Friday 30 November 2012

enjoying painting again...wey hey!

perhaps the abstract stuff is working... new mantra, must keep it loose, must keep it loose, must keep it loose....

Thursday 15 November 2012

exploring

Just had to write.
struggling with moving on, developing etc....
So, got a book on abstraction.
Did the stuff with my Wednesday night class.
I am sooo resistant to this.
Have added elements to the work on the easle over the past few weeks but....
Not enough.
Anyway, decided to pretend I'm on a course.
Work through the book.
Its crap, the pictures are vile, - but they are excersises, no one is looking...
Must shed this barrier.
cleared the walls, cleaned the palets.
Sat again, worked on them again.
Its crap, They are vile.
Wrote on them like an angry adolescent... swear words...
Added blood red paint, scrawled crushed black charcoal...wow soooo liberating,
this must be the point..
I am allowing all the vile, unseeable images to flow...know one will see, know one will judge,
therapy man... yey!!!
CAN'T WAIT TO HAVE ANOTHER GO TOMORROW!

Saturday 27 October 2012

The Ghosts of Landguard Fort

Finished my little 12" x 12" paintings, The ghosts of landguard fort.
I did add figures in the end.
They are called, the kiss, the hero,  the letter and the rescue.




Thursday 25 October 2012

ghostly figures

does this work???
I have an image of a victorian young woman reading a letter to try,



Tuesday 25 September 2012

Back in the studio, Phew!

Well, I have started working with a vengeance as they say...
the Landguard Fort studies are coming together,
I want them about the building, the decay, with ghostly images overlaid, how it has been there for centuries, but the people come and go.
This of course is a huge departure for me.
The photos have sat on the wall for over a year.
Sometime in the spring I began to work on the studies, (50cm x 50cm) the same idea, but extended to other buildings with a history too. Sort of expressive colour studies. Then I decided to just do the fort.
I left it for the summer, then on looking at them again, in september, I decided to make the studies very solid, so that the ghostly images will be transparent.- Maybe not ghostly, maybe use the twisting type of thing from the figure studies...(I had this in mind when exploring the figure in the space earlier during the year.)
I'm thinking of using collage, for some trials on paper. Images include first world war soldiers, soldiers carrying a stretcher, girl receiving a letter, perhaps multiple images.

I have been looking at Bacon, O'Donoghue and Burra...the usual suspects, to see how they resolve this.
I have explored one of woman doing washing using a line drawing...
after looking at that I now think the rooms should be more simple again, but I got caught up in the peeling, crumbling plaster, so I will do one like that to get it out of my system...

Enough rambling here's the pictures so far...








Friday 31 August 2012

Orlando playing the guitar





About ten years ago I painted a picture like this, which in a moment of madness I put into an exhibition, and it subsequently sold.
 Although I was grateful for the money I regretted it. Hudge said I could always paint another but I don't like doing that. As the years past and Orlando grew into his large and bearded self, I missed it more and more.
So, when Woodbrigde art club asked for a demonstration in oils in February this year I decided to paint another.

I know lots of people work from photographs so I thought I would show them my process.
I did two pictures for them. The first one from the  gridded up, empty canvas. I drew the figure etc with green paint, and then added the under painting for the first stage, that needed to dry before I could work further  so I then worked on another version that I had started at home.
They asked me to go back in August and finish it. I did that last week,  but it was still far from finished, so I completed it in the studio this week. Its more photographic than usual, but I am trying to capture his expression.

here are a few images of the earlier stages.

























Tuesday 14 August 2012

starting to work again

It has been so difficult over the past year to work at my painting. Cliche as it is, inspiration just wouldn't come. It still is lagging...I have been working at my writing so perhaps that's it, I am not very good at multi tasking. I know as a woman I am supposed to be fab at it, but not me. I have tried out a few ideas, and I am still fiddling about with some of them but no real absorption, no challenge.

Of course I was still painting and drawing from the model once a week, a life line to other artists, and practise for me and I was pleased with the exhibition at the Buckenham Galleries in April, a culmination of three years hard graft. But as ever, no sales, not much feed back and all those lovely paintings have had to go back in the storage cupboard. I have tried, I have applied for shows, but no joy, I guess I'm not exploratory enough, just too figurative.

Well the time had come to move on, take a break from working from life, from the model and try something else. I worked hard at the paintings  and I think resolved lots of things there, but I felt I was hiding behind that. So wrench as it was I cut the apron strings as it were and empty days loomed ahead.

