This one is for me, place to muse, share ideas and interesting images.
I feel so frustrated and upset with everything going on at the moment and the fact that we seem to be moving at snail pace tackling the biggest threat to our existence, Climate Change, that I had to express it with art. I didn’t want to be neat but rather rough and immediate. Oil Man is the result. Oil and oil pastels on canvas 80x100cm.
I started this painting nearly two years ago in the wake of the terrible Australian bush fires but it represents the condition of the world we are living in. I use harlequins to represent humanity in various conditions but in this there is a nod to the sleeping politicians who have many words but continue in their stupor of inaction.
This last couple of weeks I have started painting again. It all dried up during the stress of the covid outbreak with all its accompaniments leaving my studio littered with several unfinished works. I have now reduced that to one which is very large. This painting of part of our garden was the first to be attacked and now after several sessions seems to be finished. Summer Garden, oil on cotton box canvas 80x80cm.
Although my summer has been very productive outside my studio has been like a foreign country. I think this was partly due to the stress of dealing with the challenges lockdown threw up which led to the creation of a vegetable garden. I now have time to draw breath and I forced myself to get going again. I always find it hard to start creative work when I have been away from it so I start with getting my work space sorted out, and believe me. it needed sorting out.
This painting oils called SEA KALE on 70x70cm box canvas has been hanging around in various stages for about three years and as I don’t like not finishing work today I got on with it. It could be finished but you never know!
Yesterday I posted some digital sketches on the theme of the Australian bush fires. This painting in oils is called ‘After the fire’. It is 80x80cm on coarse Jute canvas. I used black oil stick to create the tree lines which worked well on the jute though used the stick up rather quickly.
I’ve just realised that I never got round to posting the finished version of this painting so here it is.
A while ago I shared my work on a painting called Sea Kale which had languished in my studio for a couple of years. Having just registered for the 2020 Chichester Art trail I decided I had better get on with finishing it. Its always hard stopping and starting a painting with long gaps between work and as I began I realised just why it was the painting got pushed to the back of the pile in the first place. As I started I wondered what fit of madness had made me attempt the thing in the first place but I have a thing about finishing things so gritted my teeth and got on with it. After a while I began to feel chilly as I did not have the heat on though I did warm the studio, a log cabin in the garden, before I began. Oil paints make fumes so its not a good idea having a heater going whilst working with them. Before you get your violins out, its long way from the starving artist in a garret and I do retreat to the warm house when I get cold. Any way the painting progressed though its not finished and there are many hours of frustration left in it!
This painting in oils which is 70×70 cm on box canvas started as a wild sketch but as I worked on it in my studio I was afraid of losing the wildness. I find most paintings end up as a compromise between what one sets out to do and what one is able to do. I’m sure I could go on working on it but feel to do so would end up with what I call knitting where all freedom has been lost, not that I have anything against kitting, just not in a painting. No doubt I will see things that need tweaking as it hangs around my studio though.
At last I have managed to get down to work in my studio again. This is stage two of this one. I have used lovely Prussian blue for the background and as I’m using alkyd paints it shouldn’t be too long before I can add the gold stars with my new paint stick. There are other things to add on the figure too.
We live near the beach and Sea Kale grows in the pebbles every year and in the spring emerges with beautiful purple tinged foliage. Here the tight flower buds can be seen too. I began this painting two years ago but scraped most of it off leaving just flat colours and I’m determined not to be beaten this time.
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