CHEERFUL COLOURS

I stood in a shop by the art supplies last week, looking for a warm, yellowish red. What caught my eye, was a flourescent orange red! YUM!!  ☺ My first reaction was, 

"I'm not allowed to use that colour in serious artworks." 

What??!! Who said that???  I bought it!! 

Later that day, in a gallery, I saw abstract works by a very well-known South African artist, using...fluorescent colours!!!  Yeah!!

And today I got to try mine out!

Art Journal Entry. 21 June 2019.

Acrylic, permanent marker, pencil, collage. 

For my artwork today, I finished a commission I started last week. It's the view from a friend's back garden. Sort of. Enhanced. 

"View from a Zululand garden". Acrylic on panel. 

450 x 275mm.

I used mostly a palette knife for the painting. For the palm leaves I used a little flat nylon brush. It works very well. 

KEEPING THE MOMENTUM

"Keep the momentum in your business.

Stop-start takes a lot more effort than

to simply keep the momentum."

Dani Johnson

Keeping one's painting momentum is the same -  lot easier  and more productive than to regain momentum after you've lost it. I have to confess that I lost mine for the early part of the year. Interruptions of all sorts just slowly eroded away at the time I had available to paint. I had to sit down recently, re-prioritise and PLAN time to paint again. I found it very helpful to write down all my time-stealers and other hindrances on a sheet of paper, decide which ones I was able to change and how I was going to do it. Looking at a few websites with tips to deal with "Artist's Block" was also helpful. After brainstorming  and gathering some ideas and pictures of what really inspires me at the moment, I really did feel a lot more inspired and was ready to go!

I did a few quick acrylics to get the creative juices flowing. They still need some work done to them - I might add collage and some new detail. Here is one:

And - lo and behold: another interruption! We went to St Lucia for the weekend. I managed to sit and scribble down some wings while sitting in the shade of one of the rocks at Mission Rock.

This is quite consistent with my theme of wings and flight that I'm working on. The time out in the sun, with the gulls, was very refreshing, though, and the colours of the sea never sieze to fascinate me.

Here is an acrylic of seagulls that I finished recently:  

BEACH BLUES

Although I wouldn't admit it, and absolutely INSIST that I prefer the bush to the beach, I suspect that I have a secret love affair with the sea, that my heart hasn't informed me about.



I clearly remember a period in my life when, due to circumstances, I wasn't able to go to the beach for a few years, except for once a year for a day - and that while living only about 80 km from a decent beach, or 40km from the sea, as the crow flies. I remember shedding actual tears during this time, longing to just feel the sand between my toes, and the salty water washing around my ankles. (Body surfing would have been even better, of course! )

That situation has now changed, and one can easily become blazé, but currently I'm really looking forward to our next time at the beach.


So here it is:

Beach Blues I

Acrylic on Mountboard, 190x140mm

 

Beach Blues II

Acrylic on Mountboard, 190x140mm

Arts & Music @ Pappanui

HOSPICE (Charity Organization caring for the terminally ill) organised an Arts & Music day at Pappanui, an interior decoration shop in Mtunzini, last Sunday, 8 August.  There were about 15 art stalls and music ranged from the "Senile Sisters", the "White Zulu" and a modern day  Elvis, to a local gospel band.

The music certainly made for a very pleasant atmosphere and kept fair goers hanging around.

New artwork that I exhibited at my stall included:

 

Cheetah. Watercolour. 165x265mm.

 

Transkei - "Hurrying Home". Acrylic. 200x250mm

SOLD

Transkei - "Little Fisherman". Acrylic. 200x250mm

SOLD

And, for extra atmosphere in that beach cottage:

 

Sentiments of Sunny Seas - I

Acrylic. 200x150mm.

SOLD

Sentiments of Sunny Seas - II

Acrylic. 200x150mm.

SOLD

    

A Fresh Approach

As part of my "Fun Flower" project, the purpose of which is to loosen up, I reworked a flower still life that I did a while ago, and put down because I was not happy with the result. I now abandoned the preconceived frame of mind I had at the time and had a lot of FUN! Here it is:

Acrylic on Mountboard, 175x270mm

The digital image doesn't do justice to the bright, jewel-likeness of the colours in real life. The dark areas are also not black, but rich, dark greens and reds.

During our last visit at the beach I managed to make a small watercolour sketch of the waves. I was especially fascinated with the near-translucent jade colour of the breaking waves:

    

Watercolour on Cartridge; 130x90mm

Having loosened up a bit with the "fun" flowers, I decided to attempt another seascape. (Haven't done one for about two years.) It turned out to be one of those paintings that just about paints itself. Just flowed spontaneously.   I might do some more...  

Acrylic on Mountboard; 280x185mm

SOLD

Still Life with Flowers - Fun with colours

This is a fun project, which is still underway, but which has produced some artworks, and more are underway... My inspiration came from sketches that I did years ago - at school - probably in the Science Class(!) - to be precise!

I found them recently, scanned them in, and altered them digitally, which produced pictures like this:

From that, I started doing acrylics. Quite a number of them didn't produce the results that I anticipated. I am still busy with the process, but here are two that I am going to frame so long:

Fun Flower Studies I & II

Medium: Acrylic on Berkshire Mountboard

Size: 170x 125 mm