WIP - Little Bit of Red

Here's an image of my latest Work-in-progress, a small canvas which will come complete with an easel, slightly larger than my "mini" paintings, but still not as large as the other paintings in this series that I've done ("A Bit of Orange/Blue/Purple/Brown"). The canvas itself measures 16cm x 12cm. Painted using varying hues of red acrylic paint, this is the second stage of the painting. I am currently trying to get back into painting the rest of it after having a bad week of suffering with two migraine attacks. My blog has been neglected for a while, but I plan to carry on as normal from now on, and hopefully post more frequently!

Once finished, you will be able to purchase this painting from my personal website at  www.helendavison.co.uk or on the Rogue Gene Gallery website.

Latest painting slideshow

I have done something I promised myself i would do ages ago - take photos of a painting as I progressed. Finally, I've done it and created a slide-show with accompanying music to show you how the painting emerged. I plan to do more of these in the future if I remember before I start painting! This one is done in acrylic and acrylic inks on a canvas board measuring 9 x 6inches.

New painting completed

I've finished a painting in the past couple of days or so which is another of the collaborations that we like to do as members of the Rogue Gene Collective.  This is the one that Amanda Hunt sent me on Wednesday. Sorry Amanda, I think I may have beaten you to it this time!!!

The painting is on a canvas measuring 16x12 inches. I have decided to call it Nocturne and I have used mainly acrylic inks for the foreground layer of painting here. I started off with a glaze of yellow ink over the whole of the brown area at the bottom of the painting, then I added the "starburst" styled shapes with a metallic teal coloured ink in the night sky, as I see it - using a dropper, which often made the ink spots merge into one another. I added some transparent umber ink to certain areas of the brown/yellow section and added some yellow 3d dots along the horizon line. Then I added some metallic blue acrylic dots within the teal ink spots, and finished those off with tiny dots of white in the middle of each one. I added tiny white dots to all the yellow 3D dots (I must be going a bit dotty now!) and created lots more teal coloured ink spots and white tiny dots in the sky area. Each teal spot was painted with a line of highlight and shadow to create a 3D shape, then I used the same teal shadow colour as a final ink wash over the brown/yellow landscape. I remember playing a piece of music called Nocturne when I was learning the piano as a child, and it was a very sad piece of music, but I have such happy memories of playing it, as I really liked the tune.

You can buy the painting from the Rogue Gene Gallery or my personal website, www.helendavison.co.uk

Scenic Painting - the process

Now that I've managed to stop myself from doing any more to it, I thought I'd share the images of the scenic painting on here. I can still see flaws in it and would have liked more time to spend making it perfect, but ultimately I had to leave it and let the cast have their dress rehearsal with a finished backdrop.

I can honestly say this was the most challenging piece of art I've ever had to create. I started off relishing the challenge and looking forward to creating such a big painting. Over time, however, that enthusiasm waned slightly and as I progressed, painted over, and repainted certain elements I started wondering how on earth Rolf Harris does those huge paintings he was famous for when I was growing up!

The plan was to create the illusion of a Spanish Villa - the terraced area overlooking the garden and surrounding countryside of the Sierra Blanca. I researched images of the area- it stated in the play that you could clearly see the mountain range in that area (the Sierra Blanca takes its name from the Sierra Blanca mountain range of which La Concha, the mountain that towers above the urbanisation, is part). I also wanted to feature a bougainvillea bush as it's mentioned several times in the play. 

The first job we had, which we (my husband Keith and I) did soon after the New Year was over, was to paint the walls of the inside of the "Villa" with a magnolia colour. We'd already built the set in September/October so most of the rest of the work was electrical and decorating along with ensuring everything was safe.

Stage one commenced on January 3rd - as you can see, we have so far painted the walls of the villa and the living room door. We are at the point where we are about to erect strip lights above the two arches on the upstage wall - these will help to convey the light of an outdoor scene. The back wall is as yet untouched.