Months have passed, the studio has been full of students, and the kids furniture. Malcolm gave me some frames and they have just sat there, mocking me.... will I ever work again, I feared not.

But today I have cleaned it, and put on the Mozart. I have started to work on the landguard fort paintings, trying to push the work in a new direction... oh joy to be moving paint around again. to have a clear head, no expectations, no dead lines, I feel a little tingling of interest, a spark that might grow. Oh I hope so, I do hope so.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Will I or won't I???

Sell a painting....
a lady came to look at some paintings in my studio so I had to go to Pin Mill and strip their walls. (replacing them with these three .)






She came, she saw, she went away again... her car was small. perhaps she will yearn for one over the coming weeks. This is often the way, after all when I buy a dress or shoes I take weeks of looking and deciding.

Friday 22 June 2012

On Languard Point

Last night I went to the premier of On Landguard Point at the Ipswich Film Theatre. there even was a canopy and a red carpet.  

 as it says on the blurb...'On Landguard Point is a film by Pacitti Company featuring performance, prose, myth, music and spectacular visuals. Inspired by the histories and culture of the East of England, On Landguard Point exists at an intersection between live performance, community and cinema – where local people and places really do become the stars of the show.'

It was a stunning, painterly film. The director Robert Pacitti captured  a tapestry of moments and events from last year, of both commissioned performance art pieces woven together with events and displays by local communities  based in and around Languard Point; a historical old fort situated right on the edge of the country where Felixstow juts into the cold grey sea. The words were beautiful and poignant and hung the piece together, the music too had a rhythmic pace.
(click here on landguard point at Ipswich Film Theatre Trust to see more.)









Wednesday 20 June 2012

Summer Breeze review in EADT on line

Such a lovely notice from Sonia Carville in the EADT. You can see it with this link; review of the Summer Breeze exhibition at the Reunion Gallery in Felixstow. It makes me feel like painting again....but now the studio is soooo hot I have to wait till the evening, ah well gotta go and enjoy the sun...Paint with plants in the garden instead.

Sunday 3 June 2012

so...is a book of the paintings a way forward?

Its always sad to bring the paintings back from the gallery and put them away in the cuboard again.
Perhaps a book of the paintings is a good way forward?
I looked at Doug Selways blog today... always a pleasure; http://www.signapse.co.uk/ and he had a book of his landscapes. Wide World 
and I thought 'hmmmm....'

Saturday 26 May 2012

'Summer Breeze' exhibition at Reunion Gallery Felixstow. 5th June - 1st September

If your around why not come to the opening celebration of the ‘Summer Breeze’ exhibition on Saturday 2nd June between 11am and 5pm.
This exhibition features artists James Dodds, Alison Malcolm, Steve Griffin, Katie Lynn, Annabel Mednick and Brian Perry.
They have created pieces that reflect their take on the British summer!
Hope to see you there to enjoy the exhibition and a Courtyard Tea Party.
N.B. Exhibition runs until 1st September.

The Reunion Gallery & Studios
36 Gainsborough Road, Felixstow IP11 7HR

Sunday 20 May 2012

all day saturday workshop

I held an all day life drawing workshop on Saturday for seven people.
They started at 10 ,  did lots of expressive gestural drawings, then explored charcoal on cartridge paper, then watercolour paper, rubbing it in, moving it around, tactile, expressive and so versatile. There was a break for a drink, then everyone started on the long pose. They worked hard till 12.30 ish, till we broke for a simple lunch of jacket potato and cheeses, salad, and coleslaw. (the only thing i can cook...) with a delicious desert of rhubarb crumble provided by Blue. then it was back to the drawing boards... they worked so hard. finishing at 3. Here are their fab results...



Wednesday 18 April 2012

latest show at the buckenham galleries in Southwold, 21 April - 23May

as you know I have always worked from the model as part of my practise.  I like the subtle changes of light, the delicacy of tones, the tiny observations that build the drawing or painting. When exploring gestural poses I like the rapid marks that capture the immediacy and dynamic of the form.
Weekly for the last three or four years, often with other artists joining me in the studio, I have been working with the same model; this has meant I have been able to go beyond the “what does she look like” part.  I am still rooted in the figurative, the representational, but I can explore mood, form, expression, application of paint, scale, and most recently the relationship between the figure and the space around her.
This exhibition is the culmination of those years.


here are a selection of paintings from the show... 

if you have been looking at the blog most will be familiar to you.


so if you are in Southwold in Suffolk over the next month I hope you can catch it. 



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