Blog
My painting style has evolved as I found a freedom in the interpretation of the subject that I hadn't encountered before and I think this stems from investing all my energy into the sketchbook before I even thought of making stand alone pieces. Always adhere to established working methods as it gives the best results.
Applecross, Wester Ross, The Highlands
Summer Newsletter 2015 here.
Ideas are there for us to discover, if we can see them, if we know where to look.
1. Brick dust over everything. Building work at home 2010. Random marks on surface of kitchen appliances reminiscent of organic shapes, animals, birds.
“There is one common flow, one common breathing. All things are in sympathy”
2. Lunchtime doodle in a notebook, scribbling for the sake of it. The shapes are organic and grow on the page. Currently reading "Lifetide" by Lyall Watson. There is a quote on the beginning pages:
Sometimes ideas connect, breed and grow, transforming into something new.
3. & 4. I decided to use the unusual shapes in the dust as a starting point for a new series of‚ abstract‚ work and, wanting the shapes to be more sophisticated than my doodle, begin to sketch out lifeform shapes.
5: Collage is the next step to further realise colours and the composition of larger pieces - I have enough shapes for 12. I want rhythm and a connection between the shapes - "the one common flow".
6: In the final paintings (four so far) I reinterpret the colours of the collages.
I’ve had a busy time the last few weeks but it's time to get back into the studio.
My garden is often a source of inspiration. Having noticed a decline in the number of small birds visiting recently (which has been widely reported) I set about making some scribbly sketches with a view to reinterpreting them as larger pieces. I found they naturally fell into seasons depending on the coloured background - the blues and purples referencing the colder months, yellows and greens the warmer. I think the deep reds and oranges are Autumn. Simple colour psychology.
I wanted the simple bird shapes to denote the absence of the bird rather than a presence - a ghostly silhouette. There is also a fox that makes an appearance but he too has been absent.
My art show at The Atrium Gallery has been booked for two years. It's difficult to obtain premium space to exhibit art in the Leeds area so I'm really pleased and grateful that the selection panel at St. James's agreed to show this series.
Due to the nature of the venue there are restrictions on the type of images that can be displayed, so no sex, glamour, religion, violence, death or politics. Fortunately at the time of submission, I'd been working on some very colourful, optimistic flower images.
Upon securing the exhibition site it was decided that I should work towards filling the space with images based around the initial idea. So making larger versions of the initial six that were chosen to publish as greeting cards seemed a logical step.
The larger paintings took six months to complete, each one in succession. Some are truer to the original sketches than others but the fact that I was using a different medium - acrylic - meant that the colours probably wouldn't be as intense as the originals - oil pastel and crayon.
The smaller paintings followed and I was keen to capture the looseness of the scribbles that I'd drawn which reference the original series. I'll have the notebook with me at the Private View on 7th August so that I can demonstrate what I'm talking about. All in all a busy 18 months so I'm hoping the show will look as good as I think it will and be good publicity for Yorkshire Cancer Centre. Let's hope we can raise funds for a much needed cause (25% commission from my sales will go to Yorkshire Cancer Centre).
