Part 2, exercise 2:3 – painting on a 3D surface

One of the options for this is a stone, which I interpret as a pebble and which gives me an opportunity to dispose of one that must have come as a gift because it bears an image of a ginger Persian cat in an unlikely pose. I have the penguin in mind for this. Early on in the pandemic, I painted large numbers of pebbles and left them outside for people to take home [a big card reminded people about hand hygiene if they took one and keeping a distance from others while they looked]. Someone called out to me … Continue reading Part 2, exercise 2:3 – painting on a 3D surface

The meaning of art — Conboyhillpaintingmedia

After a lifetime in health care with varying degrees of responsibility, it was a joy to retire and do something less critical. Art would be about footling around with paint and getting charcoal on your nose, and nobody would die if I forgot who Matisse was. I was wrong on all counts except, obviously, the […] The meaning of art — Conboyhillpaintingmedia This is a re-post from one of my OCA blogs sparked by a series of exercises that seemed, in the current context which, in all fairness, the author of the course unit could not have anticipated, empty, trivial, self … Continue reading The meaning of art — Conboyhillpaintingmedia

The meaning of art

After a lifetime in health care with varying degrees of responsibility, it was a joy to retire and do something less critical. Art would be about footling around with paint and getting charcoal on your nose, and nobody would die if I forgot who Matisse was. I was wrong on all counts except, obviously, the one about people dying of my sudden-onset Matisse Amnesia. Art has a complex history of decoration, illumination, and exploitation, but latterly has also had a political edge – take Banksy’s various visual commentaries, especially his dystopian fairground, Dismaland. I had been largely unaware of much … Continue reading The meaning of art

Coronavirus: COVID-19

This post is replicated from my PoP blog because this module, as the previous one, is likely to be dominated by the threats and constraints placed on all of us by this global pandemic. 15th March 2020. As a note for the chronology of this set of circumstances, and because the relevance of those circumstances may not immediately come to mind in the future, Europe is now the epicentre of the Coronavirus (CORVID-19) pandemic. Here in the UK, those of us over 70 years of age or with health vulnerabilities are advised to stay away from enclosed spaces and to … Continue reading Coronavirus: COVID-19

Assignment 1 – objective evaluation

This has been both a nightmare and a revelation. The first because ‘small’ is a challenge on several levels (all those faculties that don’t work so well as you get older), and the second because some of it did work relatively well despite those constraints. I also realised that my initial choice of twenty found images did not necessarily map well onto the actual assignment: some were really not at all interesting to paint, and some were, for me, impossible to paint. As a result, I substituted a few as the task unfolded. Luckily – or by design – some … Continue reading Assignment 1 – objective evaluation

Assignment 1 – arranging twenty small paintings to make one large one

For this part of the assignment, we’re asked to arrange the twenty small paintings on white paper to make a large painting, and then to consider groupings. I used two A1 pieces of foam board temporarily held together with masking tape and propped on my easel. The first arrangement goes from animals through fictional species, to space then place, and finally to Diana on her own as she always seemed to be despite the crowds. The second arrangement is more pragmatic – it’s the ones I’ve put into my desktop and Alexa wallpaper folders. The rejects are down the right … Continue reading Assignment 1 – arranging twenty small paintings to make one large one