24 October 2011

Mondrain Windmill Acrylic Painting

 Mondrain Windmill
Acrylic painting
30x30cm on watercolour paper
This was a fun painting, painted in response to the acrylic forum challenge on Wetcanvas.com this month. The reference photo was a windmill and the challenge to paint in one of the many styles Mondrain used during his career. I chose to abstract the reference with coloured blocks of paint. I used photoshop as part of my process. After cropping the photo, I roughly traced the outline with lines and then blocks and coloured them using blue, red, yellow, green and black. After another look at Mondrain's work I realised he very rarely used green. I removed the layer containing the photo of the original and played around with the shapes and colours before printing out the reference. As I was drawing it up and painting the picture I refined the painting, removing shapes and changing the colours. It was a very interesting exercise and I could have simplified even further. It certainly made some of his work come to life for me.

14 October 2011

Cup cake fun

Cup cakes seem to be the rage at the moment - and the best part is that they have no hip expanding calories! I painted these fun paintings as a break from a more detailed iris painting which I was finding difficult to complete.
They are all 5"x7"
Acrylic on canvas board
Contact me about this or other paintings HERE

Red Hibiscus in oil pastel

Red Hibiscus
Oil pastel on black Somerset Velvet paper
30x40cm

This lovely sub-tropical flower is a true sign that summer is here in South of France. The black ground lifts the colours and really makes them sing.

13 October 2011

Pansies in pen and wash

Pansies in pen and wash
5x7" on watercolour paper

A quick sketch depicting that spring favourite, pansies. Postcard sized sketches are fun to do and retain some of the spontaneity that is often lost on larger paintings. Using pen and wash allows you to paint more freely as many things are just suggested and detail is unnecessary.