Forgotten Dreams

Forgotten Dreams

(Mixed media on board, 30x30 cm)

Another textured door painting started some time ago, finally brought to fruition by some creative thinking and an old stencil. I first used that yacht stencil when I was in junior school!

 

Still Life with Presents

 

Still Life with Presents

(Acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

This has gone through so many changes. I initially followed the sketch I posted here, but as I suggested would happen, changes became inevitable once I began painting. The cup and chair vanished and the old sweet tin that originally made an appearance last Xmas, found its way into this picture. Finally, the chair returned to balance the composition (together with an escaped chocolate).

You might also notice my new stencils being used most obviously on the table, but also on the vase, in a similar way to the vase on Flowers in a Green Vase.

Streetfighting Men WIP

(Photo taken in Dubrovnik)

(Sketch worked up in Photoshop from traced photo)

(WIP, with some paint and collage added)

This is a painting long in the gestation. I took the photo on holiday in Dubrovnik in 2012; the men were quite a long way off and the photo definition was really poor. So poor that when I tried to enlarge it in Photoshop it became hopelessly pixellated and I gave up on using it for a few years.

More recently, I bought a lightbox and tried tracing the printed photograph, scanned the tracing into Photoshop and then added some colour.

The next stage was to square it up on a 10 x 10 in. board, then add some collage. For that I dug out an old piece of an etching I'd saved from the Print Room bin at University (30 years ago!) - hence the curious round shapes at the right produced by someone's finger print on the etching plate's soft ground.

At the left I stuck down a torn fragment of a sheet that had contained a Gestetner stencil (science fiction fans will know all about those!) I'd use to produce a fanzine even longer ago. Who said stuff doesn't come in useful?

The stairs in the foreground have been started with some pieces of paper torn from a Sunday magazine supplement. 

The collage additions have produced a few challenges for the development of the painting. Hurrah! I like a challenge.

Tulips

Tulips

(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

At one of Gateshead Art Society's meetings last month, we were challenged to paint a flower painting alla prima in the two hours of the meeting. Below is the painting as it stood by the end of the session.

It didn't win the prize on offer (as I expected) but I liked it sufficiently to work on it at home and with the help of a pattern stencil I found recently, bring it to the state shown above.