TINA MAMMOSER

Christmas studio sale

2016-11-26T13:39:00.001+00:00

It doesn't happen often, and it almost never happens at Christmas, but I've decided to have another Studio Sale on eBay!

The Christmas Mini Paintings have just finished and done really well (there's a few left!) but I had some requests about larger paintings. Of course these rarely are available anywhere for less than gallery price, because that would be unfair to my galleries, buyers and myself.

So why ever auction large paintings?

Well, I have 20 years worth of artworks in the house! :) Inevitably, some paintings are quite old and my work has moved on so much they no longer make me happy. Others were part of a series which could otherwise be sold out, so they don't get exhibited anymore. (Basically, they're lonely!) And some were experimental pieces that preceded other larger canvases, and have never been exhibited at all because they were "practice" so to speak.

What better to offer to my best fans for Christmas? The auctions will go live TODAY at 7pm GMT.

••• Christmas Studio Sale •••

Preview of the special selection just for Christmas:

"Content", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 60cm x 50cm
One of the few paintings left from my New Jersey coast series

"Ooh Ahh!", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 50cm x 50cm
Last of the Fireworks paintings

"Hambury Tout", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 70cm x 70cm
An early Dorset coast painting that I decided not to exhibit

"Heck Avenue", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 40cm x 30cm
From the New Jersey series, a painting whose title seems to put people off!
(but that really was the road name)

"Under Durdle", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 70cm x 70cm
Another early Dorset coast painting that I decided not to exhibit

Detail of "Under Durdle" paintwork

"Scale Nab", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 70cm x 80cm
One of the first Yorkshire paintings and one of the first to include drawn geology lines
and white glazing. My method of painting like this has improved hugely, so I no longer exhibit this piece.

"The Twizzle", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 60cm x 60cm
One of the few Essex coast paintings left

"Looming", acrylic on deep stretched canvas, 80cm x 60cm
An experiment painting the high waves of New Jersey with black and gold from a very low point of view-
precursor to the paintings "Shadowing the Blue" and "Middle Rise".

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Evolution of the shale

2016-11-17T09:00:00.000+00:00

Instead of geology, here is art evolution. A simple photo blog of the stages from first layers of colour through to the finished painting. Intertidal is a 130cm x 150cm painting on canvas of the shale "scar" between Whitby and Saltwick Bay.


First layers of reds and green to build structure.

Scumbles of dark purple - this creates a deep violet over the reds and a brown/black over the green.

Adding several glazes of light blue over all areas.

Grey, blue and purple glazes to build depth.

After many blue, purple and lavender glazes - strengthening lines within the landscape.

The tape protected a light blue/grey area to retain a light form on the horizon.


Finally, a lot of layers of blue grey and dark glazes to slowly hide the underlying structures - creating a soft atmospheric landscape.

Intertidal

130cm x 150cm

Acrylic on canvas

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American making the British art

2016-11-03T15:47:00.000+00:00

November 2016... officially more than 23 years after I first came to the UK, to Scotland, in September 1993 at age 23. I've now lived in the UK longer than I ever lived in the USA.

But my accent will always give me away! Now a Brit, I'll never stop sounding American to my neighbours.

"Intertidal", painting of Yorkshire, 2013 (available from the studio)

A key phrase from my artist statement has always been:

"I identify very strongly with the British tradition for landscape and seascape painting while still retaining a certain 'midwestern' eye for landscape with flat perspective and vast open spaces."

Whatever the scene - sea, cliffs, geology - I still flatten the perspective to the horizon, still use fields of colour. Growing up in Chicago and then living out in Urbana/Champaign, vast expanses filled my view. Whether Lake Michigan or endless fields of corn, flatness was everywhere.

"Night Beyond the Ice", painting of Chicago's Lake Michigan, 2006

So while I call myself a British artist (I didn't do art until I moved to England) I suppose to those around me I'm still the American making British landscapes!

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Nor'easterly inspiration

2016-10-26T17:28:00.000+01:00

Just a bit of my Scarborough scenery... artist inspiration from some recent nor-easterly winds!

Splish...

Splash...

Whooosh!

CRASH.

