New Series: Roundhay Park

"After visiting the park for over twenty years (and wearing out two and a half dogs in the process) it has become a familiar and known terrain, its landmarks firmly rooted in the history of where I live and work.

I wanted to attempt a visual reappraisal of the landscape and rather than paint those familiar landmarks I wanted to focus on its wild beauty. For a city park it has an unruly nature that once you’re off the beaten track seems untamed (although we know it’s very well maintained).

There are so many elements of the park to inspire those that appreciate natural themes. For me it’s about a connection with vital open space, the reflections on the water; cloud; stone; wood. Its wildlife, the birds and the sounds of crows, rooks and waterfowl. Colour, texture, natural form transformed by constantly changing weather, the passing of the seasons, time rolling on".

David's new series "Roundhay Park" is available to view and buy at Art Roundhay Park until 3rd June.

10am - 4pm, The Mansion Conservatory, Roundhay Park, Mansion Lane, Leeds LS8 2HH. 

His series can be purchased from this website here (click through).

 

New Series: Still Life

A series of small paintings about observation. All the information required to make the painting lies before me. My job is to look at how light renders the object and recorded it using brush and paint. I sketch a small outline in white chalk for positioning. I finished this series last year. The originals are now available to buy.

The English Art Co.

It’s been a busy time and we’ve some exciting news. As my art evolves, I’m aware that these posts have a commercial note, which is too far removed from my creative processes and the core of my work.

We’ve decided to separate our works - David Lyon Art will be solely my painting and drawing, the creative process, techniques, sketches and gallery exhibitions and news.

The English Art Company is a new company, set up by Catriona, which focuses on design-led prints, greeting cards, stationery and homewares, the more “commercial” end of my art i.e. Wildflowers, Just One Blackbird and Inkflowers. The English Art Co. will license my images (not just mine but other artists too) to produce greeting cards, stationery, prints, note journals, homewares….it’s early days but when things are up and running, I’ll let you know. Here’s a taster.

Progress can be followed at www.theenglishartco.co.uk and on Instagram/TheEnglishArtCo

The Moon, The Lake, The Tree & The Boat - Acrylic on Board

This is interesting and completely dumbfounded Catriona. She couldn’t believe it when we returned from this holiday in December 2012 and saw the series of paintings and notes that I'd completed in the studio over a month or so before we'd left.

"I made The Moon, The Lake, The Tree & The Boat a week or two before I observed the very same combination of shape and colour whilst on holiday at a fishing loch in Northumberland which was closed down for the winter. One particular night it had been snowing and the loch had begun to freeze. We were walking Oscar around the top of the loch. I stopped and turned to look at the full moon reflected in the water - and there was the image I'd made before I'd left. The Moon, the loch, the trees and an upturned rowing boat. Okay, the tree wasn't red but rather oddly the predominant colour of the estate woodwork (lodge doors, cottage doors, wood trims) was bright crimson".

Here are her photos and this is the final piece, the original, which we still have at home.

 

 

"Just One Blackbird..." finds its way to New York

It’s been an interesting week. One of the “Just One Blackbird...” images was picked up at a trade show in New York, Surtex, a show for original art and design. I’m not sure how, but I can only assume via PG Live, where I exhibited last month. A journalist from the New York Examiner has since interviewed me. The American market could be a new opportunity and one I want to explore. Many thanks to Meagan Meehan the journalist who published the article.

“Just One Blackbird...” 

"A series of 12 acrylic in hardboard paintings created from sketchbook doodles as an exercise in wish fulfilment.  

“Why don’t birds visit the garden as frequently? The colours used are an intensified palette to emphasise the imaginary nature of the series. The gardens are impressionistic with key elements reduced to graphic symbols (which follow on from the “Wildflowers” series).

Since the series was completed the birds have returned in larger numbers and in greater variety."

The full range can be seen here and the originals are available to buy here.

Just One Blackbird...11 – Acrylic on Hardboard
Sold
Just One Blackbird...11 – Acrylic on Hardboard

Work in Progress: Applecross, Wester Ross, The Highlands

Using photographs and memory I've been building up a collection of images in a sketchbook using various techniques - collage, acrylic transfer techniques - around my recent trip to Applecross. The photos evoke a rich sense of place and history. It's an unspoilt coastline, no industry to speak of apart from tourism on a small scale - every view is vast and open, huge skies and rugged mountains, endless coast with views as far as Harris and Lewis. I also had inside knowledge thanks to the expertise of our 'guide' Iain MacRae [my brother-in-law who was born there] whose colourful descriptions of local characters and the life they had, began to play upon my imagination. I plan to evolve the sketches into larger scale works using a variety of media but mostly painting I think and then of course find a venue to exhibit. 

