watercolour – Page 3 – The Consulting Artist

Matters of The Heart

There’s a really cool free art extravaganza being planned in Peterborough this Summer. All the clues and info for the exhibition and giveaway will be released here, and from what I’ve seen so far – it promises to be a fantastic event. I promised to submit a piece to the event and got round to it this week.

I’ve been pondering some remix work on my winged heart designs for a while and been unsure about where to go. I played with some paint dribble effects to make a bleeding hear design – and at first I got it spectacularly wrong. I mixed the paint too thinly and it ran all over the place. Painting for the bin! Second time around I got the thickness and colour how I wanted it then applied the paint with a brush – before blowing it through an old biro casing.

I like how this turned out. I titled it ‘Careful, I Think It’s Broken’ and shipped it off to Peterborough for inclusion in the exhibition. Next I turned my attention to this week’s We Are All Artists free art drop. I wanted to continue remixing, using the second winged heart design and as I stared at the print – inspiration hit me. I took a dark grey fineliner, and inked in the wing edges, then made a maze design on the heart. This one is titled ‘Getting Lost In The Maze Of Your Heart’, and it will be released locally tomorrow. Keep an eye out for it – finders keepers.

Morning Coffee

The past week has been really tiring. Preparing for, and delivering the Art of Resilience took quite a bit out of me, and in addition, work’s been tough this week. We’ve been analysing the fallout of an unexpected, and pretty toxic resignation from a partnership I work with. More of that another time on my other blog.

I arrived at the end of the week feeling drained, yet needing to make art for the free art drop. Inspiration had I none. In conversation with one of my colleagues, I said I needed more coffee, and Jenny suggested that maybe, the coffee pot should be my subject this week.

I took a few minutes to look at the pot in situ, before bringing it to my desk, and drawing it.

I was concentrating on my observation skills – I took my time over the drawing. On reflection – it’s a bit tight. I was trying too hard to capture the detail of the pot, and you can see this in some of the lines – they lack confidence and directness in places. I’ve also drawn the pot taller and narrower than it is. This observation stuff is hard work!

I added some silver leaf to give the effect of age, and added in some fineliner to make one or two elements stand out a little more (this photo was taken before the fineliner was applied. This art has since been hidden and found as part of the We Are All Artists free art project.

It’s not my usual style of work – but I like it, I might make another to hang in our kitchen!

Adventures in Spain

These paintings are a few months old now, they were all made over a couple of days on holiday in Spain. I’ve been lazy when it comes to updating the blog – the free art project is currently taking up a lot of my painting time.

I painted four postcards based on the Spanish flag which I mailed to friends.

I made a sketch called Too Much Pressure, based on a tracing of a blind drawing of a radiator, weird!

I painted two canvas boards, one of the mountains, one of the sea. The mountainscape has been sold, the seascape was found as part of the free art project.

I made four simple pattern sketches – some of which have since been given away through the free art project.

The last piece, titled Lost In Spain – was made for the free art project. It has a new home in Wallington.