Made by dropping puddles of water onto gesso-prepped canvas board, then dripping smaller puddles of ink into the water, then carefully dabbing and siphoning the excess from the puddles, adding some biro and some conte, and trying to keep the cat off it while I get a photo! Probably that branch is going to break so let’s hope the big guys already fledged! Cards coming soon. Continue reading Puddle owls
After a lot of keyboard tapping to set up my new art web site, I felt an acute need to trowel on some gesso and make something. So now I have the beginnings of a bunch of owls (gesso with water dropped onto it owl-shaped blobs, brown ink dripped into the blobs, and towel-rolled up where the faces will be) on an 8 x 10 canvas board, and a mess of shredded towel roll gesso-ed onto a page of A4 sketch book. I can see the ghosts of owls sitting there, but what’s lurking under that other thing is anyone’s … Continue reading Owls and some shredded paper towel roll
Selling isn’t my strong point but there’s only so much framed, mounted, unframed, unmounted, large, small, itty-bitty, or ginormous pieces of arty product I can keep around without it becoming a trip hazard or a cats’ scratching post, so I’ve taken advice and launched a small gallery on Art Web. Here it is Strayfisharts.artweb.com, please take a look – and please let me know if there’s anything that needs clarifying or de-glitching! Continue reading New Art Web site!
I’m very much enjoying the Drawing course but it was good to be able to carve some acrylics onto a solid gesso base again. The task is to produce a painting of my choice on any support and in at least A3 size. Initially, I went back to my jug and onion combination – lovely bright colours and this time the jug actually looks to be the right sort of shape and proportion with itself! Happy? Course not – there was a seafront calling, based on a drawing that gave me enormous trouble with its perspectives. I’d liked the monochrome … Continue reading Painting – first assignment
On the verge of Day Three of my first arts trail and I’ve found that time evaporates between chatting to visitors and co-exhibitors, and dashing into the tent to put everything upright again after successive gusts of wind suck the tent sides in and out like a cosmic hokey cokey. As far as I know, it’s all still there so I’ll be off to sit to attention under a camper-van awning and brace myself to take charge of dog, cats, and chickens while Jill goes off to check out some venues in Steyning. Chuck chucks with fluffy knickers 🙂 Continue reading Steyning Arts Trail – Beeding Chapter
Yesterday we put up a tent Last night I packed the pretties in cases Today the bunting goes up and the gates open all over Steyning and Beeding Bet ours is the only one with chickens though. 32 Church Lane, Upper Beeding if you’re over our way. Continue reading Steyning Arts trail opens today!
There’s been a lot of experimenting going on with this assignment, which is new for me. At one time, sketches were drawings and had to be perfect, sketchbooks were tidy affairs, and anything loose was usually on a piece of … Continue reading Another outdoor landscape, another block of concrete
I’ve been working up to my third assignment in the Drawing module of my OCA course and, after going a few rounds with townscapes and statues, may have found a home under a flyover again. First there was this, albeit rather more painting than drawing although those seem now to be interchangeable, a scene I pass by quite often along the river bank. Then these A4 sketches (the first of these three is the monochrome photo – mine – I used to map out the shapes) And then, much larger A2 sized monochrome and full colour versions. You can … Continue reading Outdoor landscape
Some of the prints on sale at The Basement are from my book, Not Being First Fish, which is on sale at Steyning Bookshop. Also on sale there is Fat Mo, the cover of which I painted at school when I was about seventeen. I’ve manipulated the colour in Paintshop Pro and added the text (obviously, or that would have been well prescient!) Fat Mo is alternatively available from here where all the revenue goes to a charity, Respond, that supports adults with learning (intellectual) disabilities who’ve experience sexual abuse and exploitation. As you might imagine, Fat Mo is not … Continue reading Literary artiness
This is about perspective (angular) which, left to its own devices, seems to materialise without too much need for explicit attention. Unfortunately, these exercises require actual focus on actual lines which really throws me. My solution was to use photos to stabilise the scene (anyone else find those intuitive lines behave like a ball of string after a kitten’s been at it once you try to pin them down?), then mark out the lines in charcoal to get the feel of them. I did that with two versions of my photo of Brighton prom (aka vanishing railings), one monochrome, the … Continue reading Drawing – some exercises
