painting – Page 3 – The Consulting Artist

Down By The Sea

We recently spent some time on the Ile D’Oleron on the Atlantic coast of France. It’s a big, flat island covered in cycle ways, mussel and oyster beds, and dotted with small towns and villages. It also has kilometre after kilometre of clean, uncrowded sandy beaches.

While enjoying the island, I experimented with a couple of ideas – first a pencil and water colour sketch of mackerel, then a canvas of acrylic paint representing the sea.

I had an idea that I might combine the two, even going as far as to experiment with painting mackerel stripes.

I shared my work as I went along, receiving useful feedback and support. I ended up adding a couple of ghost like shapes to the sea canvas, and felt this was enough.

The finished piece is available to buy from my Etsy shop.

Postcards From The Edge 2013

Postcards From The Edge 2013 – Redux and Reverse

It’s nearly holiday time again. Regular readers will know that for the past two years I’ve made an open offer to paint postcards for people while I’m away, and a friend recently asked me if I was going to continue my Postcards From the Edge experiment.

Redux means restored, from the Latin, reducere ‘to bring back’, and so I am going to redux Postcards From the Edge for 2013. In previous years people have requested cards via the blog, twitter etc, and I’ve painted them and posted them. This modus operandi was my choice and I’ve felt a little pressured to deliver at times. So for 2013, I’m going to do it slightly differently.

This time I’m going to paint postcards through the summer and upload a photo of the card on my artsensorium website. Once the card is shared online, the first person who asks for the card will have it sent to them. This way I get to continue with the experiment and relax at the same time, safe in the knowledge that I’ll paint as and when I have the time and inclination, rather than because I’ve got a commitment I want and need to honour.

So – if you’d like a one off hand painted postcard, keep your eye on the blog, Twitter, Facebook etc over the Summer and I’ll see what I can do for you. In the meantime, here are a few of last year’s series.

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Postcards From The Edge 2012

Last year, as part of my emerging experiment with painting, I tried my hand at making my own postcards. Six of you got in touch and responded to my offer to paint you a postcard, you can see the results over at my Learning To Paint website (the postcards are among the earliest entries).

As the holiday season looms large again I’d like to repeat the experiment, assuming you’d like to join me that is? To take part, all you need to do is get in touch so we can exchange a few details. I’ll basically need an address for you in order to post the card and that’s pretty much it. You just sit back and wait for me to hit the Costa Del Sol and see what inspires me. This is a first come first served freebie and I reserve the right to close the list at any time. This giveaway is being offered elsewhere too and I don’t paint very quickly!

Folks last year seemed to enjoy receiving their cards, I hope you will too.

Update: The postcard offer is now fully subscribed.