All posts tagged: painting

Why my paintings are so colourful, and living with an alcoholic.

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  I briefly lived in a house with a few questionable characters, dodgy letting agents and a young man in the final stage of alcoholism. This phase seemed to last forever but in actual fact it was a tiny chapter that my mind seems to have blocked. Since this traumatic episode I rarely think about it, let alone speak about it. It really is too sad. I recently found myself carrying some bottles and from the moment I began walking and the bottles would clang together my stomach flipped and a lot of sad memories flooded over me as I walked. It is only through reluctant reflection that I realise this ordeal shaped how my artwork is today. It was evident after only the first night of this man moving in that he had a serious problem. It had barely been a couple of days and the house had been burgled, I had found him sprawled outside my bedroom door smelling of stale urine and dirt, and his late night staggerings had broken furniture and …

HUGE Peacock Oil Painting – The Last Sessions…

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SO CLOSE! But still a lot of fine details to go! This was a particularly fun session to have rounded the painting off with, involving music and stuffing my face with mini eggs. Black and white shows the detail well so I will save the full colour for the finished piece. For anyone looking to paint at a large scale be prepared for a lot of clambering around.                 Look out for the next post which will show the final, finished piece!  

HUGE Peacock Oil Painting – The beginning…

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Until the bespoke made canvas was left at my door almost too big for me to hold up, it had not occurred to me the scale of the project I had just undertaken. As I write this I am in the final stages of finishing this piece, but just over 5 weeks ago I couldn’t have imagined having filled a canvas measuring 80×80″ inches squared. I was commissioned to create a peacock painting for an office space. Immediately I knew I was never going to waver on if I would take this project on or not. The symbolism behind peacocks played a large part for the company and its meaning was something that resonated with myself very clearly and personally. The imagery of a peacock in my eyes is one of the most spectacular natural wonders, a peacock feather alone fascinates me. The colours have always been my favourite palette and the elegance is just very ‘me’… I have documented the progress from the first session onwards and hopefully the scale is shown with justice to …

An Artist’s Paint Palette

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I love the way that a palette can never really be tidy. As an artist that does not have paint thrown everywhere, but has different liquids, brushes and materials all compartmentalised and all surfaces clean of paint, the one element that stays the same with all artists is that there is no neat way to maintain a palette of paints. The way I lay out my palette has become habitual rather than symptomatic of the colour palette or any functional order. I line the paints as a spectrum, originally because I thought it looked pretty. Take away the colour (greyscale photography) and I can see that different mounds have been more exhausted and spread around than others, I can see how little tone has to do with my arrangement and it makes me wonder what elements of my work might change if I were to pre-think my colour palettes and order the paints accordingly… Contemplating the palette gives a lot more away about the artist, and maybe about why their work in the way that …

New Work!

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I have a lot of new work on the go! A series of elegant and detailed wildlife work with areas of serene calm. Here are a few examples of the backgrounds of these paintings (looking for a more dreamy and opulent style)              

‘Action Expresses Priorities’

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    ‘Action expresses priorities.’ -Gandhi   On a busy week, I can clock up around 70 hours painting. Especially recently, with so many commissions as well as ideas I just can’t for the life of me hold off, I have to timetable my work and stick to it, and it pays off every time. I do this because I love painting, I am passionate about making good quality work. I am also business savvy and love organisation, lists and generally being busy. Proudly, one thing I never, ever am is bored. A friend of mine sent me an article, there was a long passage written by Richard Dawkins called, ‘To live at all is miracle enough’ (which I urge you to google) which puts into perspective greatly just how miraculous the universe is, how even just existing right now through such slim circumstance is such an underrated and unappreciated idea in itself. A bit of perspective never hurt anyone, those chats where you get lost in conversations of space going back too far beyond measure and …

Wildlife Art – Recent Oil Paintings – Birds

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I have been focusing a lot more on my wildlife work lately! Trying out a few new subjects and styles whilst undertaking a huge commission of a painting that is 2 meters by 2 meters… My first ever original painting was of two birds in flight, one of my main and most popular subjects to date. (The second was a stag which has also been one of my most popular..) Therefore painting birds is something I have continued to do, only taking on new breeds and styles and ways of representing them. This, or finding new ways to represent my favourite breeds. As my work has progressed throughout the year I can see by looking along my own timeline of birds in particular and the way I have worked with them, just how much my painting technique has changed. I decided to do a new take on an old classic of mine. My first ever OIL painting was of an owl. This was such an incredibly popular piece, one of the most mentioned at my …

Using watercolours (From an oil painter’s perspective)

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I didn’t realise how lucky I had it, to have thrown myself in at the deep end and learn to paint with oils as quickly as I did. It was a medium I wanted as my friend and I threw it around until I made it work. I was going to shoehorn my work to intertwine with oils and do whatever it took. Luckily the shoe fit. It wasn’t until I went back to materials I had previously used before I taught myself how to paint properly, that I realised it is not how the material works for you but how you work the material. Watercolour painting is oil painting flipped on its head. This is my own interpretation. Where oils are malleable, subject to complete change in consistency and shape of the mark you just made, watercolours are not. With oils you could alter that one mark up to 3 or 4 days later. With watercolours you cannot. You have a matter of seconds to decide if the mark you just made was ‘correct’ …