Tag: watercolour

Angelic UpstArts

Where to start the artistic adventures of 2018? I had an idea for a larger canvas over the 2017 Christmas period – and following some good advice from Carole – I began with a developmental sketch, seen below.

First Art of 2018.jpg

From there I scaled the idea up and went from monochrome to colour. I’m not convinced by the larger piece yet – I think I need to make the figure looser, somehow. I’ll keep playing.

The canvas is 80cm x 30cm and the paper is 25cm x 10cm. The dessert spoon is shown to help you get a sense of the difference in size between the two pieces.

The two pieces are currently untitled – and I am grateful to MJ Carty for putting the blog title idea in my head, thank you.

Update: The monochrome sketch has now sold.

Poppies 2017

I’ve been playing with various poppy designs for about three years now, and I am in the habit of making a batch of poppy images around the time of Remembrance Day in the UK. As well as a piece of remembrance art, these pieces also speak to me of the blood and tears of war. This year I’ve decided to offer the poppies for sale, and donate some of the proceeds to the Royal British Legion poppy appeal.

Each artwork is painted using Winsor and Newton professional water colours on Aquarelle Arches satin grain 300g/m2 hot pressed 100% cotton paper. Each piece is 10cm x 25cm and will be signed then mounted using 100% acid free tape into conservation grade mount board. I’m selling these for £45 plus £5 P&P each, with a donation of £10 for every sale. The second and sixth in the series have already been sold. Number three has been given away as a free art drop and I destroyed number five, it just didn’t work! Contact me if you’d like to buy one of the remaining artworks, and in so doing, help support a good cause.

Turning

I spent some time cycling and walking in The Peak District last weekend, Autumn colours are everywhere right now. I wanted to develop a new artwork to follow on from the recently published Autumn Leaf, which I’ve sold two versions of already. I spied a leaf on the ground, a mix of yellows, browns, pink and orange – this one just stood out in the crowd of shades, shifting from summer to autumn. I picked it up and studied it for a few minutes, before replacing it, and finishing my walk.

On my return to the hotel – I set to work trying to create a sense of Autumnal colours in my work. I enjoy the challenge of working with watercolours, I find them very unforgiving, and at times I lack the confidence to go all in. That feeling was absent this time, and I played with different techniques on different parts of the paper. This piece was completed over a two day period.