"Lifetide Series" - Exhibition Notes

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”
— Hippocrates, 5th century B.C.

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.

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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.

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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.

Lifetide 1 - 033 150dpi.jpg

The new finished "LIfetide" Series are available here and all of the pieces are available as limited edition giclée prints.

© David Lyon

Roundhay Open Artist Studios Art Event 2015 - LEEDS

The Roundhay Open Studios Event 2015 is an annual event to show the diverse talents of local professional artists. On Sunday 26th April 2015, visual artists in the LS8 area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, opened up their art studios for the day.

"I opened up our home to showcase my original art, acrylic on boards, sketches and works in progress - some pieces only friends and family had seen before. I talked about my work and the creative processes and over 50 pieces at home were on display as well as a selection of limited edition giclée prints and greeting cards. It was a busy day, helped by the sunshine - over 100 visitors on the day with a few more the following week."

Please contact me on 07968 131866 if you are interested in viewing any of my pieces at home.

All of my work can be found on my website here.

Facebook: Roundhay Open Artist Studio

Details: here

"Wildflowers" Christmas Gift Ideas

I'm aware 2014 has been very much about my "Wildflowers" series. To round up 2014, I have produced a few gift ideas for Christmas from my “Wildflowers” series:

·       2015 Wildflowers calendar – showing a few of the “Wildflowers” original sketches and acrylic on boards – available from my website here.

·       Limited edition giclée prints – mounted and unframed available from my website here, or mounted and framed here.

·       Canvas prints - available from my website here.

Most of my images are available as limited edition giclée prints - please enquire Dave@davidlyonart.co.uk.

Where to next? Inside my sketchbook

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.


North Leeds Life Review: October issue

North Leeds Life: October issue: Carole Carey-Campbell and Brendan Campbell visited the studio in August. We discussed art, music and what's happening in Leeds. With thanks to the team at North Leeds Life for this editorial piece on my show at The Atrium Gallery, Leeds.

From the Archives: Exit Series - Acrylic on Boards – 2001

Exit - The Fan

Exit - The Shadow 

Exit - Dead Flowers

The “Exit” series was made in an attempt to capture feelings about the horror of 9/11 prompted by a newspaper photograph. The three paintings (which I see as a triptych when hung) use deeply textured, monochromatic acrylic with found objects embedded and attached to the surface. 

The Atrium Gallery Exhibition - Leeds

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).

Are Art Fairs good for galleries or killing them?

"The art world can't live with art fairs. The art world can't live without art fairs"

http://news.artnet.com/market/are-art-fairs-good-for-galleries-or-killing-them-28920 

My Review: Whilst this article relates more to galleries attending art fairs rather than lowly artists representing themselves it raises the topic of the sudden rise in number of art fairs now operating globally. I have received invites from fairs as far flung as Spain and L.A. indicating that they have seen my work via my presence online and how they would love to offer me a space (at cost) to exhibit. Artists hungry for exposure pay hard earned cash to exhibit but whether sales for the artist follow at the fair is almost irrelevant as the fair organisers have already made their money. Artists need to be aware and beware the well worded e-mail. Is the art fair the best way to gain exposure, and consequently the sales, that the artist needs to survive? Not every art fair is right for every artist.

Source via Twitter: ArtnetNews

A Mother’s Day Gift

It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday 30th March so we’re offering a special gift - a framed limited edition giclée print of “Wildflowers i” or “Wildflowers ii”, with one identical Wildflowers greeting card, blank inside for your own message.

 £95 with FREE UK delivery.

Order before end of play 24th March for delivery by Thursday 27th March.

Offer ends 31.3.14.

Head Series - Acrylic on Board and Acrylic on Canvas 2012 -2013

I’m aware that, at the moment, my original art appears to be colourful and bright. Here is the “Heads” series to contradict what you’ve seen so far. These are painted on acrylic on board and canvas; a couple of these, which I display at home, created a lot of interest at the recent Roundhay Open Artists' Studio event in April.

"Late 2012/early 2013 I produced the “Heads” series, whereby I painted one head per day without reference to sketches or subject matter. I wanted to paint the same thing everyday but the results are very different over time. A definite identity became apparent as each head emerged. As to who they are, I have no clue".

Heads Series, Acrylic on Board and Acrylic on Canvas 2012 - 2013