Tag: Arts

  • A Reaffirmation of Life

    A Reaffirmation of Life

    About exhibiting: Having work framed up to present formally to an audience can be intimidating (as well as expensive) but is an essential part of the creative process. After all unseen work is like the proverbial falling tree in the forest – if no one sees it does it happen? The purpose of art as…

  • Art is a Language

    Art is a Language

    In the same way that a new play or poem re-uses language so art re-uses the visual work of others, extending knowledge through pushing ideas further. Thus Hockney continues to develop an understanding of the visual world through the use of cameras and drawing that enriches our understanding of the world around us. The language…

  • Constable clouds and Stella stripes

    Constable clouds and Stella stripes

    So the drawings continues to develop as I work at the same time with the photographs that combine with colour notes in the sketch book to form the base from which the ideas are developing.

  • NYNY WTC remembered

    NYNY WTC remembered

    In 1976 I took advantage of Laker Skytrain to fly to the USA to see the celebrations of the bicentenary of their independence. New York was the destination and for three weeks I walked the city with a camera photographing anything that caught my eye, predominantly architecture and sculpture, including the Twin Towers

  • Snow white?

    Snow white?

    When a student in the 60’s I had a series of lectures on colour and perception. One in particular sticks in my mind. A series of panels of white paint were placed under the light from a slide projector, in front of a black background. As each panel was added it made the previous panel…

  • Mythmaking

    Mythmaking

    The importance of drawing. It doesn’t pay to cut the mythmaking short, neither for the colour transitions nor for the line drawings.

  • Putting The Pain in Painting

    Putting The Pain in Painting

    The large format oil pastels drawing culminated in one exploring the colour of the California Poppy, drawing no. 5 in this metre square series. I thoroughly enjoyed making the drawing and I think they were all very successful.

  • Canvas, Convolvulus and Carpets

    Canvas, Convolvulus and Carpets

    The last major piece I did was based on an image of fuchsias but the recent drawings seem to be taking me away from this – although it may change when I start working on the canvas that is now on the easel ready. Nothing more terrifying than a large blank white canvas

  • Drawing and the Garden

    Drawing and the Garden

    The garden is endlessly fascinating. Even as a student I painted images of a lawn. Now I am working on images of my own garden again. I made a little drawing of grass, which to my surprise seemed to work well, and I have been exploring the imagery further through a series of drawings.

  • Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, and grass is always greener

    Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, and grass is always greener

    Raindrops glistened in the grass after we had a thoroughly violent thunder and rain storm. I decided to draw outside with the oil pastel.

  • Landscape into Art

    Landscape into Art

    A few years ago there was an exhibition in London’s Serpentine Gallery called ‘Art into Landscape’. From the earliest Renaissance masters through Turner and the Impressionists, to Hockney’s brilliance, the face of our globe has been a source of visual fascination, interpretation and reinterpretation for painters. Our developing technologies have added an additional dimension to…

  • Seeing Seaford’s Sunset on the Sea Shore

    Seeing Seaford’s Sunset on the Sea Shore

    Dad taught me to see, taught me to draw. He had an artistic side that rarely found any outlet. He did a little marquetry but enjoyed teaching me how to image a ship’s bow looming up, how to image a Spitfire wing growing realistically off a fuselage.