The Cat Looks Bonkers

I’m really cracking on with this big painting now. I hope that a couple more good spurts of activity should get it finished. I concentrated on getting some of the finer features in their place and doing a bit of work on the three animals. The cat looks bonkers. Nothing new there. A Chance ToContinue reading “The Cat Looks Bonkers”

Faking Friday Flowers

It’s faking Friday again with Ed Sumner’s Cheese and Wine Painting Club over on Facebook. I so enjoy these weekly sessions that Ed has been running since the first lockdown in March 2020. I’m learning loads about painting as well. This week it’s a van Gogh, one of his paintings of irises. It’s using aContinue reading “Faking Friday Flowers”

Animals In My Window

Two cats and a mandrill. #thegreatbigartexhibition2021 started recently, encouraging people across the UK to turn windows, balconies, gardens … whatever … into little art galleries. The first theme is animals – here are mine in my bay window. The yellow cat and the mandrill are fakes (Matisse and Rousseau) I painted with Ed Sumner’s CheeseContinue reading “Animals In My Window”

Connecting family

I did some more work on my great big “Family” painting today, based on our weekly Zoom quiz. We’ve been doing it since early in the first lockdown and we’re connecting family in South Wales, North England and Australia. And our pets 😀 I did some more work on people’s features, and also did someContinue reading “Connecting family”

17 People, 2 Dogs And A Cat!

I carried on with my big painting today, working in more of the building blocks of the images. Some of them are pretty spot on but some are really difficult to do as I can’t get my head around the distortion caused by the computer screens and I’m falling into the trap of painting whatContinue reading “17 People, 2 Dogs And A Cat!”

Practising The Weird

I decided to do some little charcoal studies onto paper for the big painting I’m working on, to practice the images before I commit them to canvas. There are lots of heads in the painting which look a bit weird because they’re on a computer screen. According to Husb this causes wide angle lens distortion.Continue reading “Practising The Weird”

Sketching The Details

I started sketching in some of the details onto my underpainting today, using willow charcoal as it’s easy to wipe off when you make a mistake. At this stage I’m just getting the features more or less in place rather than getting a perfect likeness because that’s going to be done later, probably the lastContinue reading “Sketching The Details”

Weirdness

I carried on with my new big painting today, it’s slow work, there will be many more layers of paint. It’s going to be about our family Zoom quiz that we have every week, since early in the first lockdown. The quiz connects family across South Wales, Cumbria and Australia and it’s so brilliant. I’veContinue reading “Weirdness”

Comfort Painting

That’s quite a lot of paintings for someone who hardly paints. I lost interest in painting on the first year of my Art Diploma course back in the 1970s, choosing to major in printmaking instead. I always found painting a bit messy and drawing was my great love, I found more affinity between printmaking andContinue reading “Comfort Painting”

Flicking And Faking

Today I finished faking one of Monet’s waterlily paintings that I started last Friday with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club over on Facebook. What I really liked about this one was learning to apply paint in different ways, not just using a brush. I used my fingers to smear, nails to scratch, a ragContinue reading “Flicking And Faking”