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Affordable Art Fair preview

2016-10-17T14:23:00.000+01:00

Welcome to a private preview of paintings that will be with Cobalt Fine Arts at this week's London Affordable Art Fair, Battersea.

1766, Acrylic on canvas 80x80cm

Saltwick Joy, Acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

September, Acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

White Nab, Acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

Whitby Cavern, Acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

Visit this link to Cobalt Fine Arts' complimentary tickets: http://aafbattersea.seetickets.com and put in the code COBALTPV for a free ticket. These can be used on the Wednesday 19th October evening charity private view or any other day of the fair!

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Portraits of an artist studio

2016-10-06T09:00:00.000+01:00

As I'm getting paintings ready for the October Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, the studio decided to take some selfies...

Paintings in the sunshine, ready for AAF

Pirate dinosaur helping me paint

The drawing table in full swing

Studio hippo is joined by a fluffy brain cell, in case I need it!
(from Giant Microbes)

Steampunk copper USB fan at the computer table

My new LAIVA bookcases from Ikea!
With picture hooks for hanging paintings ON the shelves themselves.

If you'd like to visit the AAF Battersea, my gallery Cobalt Fine Arts has complimentary tickets available. Just go to http://aafbattersea.seetickets.com and put in the code COBALTPV for a ticket. These can be used on the Wednesday 19th October evening charity private view or any other day of the fair!

The actual book! Only 3 days left

2016-09-26T14:37:00.000+01:00

You've seen the behind-the-scenes tidbits - have you visited the book campaign?

"Saltwick: An artist's notebook"

SALTWICK is gathers artworks from 5 year’s worth of sketchbooks of the one mile stretch of coast from Whitby to Saltwick Bay. An artistic walk through drawings about the cliffs, fossils, two sea stack formations, two shipwrecks, geology and artistic inspiration... even colour plates of finished artworks.

My 3rd Kickstarter campaign launched at the beginning of September and is now in it's FINAL 3 DAYS. (Ends at 1pm BST on September 30th)

The book "Saltwick" is 120+ pages (A5 landscape format), softcover, 10 colour plates

Here's just 3 great ways to take part in the project:

The eBook: £5
Art grab bag: Just £12
Saltwick: An artist's notebook: £25 includes other art bonuses!
Plus more rewards

Click now to join in! http://kck.st/2cqF311

Book writing at Yorkshire Fossil Festival

2016-09-21T09:00:00.000+01:00

Whitby Jet

This weekend was spent as three lovely days at the Yorkshire Fossil Festival, promoting the book (click here to pre-order!) and drawing huge banners of ammonites with children and grown-ups alike.

One of the pages that was "missing" in Saltwick was about the Whitby Plant Beds - a section of cliff with layers preserving flora fossils. Fortunately, the days were spent alongside experts from the Leeds University geoscience staff and the blokes from Hidden Horizons. I also bought a book specifically about Yorkshore flora (hoorah! Just what I needed!) from the The Palaeontological Association.

Since I rarely find plant fossils it's a little bit of a blank spot in my own knowledge. So I picked the brains of my neighbours about the plant beds and common fossils. Turns out I did have a couple fossils - mainly rootlets of horsetail, and a photo of a plant root I found. Plus, Hidden Horizons had a great horsetail for me to sketch!

Horsetail fossil, and root impression

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Only 9 days left - don't miss out on your copy of the book!
Saltwick: An artist's notebookOn Kickstarter: http://kck.st/2cqF311

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Art grab bag!

2016-09-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

When choosing the rewards for my Kickstarter campaign one thing was very important to me... a reward that was affordable and offered real art.

I back a lot of Kickstarter campaigns - 42 so far! - and I love helping other creative people reach their goals. As an artist myself often my wallet is a bit empty, but I'm always happy to find a tenner or so. It seems the standard less-than-£20/$20 reward is a digital version of the project on offer. I get that, and it's a great option. But I really like something real, a bit of the artist and their work. It can be as simple as a nice postcard or a doodle. If I'm backing an artist it's often because I like their art but can't afford to buy it.

So real art had to be in my campaign for under £20. (so is the eBook of course!)

