Experiment III

I reeeeally struggled with this one - bits of it I am very pleased with and bits of it not! I thought it would be a good companion to the last one but I'm not sure they go together.

Experiment II

I was searching for inspiration to carry on with my 'teach myself acrylics' programme and I looked at too many Cornish coves and rolling Devon hills paintings. There are plenty of painters out there doing these subjects and doing them very well, but I wanted something a bit different. I didn't hop on a plane to New York - this was the Wetcanvas August landscape challenge so the photo was used with permission. I did enjoy it although the taxis were a bit tricky. I think I will try and continue in this vein for a while and try some more cityscapes.

Experiment

I have decided to teach myself how to paint with Acrylics and although I wanted to try abstracts, they all kept turning into landscapes! So I have gone with the flow. I don't know how well this works but I did enjoy it and that's the main thing. We went to Weymouth last Sunday - the drive there is beautiful up above Chesil Beach, and the seafront is colourful and bustling. The town is not as pretty as I had hoped - maybe they will sort that out before the Olympics. Anyway, I took loads of photos of people enjoying the beach and the top corner of one caught my interest. It was a real leap of faith as I had no idea how to go about making a load of blobs into a cohesive picture. But that's what the brain and eyes do together - a bit like reading a sentence with some of the words missing - it's surprisingly easy to fit the missing words yourself.

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

Cherries

start

Not such a bright idea!!

I had this great idea to paint a tin full of light bulbs - I didn't think this through. Getting the shapes to work was a nightmare and I know that if you look too long you will probably see things that aren't quite right. However, I was determined to see it through to the end. I would like to say that I learnt a lot - what I learnt was not to try and paint a tin full of lightbulbs again!!

Bottles

Small brown bottle (don't know its original use), an old ink bottle and an Angosturas Bitters dispenser with a silver top.

Buddies (sold)

Another red oil can to team up with my favourite one! An old funnel completes the trio.

Pink Troca Shell

Little pink shell and glass - tricky to get right!Part of the shell series.

Still Life with Pearl Nautilus (sold)

I have been searching for a nautilus for a while and they are hard to come by because of restrictions on imports - this one was very old stock at the fishmongers! I will be painting lots of compositions with shells over the next months as I have secured a petite and bijou exhibition space at a nearby National Trust property called A La Ronde. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-alaronde .In the very best English tradition of being spinsters, cousins and with the name Parminter, these two ladies from the recent history of the house, created a unique and now slightly crumbling, shell gallery. I have just under a year to paint lots of pictures including shells, but maybe some of the other objects that they brought back from their Grand Tour too.

Bottle and Cowrie Shell

It's been a while since I completed a painting! Too many distractions like sitting in the sun reading. I was also privileged to spend a day with John Dyer http://www.johndyergallery.co.uk/ who came to school to work with the children. He was so inspiring and I don't think a workshop with the children would have been much different had it been for adults. It did make me want to have a go but it's so different to what I do that it was a bit of a struggle!! Hence the time since my last still life. The bottle went really well on this one but the shell was a lot harder.