep, so he's become a fisherman on a beach, probably somewhere in Madeira (but not necessarily). 

I'm liking this version much more and will finish it soon. Yes, along with all the others!

Collage Work in Progress

Acrylic on boards, each 8 x 8 in.

I thought I'd keep you up to date on some trial paintings I've started, using collage. Inspired in part by the very enjoyable workshop led by Karen Stamper, I began laying out these two panels last week at Gateshead Art Society, then pasted down some selected bits of collage paper.

Over the week since then I've worked on them both, with a mixture of confidence, trepidation, frustration, and pleasure. There's no doubt that the panel with the most collage elements (the balcony with the washing) has proven to be the most difficult to move along. 

The collage elements changed the original subject in such a way that I had to adapt and change the composition to get it to work. As it is, I'm still struggling with parts of it (not helped by finding acrylic colours behaving slightly differently from my accustomed oil colours). I've no doubt that if I were to allow a greater degree of abstraction the problems would be lessened, but I'm still not much of an abstractionist.