 Day 2 - January 4th. Having completed the painting (two coats of magnolia) on all the living room walls, we started on the back wall, covering up any previous wall covering with white at the top and a magnolia effect on the lower half - this would soon become the wall of the villa's terrace. 

Day 3 - January 5th. Not much has changed in this view - I've blocked in a basic sky and straightened the level of the wall, since I forgot to take the spirit level yesterday! It's also had another coat of magnolia. As you can see, the strip lights are already shedding a fair amount of light in the two archways.

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Close up of SL arch showing gridded plan

Close up of terracotta wall tiles painted onto the lower edge of the "terrace" wall.

Day 4 - January 9th. A long time was spent today painting in the top of the terrace wall, the shaded areas to give some texture to the surface of the wall, and the tiles at the bottom of the wall. Keith helped by marking out a grid on the wall for the plan of where all the mountains would be placed - if you look at the close-up images you can just about make out the pencil lines and in one of the images you can see the plan I was working from. I also blocked in an area of green as a base colour for the garden.

Mountain line drawn in and basic sky colour blocked in.

Low line of clouds painted in at the top of the mountain range.

 Day 5 - January 10th. I pencilled in the mountain range first, then blocked in the basic sky colour, as seen in the first image for today. Then I added a low line of clouds at the foot of the mountain range, and finally I painted the individual mountains, using my gridded plan as a reference.

 Day 6 - January 12th. Didn't have much time to spend on the painting today as we were starting rehearsals with the Youth section again after the Christmas break and needed to do the lesson plan etc. However, if you look closely you can see that I've painted out the clouds that I did last time and repainted the whole of the sky. I didn't like them!

Day 7 - January 14th. Keith decorated the "hall" wall with some plain white textured wallpaper today (you can't actually see it in any of these photos, will show full stage later). I blocked in the mountains and created a new sky/cloud formation. I've also pencilled in other areas ready for painting - a house just beyond the garden, and the corner of a swimming pool which is supposedly in the garden.

Day 8 - January 15th. Most of the greenery has been blocked in now, the basic house colour painted in and the shape of the swimming pool painted in - you can just about see it on the left of the arch. I've added the rough shape of the bougainvillea too, along with a few small trees in the distance.The mountains in the distance have also been lightened to give the illusion that the they are much further away.

Here you can see I've added some basic colour to the bougainvillea bush, painted in the roof, window and side of the house, coloured in the swimming pool and surrounding area and added some houses in the very distant green hills on the right.

Day 9 - 18th January. Branches, leaves and more colour added to the bougainvillea to give it some shape and definition. A creeping ivy styled tree was added to the side of the house.

Day 10 - 19th January. I wasn't at all happy with the effect of the swimming pool in the garden - it just didn't look credible so I decided to paint it out and just have lawn instead. I added some highlights to the bougainvillea bush and painted several different washes over the various levels of green in the distance - and added some hedge lines here and there to help delineate them.

Day 11 - 21st January. I painted in the suggestion of another small bush creeping over the wall in the SL archway,  changed the appearance of a tree positioned in front of the house, in the SR archway and added some more greenery to the creeping plant at the side of the house.

Day 12 - January 23 (Dress Rehearsal day) After adding some shadow on the wall for the bougainvillea plant and the green shrub SL, I also added a path down the centre of the lawn and a low wall at the perimeter of the garden, I enhanced the buildings in the distance that had been painted over with washes, and added a few more splashes of colour to the bougainvillea leaves. The set was dressed with fairy lights for the two arches at the back (to represent evening approaching) and three of my pieces of artwork - as can be seen in the images below. One of them is a collaboration with fellow artist Rob Kirbyson, the Baobab tree. He painted the background and I painted in the tree, All three paintings are still for sale, so if you come along to see the play and are interested, please see me at the theatre or contact me via email to enquire about the price.

"Reading Between The Lines" and "Baobab"

"Watching Paint Dry". 

