Today was a good day. (Nice book club supper and I've lost 10lbs). But let's talk about art...
I've finished two paintings. They're not particularly great. But I've done them. And I quite like them. So that's good. And you can only get better through doing something lots. And to do it lots you have to break through your fear of doing it. So that's been my biggest discovery.
My chicken (apparently that's what it is) is now officially finished. The plastic bag could be better, but it's good enough. And I am really pleased with the bird.
Next was my painting inspired by the sack in the window I saw (perhaps on the same bike trip in Cambodia. In preparation for this I looked at the work of Mike Bernard (a West Country painter, above) and Fernando Ponce, whose exhibition Bryony and I once saw in Mexico (and whose very large book I lugged around in my backpack for the rest of the holiday).
Both use paper and card along with acrylics and oils (and other types of media as well) too create texture in their work, which I find really inspiring.
So, particularly with Bernard's process in mind, I prepared a background for my painting by sticking on bits of card, paper and leather, roughly according to my original photo.
I then just painted...
It was really nice painting over the leather, and it's great having the structure that having laid down some texture first gives you. I'm pleased with my brick work, and overall it's ok. But I wanted (and failed) to give it the muted feel of the original photo. I sprayed it with matt varnish, but that didn't seem to make much difference. The colours again aren't quite right, but overall it's ok (especially as Annie said it would be really hard to do!)
And so, on to my next. It's going to be this photo, in the style of Hockney's Flowers and Spaces, again a book I've loved for years:
