All posts filed under: Art

Evolution of my Flamingos / Katy Jade Dobson

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Did anyone else laugh at the flamingos on Planet Earth II? It is obvious then as an animal lover and colour lover combined, that flamingos would come up throughout my portfolio of work. In fact, they come up much further back than I remembered from the top of my head. Sifting through my past paintings I found a set of similar works that have evolved over time and gown in my experience. It appears that I loved flamingos just as much in 2012. Sitting these paintings side by side will always be inspirational to me, to show myself just how far I can push my work if I want to. Working on your art, or anything at all, can take years of daily dedication and pure hard work. I have applied this to my art with patience and looseness to help me grow. I have let my gut instinct walk me, and through that I have taught myself to paint images as I want them to be seen and will continue to grow further. Please …

New Release – Sea Life and Majestic Mammals

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I am so excited to be donating a percentage of profits from my new sea life themed release to the Marine Conservation Society. They work hard to protect our living seas and the wildlife in them by keeping shores clean of litter, tackling overfishing of important species and offering marine life animal adoption schemes. Keeping our oceans clean and healthy for the environment and its inhabitants is invaluable work. I love what they do to proudly protect our sea life and I am thrilled to be working with them. These 2 original paintings are particular favourites of mine, for reasons in that portraying sea life is a different challenge altogether. I had never painted turtles before working on these sea turtles which shows them swimming amongst a midst of intricate colours and textures. I had watched videos of these serene creatures on YouTube before deciding the way in which I wanted to depict them. When working on forming a mammal painting there is a logic to consider when building the subject. The light source will highlight features and …

Virtue – A painting ensouled

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It has so  far been rare that I connect to a painting that I produced quite as much as I did with Virtue: a light and ethereal take on a flock of doves. I enjoy working on every painting, some I would keep for myself and some I couldn’t wait to show the world and allow someone else to connect. Hoping for others to connect with your artwork is a pointless effort, it can only really be seen as you would like, if you paint with the intentions of making yourself feel a certain way. Only then, maybe someone else can channel into its meaning or create their own. I love this about art. Production based from feelings gives a timeless result to the artist. ‘Virtue’ came together incredibly fast for a painting of its vast size but tricky and slight proportions. It is often the case that when working so close to a large scale painting, you can become lost in the finer details, only to be surprised by what you produced when stepping away. It can …

The 21 Grams Collection / Katy Jade Dobson

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21 Grams A painting is the artist’s sigh on a canvas, the silhouette of their shadow, and their 21 grams. An early 20th Century physician hoped to measure the mass of the human soul. He believed it to weigh 21 grams. Thought to be as real and prominent as a vital organ, yet no physical attributes could be found. Artists and scientists alike hunted for information on the location of the soul in the body to find that it rests on nothing seen by the eyes. This ideal that represents an entire being does not exist in physicality, yet we see it. Each piece is an appreciation of it’s subject and a love for my inspirations. A collection ensouled and a moment in time captured in a prism, reflecting my everything onto a canvas. Physically, this collection is about texture and atmosphere. Years of techniques, new avenues and an ache to work on my subjects in such a way has driven the visuals of the paintings forward. Finding the best translation for the essence of …

New Limited Editons / Born Free Foundation

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Introducing two new Limited Edition Prints ‘Felid I & II’  These two colourful feline pieces, originally are oil on wood panel, but have been released as editions of 75, with 10 Artist Proof copies and are fully endorsed by the Born Free Foundation. I worked with the Born Free Foundation for The Spectrum Collection with a percentage of proceeds donated to the charity, proudly raising over £4000 The Born Free Foundation work to end suffering and protect species in the wild by providing rescue and care, freeing animals from appalling conditions and misery as well as conservation efforts. They are a wonderful and dedicated charity and I am hugely proud  to have my work endorsed by them, and hopefully raise money for a great cause, as yet again a percentage of proceeds will be donated straight to their efforts. These Limited Edition prints are now available from affiliate galleries mentioned on my website, look for your local stockist, or contact Wishbone Publishing at info@wishboneart.co.uk where they will locate your nearest available gallery and prints.  