As I pondered my project, I also started tidying my studio. You see, I have a lot of piles of paper! :) Prints, sketches, test swatches, printouts, scrap watercolour paper.... and I've been meaning for months to sort it out. Get the screenprints and linocuts into a portfolio. Really clear out the stash under the drawing table so that I could move the table. (too heavy weighted down with paper supply and printmaking screens!) Three new bookcases also adorn the main studio wall so stacks of art books could finally be put away.

While tidying I found so many things that made me smile, but weren't things I needed to keep. Test impressions from screenprints. Paint colour swatches. An old stash of greetings cards. My box of reference photos from Saltwick. Daily drawing squares. The few odd bookmarks. Some fossil giclee prints. Colour painting and pastel studies for big paintings. Even sketchbook pages.

So the "Nab Grab Bag" was created! 5-6 little pieces of real things from my art studio, and each one will have an actual original artwork in it. How fun is that?

Of course, half the fun will be for me - to put them together!

I do hope you all like the idea, and some of you will love the opportunity to have a little art if you can't usually afford it.

Get your own Nab Grab Bag here for just £12 plus shipping: http://kck.st/2cqF311
Hurry, only available at this price until September 30th!

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The making of a book

2016-09-06T08:30:00.000+01:00

I'm working away on the book, in old-school fashion. Very much a paper and pen person, I usually draw all my talks or writing via bits of paper rather than all onscreen - despite my 20+ years expertise with Adobe!

How to organise several years of sketchbooks? I scanned all the pages, then printed every scan at a small scale, and cut them out. Put them into piles by topic - in this case points along the Whitby to Saltwick walk. Notes typed on the computer are also printed out. (I used Evernote for this book's text.)

Cut out laserprints

Then I paste them in a big notebook! Using a moveable spray mount so I could change my mind and swap things around.


Past-up book

Mort the dragon also "helps" with putting the paper paste-up layouts into InDesign on the computer.

This book holds my ideas for the 2-page spreads within the book. Arranged in order of things I see on the walk, in order, from Whitby to Saltwick. As I put the drawings and notes into the actual book design, better arrangements might come up - for example these two pages of drawings of the Dogger ironstone.

Dogger pages - from first idea to final book pages.

As well as old-school notes and paper, I'm prolific with post-it notes too. I can find no better way to bookmark and organise quantities of information. As you can see from this photo of me drafting an art and astronomy talk in the past!

Click and find out more about the book "Saltwick: An Artist's Notebook"

SALTWICK: coming soon!

2016-08-29T12:38:00.000+01:00

In anticipation of my next book project - SALTWICK: An Artist's Notebook - I'm sharing the chapter about the shale (the mudstone) at Saltwick Bay from my previous book Scenes of Art and Science.

Free excerpt here!

If you would like a personal email when the SALTWICK Kickstarter project goes live, just sign up for my mailing list. The members of my list will get priority notice on launch day!
www.tina-m.com/news

Enjoy!

Still loving Saltwick Bay...

2016-08-16T09:00:00.000+01:00

Newest paintings off the easel!

Two 1m square paintings destined for the October Affordable Art Fair in London. The Black Nab painting still needs a title, so, any suggestions?

Painting of Black Nab, acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

Saltwick Joy, acrylic on canvas 100x100cm

From colour studies to finished paintings

2016-08-10T10:00:00.000+01:00

Working from ideas to finished paintings

Pastel on paper - idea for alum at Saltwick Bay

Pastel on paper - second idea for alum on Saltwick Nab


Detail from painting of alum on Saltwick Nab (as yet untitled)

So the warm reds and violets of the alum remnants on the top layer of Saltwick Nab actually worked out quite well. The final painting actually went back and forth between the two original concepts. First with lots of lines and a vertical edge, but on the left hand side. Then I added layers and softened it into a flatter single top horizon. Then went back in with pencil to re-create the geology lines. Then finally decided the vertical edge was quite important, compositionally speaking, and re-established that but on the right hand side instead. The biggest challenge in this one was actually the large area of grey (not all shown in the detail). I needed to keep this grey quite warm in tone and it very easily kept going green tinged.


Rather bad colour sketch trying to "envelope" Black Nab in blues and greys of water and sky

Detail from finished painting of Black Nab

The second painting was less developed at the sketch stage because I've had the idea for this one in my head for a very long time. Compositionally I wanted to center Black Nab on the canvas with just slips of light on either side of the rock formation. I've painted Black Nab so many times I feel I can approach this one with a bit less preparation! The other paintings, however, have mainly been with the blackness of the nab itself on a side of the canvas.

