Video

Instant Painting

Here is the painting of my last 5 paintings (roughly one week of my working life) condensed into a mere 90 seconds:

Cliff Face – The Movie

Have just finished compiling and uploading the video of the making of the painting, Cliff Face and here it is:

A couple of thoughts:

About the painting:

The knife used was a cheap plastic disposable? one
It was already heavily coated with dried on medium and paint – this seems to work much better than a new knife so when it breaks I may put a few coats of medium on a new one before using it.

To get the texture which really makes this painting work I used more medium than I usually do and no water.

About the video:

This is the first video that I’ve shot from the artist’s POV, rather than from one side, which means that I was working around the camera and tripod. It was a little awkward but no where near as bad as I thought it might be so expect more like this. One day, if I’m feeling ambitious, I may try to find a way of suspending the camera from the ceiling, this would be the ideal.

Bubble – The latest in my abstract expressionism adventure

This is the 5th of what will eventually be 10 paintings, approximately 20″ x 16″ exploring a more abstract style. I am really beginning to enjoy this process as it is allowing my art brain to get out of its usual channels and really start seeing things anew.

Up until very recently I was a fan of expressionism in general but abstract expressionism left me cold. That is now changing and I feel that it can extend my art vocabulary in a very strong direction. Of course it could be a dead end but that is always a possibility when trying to grow as an artist.

Anyway. here is the painting, the 5th and in my opinion the strongest of the series:

After I have finished these 10 I am looking to scale up, probably producing 2 works around the 3 x 4 ft range. I have always enjoyed working large and am really excited by the thought of the physicality that will be required to pull this off.

Spanish Church – A Step in the Right Direction

This is my latest painting, Spanish Church. It is around 20 x 16 inches on primed canvas sheet. I have been struggling a bit lately to try to find an artistic direction, producing both abstract and very representational work.  While Iget a lot technically from the representational stuff the abstract is where my heart is. While I certainly appreciate artists like Pollock I believe in giving the viewer a little more assistance (though not to rhe point of hand holding) therefore Istill want the essence of something recognizable in my work, a hint at least.

This is my latest painting and I think that it is closing in on where I want to be. At least it gives me cause for cautious optimism. Click on thumb for larger image, It isn’t a great photo as their is a sheen caused by the light on the left but the colors are pretty accurate over the rest of the image.

I am currently video recording all of work – the recording of the making of this painting (speeded up many times) is here:

Thanks for reading this and any feedback or critiques are welcome – good or bad.

Loosening Up

This is a technique that I use when I need to get creative and the synapses are not exactly working as a team.

I take the three primary print colors, magenta, cyan, and yellow (and black)

I make very dilute solutions of them all

Then I randomly put the three colors (not black) onto paper

Then, and this is the part that gets the brain into art mode, I grab a coffee and stare at the mess and try to form images from the random shapes and colors. This usually takes about 30 minutes which is about the time it takes for the base layer to dry.

I then  apply washes and lines to tease the image out.

Then I use a little black to pop the colors out and give definition.

The end result is not hugely important as this is all about the process – a sort of meditation for the artist.