New Collection / Spring 2016

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One of the most beneficial ways for me to work, on a personal level, is to produce a ‘body of work.’ It has been a while since I have worked solidly on a collection of paintings. The Phosphenes Collection was released in spring 2015, which led to a period of being inundated with commission requests, following on from Phosphenes and the Spectrum Collection. (Released Oct 2014) In between this influx of work I have managed to work on subjects and styles that I couldn’t hold back on trying in order to keep up my own personal rate of progression and creativity,  peppering small boutique collections of Limited Edition prints throughout the year. With commission waiting lists reaching up to 12 months for an original, it can become increasingly hard to expand and grow with your style and improve on your talent. Commissions can hold a different type of creative beauty in having a framework to adjust to make your own. If the subject is chosen, or a certain size or shape canvas is necessary, then working to fit these …

Why doodling is so important.

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Every morning when I have a long stretch of painting ahead of me I find it beneficial to doodle before I start anything else. I started sketching as a warm up last year and I found that it kick started something in my brain which made my painting flow much easier. For anything that requires any artistic dimension, drawing is one of the fundamentals to the practice. I have known painters, sculptors, architects, designers and jewellers, and although their finished products are rarely a physical drawing, drawings formed the basics of their work and feature at some point in the process. Despite all of the technology needed for the varying careers that rely on some artistic licence, there is something raw and direct about a drawing that photoshop or CAD just can’t meet with. There is an amazing quality to seeing a sketched logo design with construction marks showing, jewelley designs on graph paper, or raw and fast architectural studies in sketchbooks. Being able to draw out what you see in your mind is a way of …

‘Flutter’ Limited Edition Prints

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A common question that I am asked is the distinction between ‘finishing or abandoning’ a painting (in terms of completing work) and which one applies to me?  There are two very different feelings when a painting is complete and is at most an unpredictable part of the process for me. Occasionally my idea is crystal clear enough to see when the finished version is in sight, or be unable to stop until I meet this mark in my mind. This is finishing the work that you set out with a cause, process and visual in mind. Abandoning the painting is a very different but equally as satisfying feeling, in when you reach a stage in the work where you feel it is right to stop. For whatever reason, it may be that the balance is right and anything more could be overworking it. Maybe you feel that what you are trying to put across has been successful and in going further could potentially spoil that. A number of reasons, even just that it ‘feels’ right to …

Jellyfish Art / Oil Painting

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It took a lot of preparation before I decided to take on jellyfish as a subject for an oil painting. Before tackling the big decisions you make before you start a painting (composition, texture, colour palette, tones etc) it seemed important to get a better understanding of jellyfish. Are they often alone or in groups? (Which I found to be named a ‘Plume’ when they migrated and gathered together) How do they move? At what speed? What different positions would you find their tentacles to be in? And which movement does this represent? The only way to really find out was to watch them, thanks to YouTube! There is something so peaceful and mesmerising about watching jellyfish, the way they pulsate their gelatinous bodies for locomotion and the tentacles fan out so elegantly. It was apparent immediately that the movement was the most important aspect to capture within a painting. For the fished pieces ‘Bloom’ and ‘Plume’ I used oil paints (as always) onto primed wooden panels. The most interesting part of the process for …

Very Short YouTube video – Oil Painting of starlings in flight

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I am always looking at new ways to document the process of my work, I have done this in many ways already through creating time lapsed YouTube videos, to writing about it, to showing progress photos of close ups, sets ups and various stages of painting. One of the most asked questions about my YouTube videos was if I could use a higher quality devise to record from because the videos were not clear enough. For me, with painting it is all about the visual and if the smallest of brush strokes cannot be seen then there is no point, these are the marks that make up the painting as a whole. Ask and you shall receive! I am now working on getting to grips with better filming equipment to show more accurately what I am working on, and here is a very small taster of ‘Arcus Flight’ with a shot of John Frusciante. (Original painting sold, but soon available as a Limited Edition print) Make sure you subscribe to my channel here ready for more videos …