An odd thing happened with this one though and neither blue "side" would work for me. I kept repainting and repainting the soft blended glazes, and then painting back in the dark rock. Frustrated, I decided to play with the golden light along the water's edge. Since this was low down I turned the painting just for easier brushing.

And voilà! There was the nab. What had been the water and sky fell naturally into place as the sides. I pulled down the hazy blue of the new sky a bit more so the rockface could melt into the blue.

A year of stars - painting what I wanted

2016-07-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

For the past year I've done very little of my seascape painting, deciding instead to follow my heart and really concentrate on the star paintings. This was a risk, with no galleries to show them and not much track record. While the 12"x12" Light series was the birthplace of the star paintings - the stars becoming an extension of that series - they were always shown alongside Coast paintings. As was fitting, since they began as an exploration of light reflections in the water.

The freedom of being in Yorkshire fed my desire to give myself creative freedom. It's not that I don't love my landscapes, but they were feeling forced and stagnant. I knew something was changing with them but it's a strange time of evolution and so painting them was frustrating. The ones I did were entirely local - the "year-long" painting Selwicks Turn, and the set of Scarborough Coastival paintings.

But my concentration has gone to stars and light. Technically speaking, this will feed back into the coast paintings. Working on perfecting the glazing and blending of light even better than before. Working on an absolute simplicity of composition.

Along with the freedom to paint, I have the freedom to exhibit them in my own gallery! So the anniversary exhibition (one year! yay!) at Grejczik Gallery will be my Light paintings.

It's been a year of breaking away from the strict 12"x12" format I originally set myself. We artists like to give ourselves completely random rules!

So there are HUGE paintings like the 100cm x 120cm Electron Blue:

And the 100cm x 100cm Antares:

Plus the small 10cm x 21cm paintings on paper have been lovingly framed and look fabulous:

What is the result of all this? I'm working on new coast paintings. I've realised how to achieve the light I want but also realised I really really really really want LINE in the new paintings. As an artist, everything I do feeds everything else, though not always in the expected way.

Painting light - excerpt from 'Scenes of Art and Science'

2016-07-18T19:26:00.000+01:00

To celebrate my August exhibition of the "Light" paintings today I'm sharing the chapter on painting stars and light from my book Scenes of Art and Science, published by Grejczik Gallery.

Starlight

Starlight, acrylic on canvas 30x30cm, SOLD

From my garden one of the simplest and most enjoyable quests is to spot different colour stars with my telescope. Sometimes I use a star map, other times just scan for nice arrangements of stars. In my drawings I try to always note distinct star colours if I can see them.

As a colourist, an artist who focuses on colour and light as the main features of my paintings, I’m naturally drawing to colour in surfaces and light.

Though I do paint the star colours, the essence of colour in light is different from colour in pigments.

Paint is reflective colour - colour of physical surfaces, including the tiny particles of pigment in paint. The colour of paint is made by the surface absorbing all the colours of light except the one we see. That colour is reflected back at the viewer. So red paint absorbs all the colours of light except red, and we see just the red bounced back at us.

The colour of stars is actual the light being emitted by the object - the burning star.

The Hertzprung-Russell Diagram is a chart that shows the relationship between star temperatures and luminosity. (actual brightness, ignoring any dimming from our distance from the star) Our Sun lies about half way down the main strip running diagonally through the chart - the “Main Sequence”. Quite simply, our Sun is the star humanity has known the longest so it became our reference to use as the median value for reference. Luminosity value of 1 is defined by our Sun.

The Main Sequence is a typical lifeline of a star. It’s born at the top right (hot and bright) and then slowly grows with burning of it’s elements. Some stars evolve off the Main Sequence into giant stars, some continue steadily down the sequence, and some run out of fuel and fall off the sequence down to become a white or brown dwarf.

Looking along the bottom axis, the temperature goes from hottest on the left to coolest on the right. Easy to see the hottest stars from 10,000 to 30,000 Kelvin are the newborn blue stars. The reddest stars at the top right are very bright but actually the coldest temperatures. (but still very very hot compared to on Earth!)