I am happy to report that last night, at the end of the play, one of the women in the audience spoke to me about how much she enjoyed the play. She then asked if I'd painted all the scenery, to which I said "yes" (I was cautiously replying because I didn't know what she was going to say about it, good or bad). She then said "It's brilliant". Result! All that time spent painting, planning, repainting etc has now officially been worth it. I always say that things are worth doing even if just one person notices - so my job is done!

My next piece of artistic output will be something much, much smaller - a postcard painting for an exhibition in Scarborough to be handed in for Monday!

I would like to thank Anna from http://nature-trail.blogspot.com/ for allowing me to use some of her photographs of bougainvillea as reference images for the scenic painting.

New creations

I have been working on lots of different items recently in order to try and build up my stock for forthcoming art & craft fairs over the summer (wet as it is right now). I have not yet uploaded any of these items to any web-sites, or onto my Etsy shop, as I want to keep them exclusively for exhibitions. However, I thought I'd at least take some pics to show you what I've been working on, as it's been a while since I posted on here.

These two little trinket boxes are ready for selling and will be added to my collection next month at the Burton Constable Country Fair, along with the following new creations:

I am working on 3 of these magnetic shopping pads, but  the third one only has a base coat on at the moment so I thought I would leave that one out of the shot.

As you can see with these decorated A6 sized note-books, I appear to have developed a style of almost mosaic-like qualities! I am a bit obsessed with dots and circles actually, and often incorporate them in my abstract paintings - these particular decorations have been applied using a metallic acrylic craft paint. I love the 3D effect they have.

Alongside these, I have been working on a background painting (now complete, ready for posting) as part of a collaboration piece between myself and fellow rogue gene collective artist, Kosana Marton.  Also, I have made a start on painting a paper cup ready for an exhibition to be held over the next couple of months. No more details on that as yet - I need to experiment with a few to begin with, I may enter more than one if allowed and will need to decide which design works best. The idea is to decorate a paper cup in any way you like, but to retain the basic shape, i.e. it needs to still be recognisable as a paper cup. It sounded like a fun idea so I thought I'd join in!

Exhibition in Cookham

I can hardly believe it, but it was over a week ago now that members of the Rogue Gene Collective got together for an exhibition/sale down in Cookham, Berkshire. It is a rare thing for us all to be available at the same time so I was really looking forward to catching up with Rob, Kos, and Amanda. Also, for the first time, I was excited at the prospect of meeting Andrea. It was a shame that Tony and Mike could not make it this time, though.

Keith and I travelled down on Saturday, setting off late morning. We stopped off for some lunch on the way and arrived in Cookham at about 3.15pm. First job for me was to find the Stanley Spencer Gallery - something I'd always promised myself I'd visit one day, but never really had the opportunity until now. We parked the car and walked back up the main street (I think it's called the High Street actually) to look around the gallery. The entrance fee was £3, but I must admit I was slightly disappointed at how small the gallery was, even though they have added another level to it in recent years. However, I was just pleased to be standing in front of his original paintings - particularly impressive for me was the last painting he worked on before his death in 1959, "Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta". This took up a large section of one wall of the gallery and it was fascinating to see the way he'd planned it all out in pencil on a grid, and had only worked on certain areas in stages. The painting is 211 inches wide and 81inches high - there was a photograph of him painting it by sitting on a pair of step-ladders on a table!

I didn't take any photographs inside the gallery, as I doubt that would have been allowed, but I got a good view of the outside of the gallery from across the road:

I was also excited to see the house he was born in and lived in for a lot of his live, Fernlea. I took a photo of the house itself (which is also on the High Street not far from the gallery) and then Keith took one of me outside the house - well, it's one of those things that just has to be done, isn't it? I am interested in Stanley Spencer because I studied him as part of my A level Art several years ago so I remember reading quite a lot about him and his life in Cookham. It was weird seeing some of the work I'd once re-created as part of my personal study on a gallery wall rather than in a book!

