wild grass and 15 crofts

 My work has been becoming more abstract recently
.
The weather is becoming darker and the wind colder.

... Perhaps that is why I want to create atmosphere rather than pictorial representation in my wooden panels.

My colours are becoming more autumnal, russets, golds and deep reds.

my skies are becoming darker and stormier.

sketchbook page acrylic and ink

my sketchbook experiments are echoing the darker months.
 Sheep huddled together for warmth, surrounded by dark brooding skies.

My wooden panels are cut and then sanded with my hand sander.. it is a great machine that saves lots of time.

I work on several at the same time, that way each panel can dry while I work on the next, creating continuity. I hate waiting for things to dry... often a heatgun can blister glue and gesso and so I am careful not to apply too much heat.

The wild grass panels are coated with layers of gesso and paint. While I am waiting for it to dry I begin building up texture on my next panel.

 The 15 crofts piece begins to take on a more abstract form. the oblong shapes representing the little fields in front of the shoreline. I use lots of gold leaf and foils as well as paper and acrylic paint.

The wild grass panels are given a sprinkling of cosmic shimmer mist through some plastic netting,

I cut lots of gold paper strips for the tall grasses.

wild grass1

 My wild grass 1 and 2 are complete....

wild grass 2

And to finish the third panel 15 small cottages are added along with a couple of sheep to finish' 15 crofts'.

15 crofts

Linking to Paint party friday

Skyescape of flowers

This is another of my small pieces made for Skyeworks charity exhibition 'Home to the Hills'
Often my inspiration comes from photographs, as although I do love drawing outside the weather often conspires against me, and to be honest it gets a wee bit chilly at this time of year! I took this photograph earlier in the year and I love the contrast between rock and foliage.

to begin with I began creating the collage using the land, sea and sky in a similar format to the photo
.

But I decided the sea was detracting from the composition.

So sea became land.... the flowers are very textured. I used crackle medium on the petals.

And the rock is a piece of citrasolv paper..
As a final touch the little croft was added on the horizon.

Skyescape

linking to paint party friday

An oriental jar full of colour

You may remember my visit to the Kaffe Fasset '50 years of colour' exhibition a couple of weeks ago, click HERE to take a look at my visit to the exhibition.

Well as you can see I have been playing with colour. Inspiration Avenue came up with the exciting challenge of creating a piece of work in the style of a favourite artist.

Its easy to assemble a quick still life.... a china cup, a pomegranate ( don't you just love those jewel like seeds!) and a little  treasured oriental jar which belonged to my mother. I assembled my little collection on some bright butterfly paper.

I used this wonderful paper to work on, it is made from bamboo and is excellent for mixed media projects.

I used a combination of gouache  and neocolour crayon. Once dry I dabbed white gesso  over the surface to mute the lines. I noticed in Kaffe's  colour drawings that he did not have hard edges on his objects, and I really liked the way his patterns almost blurred into one another.

Kaffe Fasset

Of course I didn't want to copy the magical Kaffe, I wanted to capture the feeling of joy his colour studies bring and also keep my own style....
So it seemed right to add some gold flakes, metallics feature in most of my work, I just love these shiny pieces of magic. I am sure I must have been a magpie in a past life as I am drawn to anything glittery!

Oriental jar

linking up  this week to Inspiration Avenue

A place to rest

Last week I mentioned that I had several pieces in Skyeworks  HOME TO THE HILLS charity exhibition.

well in addition to my moonlight and hares, the above piece has sold too!

moonlight and hares

The idea for the little ginger tom came from a sketch I found in an old portfolio from my art college days (many moons ago! ) It was an ink drawing of my adorable ginger tom cat named Stan.

He was the sweetest of cats. Although not the smartest of felines he was gentle and kind.

'stan' pen and ink

I used his sleeping pose as a start for my composition. Stan is rather famous now as he featured in one of my older pieces made for my mother featuring all her cats. They were of not alive at the same time but I thought it would be fun to group them together.

four very fine cats

Anyway this is how my 'Place to rest' collage began.

Using black gesso covered bits and pieces.

Intensified some areas of colour. and added more papers.

Blended and sanded the paper layers adding detail with white fine-line pen.

Used some fine line texture paint to make the foliage and crackle glaze over his face.

I thought he looked better awake than asleep.

Finally a liberal sprinkling of gold flakes which contrast beautifully with the rich reds.

linking to paint party friday

Moonlight , Hares and Charity exhibition news!

Moonlight and Hares

I thought I might let you in on a wee secret..... this little piece is one of my entries to Skyeworks charity exhibition ' Home to the Hills'

It is an anonymous exhibition, meaning that artists do not sign their works on the front and buyers only find out the identity of the artist once the piece has been purchased.

The exhibition opened yesterday and Moon light and Hares sold almost straight away! Each piece is a set price with at least £25 from each sale going to Skye mountain rescue. 

Skye is a very mountainous island. Mountaineers come from all over the world to climb the heady peaks of the Cuillin mountains and the rescue team are there to provide an invaluable service to help injured or lost climbers and walkers. The team are volunteers who rely heavily on charitable donations to buy equipment.

mountain rescue

Paintings are available to buy from the gallery but also through their facebook page. The gallery mail not only to the UK but all over the world for very reasonable shipping charges.

If you would like to check out the selection of paintings for sale click *HERE*

I have four other pieces in the exhibition, see if you can guess which ones........ ;)

Anyway as moonlight and hares has now sold I thought I would share its making with you.

Mr Hare was drawn onto the canvas. I used lots of paper and foil pieces to create the background.

If you look very carefully you may spot the deep purple foil of a cadbury chocolate Easter egg wrapper! ( Waste not, want not)

 I love combining the reflective qualities of foil and paper. The sky was painted, I decided I wanted a uniform blue and that was easier to achieve using just acrylic paint.

I did ponder a while over the little hare silhouette, should he be black....?

Or silver?....

In the end I decided on silver...

Fingers crossed my other pieces will soon be off to new homes ..........  ;)

Linking up to paint party Friday,

as a post script another of my pieces has sold.. Yay!! so I will do a post on it and its making ASAP :)

Counting Buttercups

The winter nights may be drawing in but here is a little piece of late summer to enjoy.

When I was a child we used to play a game where we picked a buttercup and put it under our playmates chin, if it shone golden yellow it was said that the person liked butter.....Hardly a scientific experiment. It was however, fun and I always associate buttercups with my childhood days.

I finished this canvas last month but for one reason and another hadn't had time to sort out the photos and share it with you.

I loved this photo I took of Buttercups nestled into the Horsetails and grass. The luminous greens and yellows really excited me!

The picture below gives a an idea of scale.

As usual I began by tearing up and gluing lots of pieces of paper onto a canvas. I sand each layer when dry to smooth the surface.

The buttercups are mulberry paper which I printed using my Gelliplate

I didn't want to add too much detail to the flowers. I wanted them to be colour statements rather than recognisable flowers.

I finally used one of my favourite products Cosmic shimmer mist to darken areas of the foreground and a purple colour mist to add contrast to the sky. The ink sits in the texture and makes lovely rippled lines.

Counting buttercups ( mixed media on canvas)

linking to PAINT PARTY FRIDAY