Chinese Bottle

 Chinese Bottle

(Acrylic on board, 8 x 8 in)

[SOLD]

This small still life painted, I think, during the Lockdown, has now sold and on its way to its new home.

alla prima 2022

Still Life alla prima

(acrylic on watercolour paper, 7x7 in)

One of the annual challenges at Gateshead Art Society is for everyone to paint, alla prima, from the same photograph. This is where I got in just over an hour last Friday, trying to share a photo with someone else. 

I can do better under less stressful circumstances, and this isn't how I might ordinarily approach the subject, but I'm not displeased with it. Indeed, I might go back to it at some point and make it more presentable. If you'd be interested in buying this work of art when it's done, please get in touch.

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 The cup and chair vanished and the old sweet tin that originally made an appearance last Xmas, found its way into this picture.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.

Sketch for Still Life Painting

 

A pencil sketch, with some digital tone added, for a potential still life painting to follow on from the Flowers in a Green Vase. This is at least less busy than a previously discarded sketch. I might go with this one and see how it looks when the paint's applied, changing it as it progresses.

Flowers in a Green vase

 Flowers in a Green Vase

(Acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

Finding myself a bit adrift this year, I fell back on the old maxim, “When you can’t paint, paint something else.” I did a few very small still life paintings during the Lockdown and quite enjoyed them, but scaling up to even this modest size proved difficult. What I expected to take a couple of days or so has taken the best part of a week. I wonder if the next one, should I give in to temptation, will be so difficult?

New Greetings Cards

 

Six new Still Life greetings cards, now available from my site at LoveFromTheArtist.

Still Life with Pots and Spoon

 Still Life with Pots and Spoon

(Collage and acrylic on watercolour paper, 12x12 in)

Some playing around with card shapes left over from my recent “Door” painting turned them into this still life.

Butterfly Vase

 Butterfly Vase

(Acrylic and collage on watercolour paper, 12x12 in)

Following another online prompt from Este MacLeod, I made the butterfly and then had to find something to do with it! It became quite a struggle.

I made the butterfly by simply folding paper over some paint and ink. After I'd cut it out, I stuck it to a sheet of watercolour paper and made everything else up. The red-brown vase is another piece of watercolour paper I used to clean my palette. The green leaves I found online.

Still Life in a Cupboard

 Still Life in a Cupboard

(Acrylic and collage on board, 8x8 in)

A competition set for members by the North of England Art Club, helped me get out of a week of Empty Brain Syndrome. They asked for paintings on the theme of The Things in My Cupboard and I spent a happy hour or so assembling various objects inside an imaginary Photoshop cupboard.

When it came to start painting, I found myself doubting that the rough assemblage would work as a painting, but as is often the case, things can be made to work once you get going. In the end I rather enjoyed working on it, especially once I'd found a suitable collage piece for the orange jug to replace the pattern on the original.

It’s available for sale at £85, by the way, including P&P in the UK. Contact me through my website (see Sidebar) if you're interested.

Wok and Chair

 

Wok and Chair

(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

Last week's challenge for Gateshead Art Society members was “Chairs or Chimneys”. My previous post showed how I tackled "Chimneys".

This week, old wok 'n chair’s got me (If I didn’t say it, one of you would, assuming you're familiar with the Hoagy Carmichael classic).

Chinese Bottle

 Chinese Bottle

(Acrylic on board, 8x8 in)

Last week’s failed Whitby Harbour boat finally resolved into a still life. You've heard of a boat in a bottle, right? Here's a bottle out of a boat.

On the Rocks

 

This week’s plan to paint a boat in Whitby harbour foundered on the rocks. After gessoing with grey gesso and some scraping down, a new still life is crawling from the wreckage.

Daisies in an Alfajar

 

Daisies in an Alfajar

(Acrylic on mountboard, 20x20 cm)

SOLD

A follow on from last week’s still life painting, this uses a lovely little jar I bought in Malaga a couple of years ago. "Alfajar" is the brand name. If you're ever in Malaga, do look up the shop - it's well worth a visit.

Cheers!

 

Cheers!

(Acrylic on mountboard, 7x5 in)

This is a little painting I did recently for a friend’s birthday but had to keep secret until today. More than anything, I found the lettering the most challenging, but even the light within the bottle was difficult with acrylic paint. As well as this, photographing layers of acrylic paint is difficult, in that some layers are much more transparent through a digital lens than they seem to the eye.

Anemones in a Bayeux Jar

 

Anemones in a Bayeux Jar

(Acrylic on mountboard, 20x20 cm)

I find using acrylic on such small format boards and canvases, lends itself to these still life paintings. although I don't find it easy to find interesting vases or the bunches of flowers to go in them. This little jar is based on one I bought on a trip to Normandy many years ago, although the shape has been quite radically simplified.

