postcard – Page 6 – The Consulting Artist

Girl on a Beach – 2012 Holiday Postcard #1

For the second year I’ve made an open offer for people to receive a hand painted postcard from my summer holiday. This is the first of my 2012 series of postcards, conceived after visiting the Picasso Museum in Malaga. The girl could be my daughter Keira who thinks the best part of a summer holiday is being near a beach or a pool. Her hair and the sandy stripes on the beach were particularly time consuming to paint and I used barely any water in the paint to achieve the solid colour. On reflection I may have found it easier to paint these parts in acrylic – the experience has certainly got me thinking about how to mix different materials.

The postcard was sent to Alison Chisnell. I hope you enjoy the finished product, I will share the rest of the series in the coming days.

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.

Learning to Paint – Dining Alone

I’ve just returned from a couple of days working in Newcastle with some great customers. I stayed overnight on Tuesday which led to me dining alone that evening. Although I went to a very good Italian restaurant (Sabatini’s) and enjoyed good food and good service, I don’t enjoy dining alone. I took water colours and a small pad with me and started to paint.

So what is this picture all about? I guess the tree is me. Alone and stripped bare (this is my mood we’re talking about here – not my state of dress!). Dancing around the tree are vague outlines of creatures, a cross between something woodland and something quite sinister. I don’t think they represent my fellow diners, at least I hope they don’t!

After sketching this I was drawn into a Twitter conversation and my mood improved quickly I’m happy to say. And this is the first time I’ve really felt like my mood has so heavily influenced what I’ve painted.

The main colours in this picture are purples and browns with some bluey grey. For all you colour geeks I used Paynes Grey, Raw Umber and French Ultramarine for the tree, and Windsor Violet for the background (which was mainly applied to wet paper). The colours were drawn from the decor in the restaurant, though I should say they create a much more welcoming atmosphere there than they do in my picture!