Star 16, acrylic on paper 10x21cm (12"x16" framed)

In the world around us we think of hot things, burning things, as warm colours like red and yellows. The warm sun and sunlight is yellow. Fires are red. Hot metal is red. In contrast, ice and glaciers are blue. This are generalized interpretations. Instead of the psychological temperature we associate with colours in the world, colours in light are directly linked to their wavelength. And wavelength is temperature.

In light, blue is hotter than red. A red star is older and colder than a young hot blue star.
The challenge is to paint this light with non-light. To mix the colours but somehow retain that sense of brightness, the luminosity the starlight has. I need to get that light bouncing off the paint surface as if it were just emitting light itself. This means experiments with yellow sunlight, moonlight, and combining ranges of colours. So to paint a Main Sequence “white” star I actually worked from white to yellow to orange. To paint Betelguese, a red supergiant, I set the red against a dark halo of deep almost-black purple before it then blended into the blue sky. Equally “New Blue” takes the brilliant blue of stars but in paint I’m aiming for the clearly blue - without someone looking at it interpreting it as white light.

Buy why are new stars blue?

New Star, acrylic on canvas 30x30cm, SOLD

It’s simply their temperature. New stars have lots of mass because they’ve only just started burning the hydrogen in their core. Their massive amount of burning means a very high star temperature. In fact some burn so hot they’re ultraviolet, but we can’t see this “colour” so we see it as the next nearest wavelength - blue.

As hydrogen is used up in the star core, the star will start burning helium and creating carbon. The temperature of this reaction is lower, so the light wavelength changes - to white or yellow. When a star becomes a giant it has expanded to be larger and the reactions are also taking place at a lower temperature again, to a cooler red.

Next time you look at the night sky - keep an eye out for hints of blue and red alongside the white points of light.

The full book is available in limited quantities at www.grejczikgallery.com/art-shop/

Birthdays! and books

2016-07-04T11:53:00.001+01:00

Happy birthday to me! And Mort. And Nikola Tesla. And my brother. :) It's a month of birthdays and of course for my birthday I love getting books. Yesterday (my actual birthday) I spent the afternoon in the garden in front of the blazing chiminea with books.

So for this blog I thought I'd do a little book list for July. Mini book club!

First, yes there is an art book. Turner as Professor, published by Tate Gallery. It's the history of Turner's lectures on perspective at the Royal Academy. This is my "pick up" book in the studio - so I read it in little 15 minutes sessions. Maybe between paint layers. Or waiting for gesso to dry. Or just on a coffee break.

Next up is the book I just finished in the studio, because it's hard to resist a good geology book let alone a local geology book! The Floating Egg is about the history of the Yorkshire Coast geology by local author Roger Osborne.

Each morning I start the day with an hour of reading - straight out of bed, with coffee. It gets my brain going and focused. The current morning reading is Richard III and the Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir. The author signed my copy when she visited Scarborough during the annual Scarborough Books by the Beach book festival. :) My PGDip dissertation was about the textual differences in the different versions of Shakespeare's Richard III, so I have a bit of a soft spot for that subject.

My birthday garden reading did celebrate Tesla a little bit with these ridiculous (but good story!) comic books - Herald, Lovecraft and Tesla: History in the Making.

Casual reading has included catching up with some actual real H.P. Lovecraft short stories. My gallery featured some Lovecraft posters in the Monsters exhibition so as part of a giveaway I asked people to share their favourite story recommendation.

Last but not least is my end-of-day book. And this is a birthday book! My parents bought me the fourth book in the Terry Pratchett/Steven Baxter Long Earth series - The Long Utopia. This one was on the wishlist. Can't wait to start it tonight!

So there you go, now you know what I do inbetween paintings!

Fossil.... mushrooms?

2016-05-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

Last year, fellow artist Ian Gorton invited me to take part in an exhibition around the theme of mushrooms. Slightly out of my usual realm of landscape and geology! But I pondered this, as every artist does ponder every potential opportunity, and googled a lot.
Here is Ian's original concept theme:

"Mycelium (think mushroom “roots”) forms an underground network that connects between an individual tree and the Fungi exchanging nutrients and water. Recent research has shown that exchange between individual trees (via the mycelium) is also taking place, including the probability that mature trees are nurturing seedlings during their early growth years. The mycelium network has coined the phrase “Wood Wide Web” akin to the familiar World Wide Web. This basic idea I see as similar to the way many artists and creative people work, with the creative seeming to be the “trees” and acting individually; while below the surface ideas, inspiration, etc.. are passing intellectual and artistic “foods” between us all."