This little still life took all week because of umpteen tonal adjustments: change one bit, another needs work. So it goes. I’m happy with the result, but if I want to continue the theme I'll have to hunt for a new vase or jar.

Madonna of the Pots

 

Madonna of the Pots

(acrylic on mountboard, 10x10 in.)

This painting has been hanging around for a while, awaiting a resolution. Somehow it resolved itself, almost by accident. While it’s not what I expected it to be, I’m pleased with it and am offering it for sale under the Artist Support Pledge. It’s £200, including UK postage. If you’re interested, please leave a comment or email me.

Flowered Jar with Figs

 Flowered Jar with Figs

(Mixed media on mountboard, 9x9 in)

Offered for sale and sold under the Artists Support Pledge.

Maris Pipers

Maris Pipers

(acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in)

The first painting of the new year continues my interest in market stalls and found still lifes.

Belated best wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all my Regular Reader. And here I must apologise to those kind people who've taken the bother to comment on my posts in recent months. Somehow the system didn't notify me of those comments so I wasn't aware of them until today and only now have they been published. And here was I bemoaning the apparent lack of interest in my blog posts!

In the next few days I'll be looking at the comments and writing replies where appropriate and then I have to make some catching up posts. A great deal happened between August and November and the work needed to post adequately overwhelmed me. 

I shall make amends. Don't give up on Boogie Street - your comments and interest mean a lot.

Still Life Doodling

Still Life Doodle (WIP)

(Acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in.)

I still haven't decided on a method for preserving squeezed-out acrylic paint at the end of the day, so rather than simply scraping it off the palette and throwing it away, I've been painting it randomly onto small boards. 

Last night, I was taken with the idea of trying out a painting idea on one of these prepared boards, using one of a couple of still life doodles I did recently. I think it has potential.

Still Life Doodles

(Marker on paper, each image 3 x 3 in. approx)

Sketch Crawl : The Hancock Museum (again)

Attic Vessels c.450 BC, Hancock Museum
(Broad and fine point markers, with grey brush pen in A4 sketchbook)

And so we get to it: our most recent Sketch Crawl. As I missed the one before that (at Arch Sixteen Cafe ), I've decided to stop numbering these Sketch Crawl posts.

On 10th December, there was a good turnout of North East Sketch Crawlers, although one or two had to cry off because of Xmas-related activities. The weather was OK, although the wind, as is often the case it seems, was icy cold.

This drawing is all I got done, but I'm really pleased with it. Someone online suggested that the wavy lines in the background ruin it and I'm not about to dismiss that. There was a blankness about the top third of the page that seemed to need something, so I added these lines from the mural that formed the back of the display case. Were I to make this into a painting (and I'm thinking seriously about it), I know I wouldn't include the wavy lines. Still, you make these decisions in the moment and have to live with them.

I've been looking at a lot of still life paintings recently, especially of the 20th Century Modernist sort and I think it shows in this drawing. Another person online pointed out what a good subject it was for practising drawing ellipses. She was right, of course, but in this case it served as an opportunity for me to wilfully make the ellipses irregular. I seem to remember reading many years ago that Japanese master potters, probably including Hamada, would turn a perfect pot on the wheel and then at the last moment, slightly tip it sideways. They recognised that perfection is boring and that the eye is intrigued by its perception of something that is not quite right. For that reason I made sure that, while I really do assure you I can draw a pretty good ellipse, these ones would not be perfect. I even drew them out in pencil first (something I normally don't do with these Sketch Crawl drawings), just to make sure they were wrong, before inking them.

While we were drawing in the Museum we were entertained by a brass band, a choir, the Newcastle University Wind Band, and finally by Heaton Voices. As my wife Pat sings in this community choir, it seemed only right that I hang on for their performance though I didn't try to sketch them, unlike some of the other Sketch Crawlers.

Our plan had been to move on to the Laing Art Gallery but by the time we'd listened to the music, shown appreciative choir members sketches of themselves and shuffled though the Xmas crowds in Northumberland Street, it was a bit late to think about doing that. Instead we investigated a building that contained almost nothing but a staircase, ending up on the top floor of The Botanist which was packed. Who could have predicted a bar and restaurant would be full of people on a Saturday afternoon two weeks before Xmas?

In desperate need of coffee and cake we crossed the road to the new food quarter of Eldon Square and settled on stools round a table in TGI Friday's. In deference to Anita's sensitivities, I'll gloss over details of the lukewarm coffee, my American style muffin decorated with cold fried onions (just wrong!), Anita's half-eaten cowpat brownie, her several pots of stewed tea and her eventual face-off with the manager of TGI Friday's. It was all very ... interesting and festive.

Next time: 21st January 2017, possibly at the Lit & Phil.