Tag: painting

Rebirth of the English Landscape

Sir Roy Strong is so right about the English landscape. It is intrinsically wound up with English identity; no matter how urbanised we get, all of us who are English, or who may want to be, are attached to the open views of England, the hills, the mountains, the coasts and the fens.

I believe he is right. Scotland and Wales have their own measure of independence. We must discover our own identity and the process has begun, although England and Englishness never went away. She has been patient, waiting for us to open our eyes. The English rebirth has indeed begun in a profound, sustained, inward, but ultimately legitimate way. I hope to play my part in it.

And did those feet…?

Watercolours on the Way

To augment the oils and acrylics, there will be some watercolours coming soon.
At one stage this was my favourite medium and it will be nice to get back in the swing, so to speak. I like their immediacy but usually, for me at least, there’s no going back once your committed.
A bit like life, really, watercolours.

Acrylic Difficult to Master

I am basically a painter in oil but, perhaps ironically, the more ‘serious’ painting I have done recently have been in acrylic.
This may have been something to do with the scale, larger canvases. I find it easier to cover larger areas with watered down acrylic.
There is also something about the immediacy of acrylic. You have to work fast, so maybe this makes me worry less about detail and look at overall effect.

Giacometti meets Gandhara

Two paintings I’ve had on the go for some time, having made various changes. Well, here are the latest efforts (see Current Original Art). The first, Edel Blau, or Noble Blue, is in mixed media but essentially acrylic. I have created some interesting textures with the use of paper and fabric around the edges. Who is the subject? Well, that would be telling.
The second is of a Buddha’s head in acrylic, based on the Gandharan artistic tradition of Western India from about two thousand years ago. This was a melding of Indian and Greek art as a result of Alexander The Great’s eastern conquests and the spreading of Buddhist philosophy East. I am not sure where I got the idea of the orange cells. Are they honey cells, perhaps? I don’t know.

Christmas Commissions!

It may be only August but feel free to contact to discuss a Christmas commission, or for any other occasion for that matter.