With the sun shining, we walked back down to the car park then went for a stroll down to the river - this was obviously a popular place with everyone as the car park was full and there was a constant stream of people walking in every direction. Dog-walkers, young couples, families, serious hikers, frivolous hikers - all were walking along the river-bank at Cookham last Saturday afternoon. I took a couple of photos along the way, but none of the boats moored along the river, strangely enough! Perhaps I thought I'd seen enough water-based vessels after our cruise holiday in April. Anyway, the swans were suitably photogenic and the dandelion is always useful as a reference for future paintings.

What did strike me as we were strolling through Cookham was how many houses had wisteria growing up them - Spencer did a lot of paintings featuring wisteria, and having seen cottages like this one, I can understand why. It's so pretty as it seems to cascade down the walls, almost like a waterfall of delicate lilac flowers.

Saturday evening we had all arranged to meet in a local pub, The Swan Uppers. This was just a short walk away from our bed & breakfast accommodation and it was a lovely, warm summer's evening as we wandered down. At first I wondered if we'd got the right pub, as it was heaving (not that there were too many people in, actually, as it was a small room where the bar is) and I couldn't see anyone I recognised. After getting served we spotted a limping Kos outside so greeted her and then the three of us took a seat to wait for the others. When the others arrived, we all trooped through to a seating area where we were directed to a circular table to eat. There was plenty of choice on the menu, despite the fact that they had forgotten to change the day from Friday to Saturday!  We had a great time renewing friendships - the longest topic of conversation, strangely enough, was cats. It seems that most of the artists I know own at least one cat, or have an affinity with them at least. Alan (Andrea's husband) made me laugh when he demonstrated how you end up in such an awkward position just to accommodate the sleeping cat on your lap! Ridiculous, but oh so true!

We had some olives and cheese to nibble on whilst waiting for our food. To be truthful, the food did take an awfully long time to arrive, but since we were all nattering and drinking anyway, it didn't seem to matter too much. However, when the food arrived, the first meals out were two "Ham, Egg & Chips" which nobody claimed to have ordered. It was eventually deduced that Kos's Scottish rendition of "Haddock & Chips" apparently tranlsates as "Hamegg & Chips" in the South! I opted for a John Dory which I'd never tried before. It was a very meaty, white fish but I seemed to have copped for all the bones - one thing that really does put me off fish is having to filter out the bones when eating it! Andrea & Alan didn't seem to have any bones in theirs so perhaps I was just unlucky. Rob & Kos were staying in the same B&B as us so at some point during the evening he asked us if we wanted to share a taxi back. He'd driven his car down to the Pinder Hall after dropping Kos off at the pub earlier. When we said we were walking back he replied with "Oh, yeah, I forgot, you can walk" which sounded funnier than he'd intended - he's got rather used to Kos hobbling around on her pot leg recently!

The next morning we were up and at the hall for 9am to set up for the exhibition. Amanda had managed to borrow some free-standing display boards which were set up down the centre of the hall and we arranged tables along both sides and at one end. The hall was very light and showed off our work to great advantage.

 Amanda had got a banner made up which she hung outside the hall, and two of her large paintings were propped outside, too, which helped to catch people's attention as they walked by. Thanks to Andrea for letting me borrow some of her photographs here!

The exhibition/sale was also attended by three local artisans - I'm afraid I can only remember the name of two of them - Aurora Spain and Julia Wooster. Aurora is a painter and tutor who saw our Rogue Gene Collective article on collaborative works in the SAA Paint Newsletter. Her work was at one side of mine. At the other side of me was a potter who is a friend of Aurora and a nice lady who was offering free sweets as well as some rather fetching pottery! At the end of the hall opposite the entrance was a local jeweller, Julia Wooster. Her trading name was Blue Cat Jewellery (see, there's the cat thing again?) and I was very tempted by several pieces of hers, but in the end refrained from buying just for the sake of it!

You can see Aurora's work here:

In the next photo, you can see the work of the potter, whose name I have forgotten, sorry! Standing in front of her stall is Aurora.

Here is my work:

Rob Kirbyson's "Special Branch" painting got lots of comments - it really is a stunning creation and much, much more impressive in real life than a photographic representation on the internet!I also liked his latest triptych take on the flying ducks that used to adorn walls such as Hilda Ogden's in Coronation Street years ago. Rob used flying chickens as his theme, which was much funnier!

Kos had some very striking landscapes in classy white frames which set them off beautifully - they looked even more striking against the black backdrop of the display stands in the second image. Kos often paints with a paint roller which gives a really interesting texture to her paintings - I am amazed that she even uses it when painting portraits, which takes some skill, but works really well. She has definitely honed that particular technique to perfection, in my mind.

Andrea brought a lot of her new coastal and ethereal landscape paintings, many of which were painted on small canvases or canvas boards and they were all priced very reasonably considering the amount of work that had obviously gone in to them. I particularly liked "Edge of Darkness". She also had a couple of expressive abstracts which I'd not seen for a while online - these were shown off perfectly on the black display boards and I loved them.

Her expressive abstracts ("Life Form" and "Floral Curves") are painted in oil, which is Andrea's favoured medium, and I really admire the way she has blended the colours in these two paintings you can see in the middle of this shot - you can view these paintings in more detail here. and here.

Andrea had also brought along many of her latest crafty creations which she sells on Etsy - her wearable art brooches that are made of felt flowers and buttons. Very affordable, appealing to girls and women alike, these are perfect little gifts for birthdays, anniversaries or just to say "thanks" to someone! You can view them in her Etsy shop here. Make sure you click on the "Sold" tab, as they are obviously popular items and at the moment she is busy making more to sell online!

Amanda had the most success of us all during the week-end, which seemed fitting since she'd organised the exhibition and put in a lot of work to ensure a smooth operation. She'd also taken part in a "Street Art" exhibition in Maidenhead the day before with lots of sales, so she was in an enviable position from our point of view. We joked that if she wasn't such a nice person, we would be jealous of her success! The truth is, Amanda creates some very marketable artwork that sits well in modern homes and is very pleasing to look at. She is also a very approachable person and interacts with her customers very well indeed. Here are some images of her work inside the hall:

Amanda had far more work than I knew, she must spend every minute when she's not at her full-time occupation painting! I was interested to see that she had also started painting on mini canvases as I have and thought hers were of a very high standard - you can just see them on the left of her table in the photo above. Thanks again to Andrea for the photo here!

We were all impressed with one of Amanda's innovative creations - several paintings on blocks of wood. Sounds dull when you say it like that, but really, they were fantastic! Not just a painting, but a stand alone ornament too, all varnished to give a silky smooth appearance.  You can see these at the extreme right hand side of her table above.

Mike and Tony could not make it to the exhibition ,but fortunately Amanda had some prints of Mike's that we were able to display at the end of the display boards. These are shown on the photo at the beginning of this post.  Mike's photography is always eye-catching and he has a knack for creating an image that draws you into the scene.

Thanks to Andrea, I can show you my table display of crafts - my camera started playing up when I tried to take a shot of it and I lost patience with it. I took several of my magnetic notepads, trinket boxes and mini paintings on easels. I am happy to report that I sold some of them to fellow artists Kos and Amanda - thanks again, you two. It's always extra special when another artist likes your work enough to buy it - it feels like some sort of validation, somehow, that you are actually doing your job properly!

We had a great time meeting up again and are now planning our next group exhibition which will hopefully be nearer me this time - I have a few places to check out in terms of cost and ease of display etc. We also committed ourselves to doing even more of the collaboration work that we have previously done and enjoyed so much, with a view to holding a collaboration exhibition solely. I have already made a start on a background for Amanda, the next one I will be doing is for Kos.

Well, I think I have just about covered everything. I certainly seem to have nattered on for a long time, anyway! Now to catch up with my other personal blog - the holiday! There are never enough hours in the day, are there?