Now, of course artists can just do new work to a theme but I personally like all my work to stand together. That way it can be shown several times, mixed together with other drawings/paintings, and basically all fits together as "Tina Mammoser" artworks. So I had to find something that was already in my strands of work that might suit this theme.
The idea of fossil fungi appeared.

So... I drew fossil fungi. And then found mushrooms. Drawing the magnified parts of these there was a feeling of similarity to other fossils. Loping forms and enclosed "vesicles" were reminiscent of rounded forms of bivalves and pillow lavas. The networks of lines of growth eerily resemble the crystal growth formation I've found in limestone cannonball concretions. On a microscopic level there were growth patterns in circular patterns - again like crystals or even the spiral growth of ammonites.

Crystalised limestone concretion from a year ago, May 2015

So I focused on these patterns of lines that connected the fungi to geological structures creating new abstract fungal landscapes.

The works on paper and framed on board can be seen at:

Mycelium - eurika!

15 June - 16 July 2016

Private view (with nibbles!) 2-4pm Saturday 18th June

Apple Store Gallery
Unit 1 Rockfield Rd
Hereford HR1 2UA
applestoregallery.com
Group show featuring 8 artists exploring the theme of networks inspired by by fungi and trees in paintings, prints, ceramics, and even 3D printing.

The waves behind "Making Waves" - drawing practice

2016-04-12T09:00:00.000+01:00

Back in January I did a show in my Scarborough gallery called "Making Waves" - where I exhibited working drawings. Some large charcoal drawings alongside daily sketchbook wave drawings.

The premise behind mini exhibition was two-fold:

To show visitors a drawing practice - not just tidy perfect works intended for exhibitions.
To draw "live" in the gallery each open day and push myself to increase the sketchbook practices.

So I created over 30 drawings of waves in the sketchbook over 4 weekends. If you look at the entire series you might sense some trends. There are similarities in pattern and direction that repeat.

The reason for this is my actual daily drawing routine. I use a system adapted from the composition lessons of Arthur Wesley Dow (ps. here's a link to the 1914 book for free, on Project Gutenberg). He recommend a series of exercises exploring line, pattern and composition. My system is based on his lessons of repeating lines over and over and later cropping designs into squares. My adaption is simply that I moved away from traditional designs (though I still do find copying Japanese drawings useful for new ideas) and creating my own sea and water based designs.

One of the most important lessons that Dow gives is to repeat what is successful. Once you determine compositions that work this isn't an experimental process. It's about repeating the right lines so your hand and mind make them instinct.

So every day I first repeat simple straight lines. Then squares. Then my sea compositions. At least one page full of each.

At the moment I have 5 sea designs I practice, that are all based on the direction of water flowing in a wave. There are 5 little "cheat sheets" pinned to the studio wall so at a glance I can make sure I've practiced all of them.

From this basis it becomes easier to create new more complex drawings. It's like a framework or template to build on. Practice and familiarity with the forms gets a drawing started much quicker since I don't have to think about the starting lines - just decide what angle I'm viewing the wave from, put in those starter lines, then jump into the complex drawing knowing how the lines should flow from the studies. Those lines can shift, change, and get more detailed but my mind and hand already know the flow and direction that feels both real, like real waves move, and that make a good balanced image.

So a long gentle wave viewed from the left might become...

And the curves of waves viewed straight on becomes...

Have a look at the whole series of 30 "Making Waves" drawings on eBay where they are all currently for sale at auction. To fund more sketchbooks and pencils.

Night owl painter in daylight

2016-04-06T08:30:00.000+01:00

Last week I found an interesting article on the nature of morning people vs night people - but it went more into our natural cycles and how it’s actually genetic and hard to change.

Read the Vox Article on chronotypes here

Being self-employed I’m lucky because I can set my own schedule. That usually means about 12-12! But I’m still in continual argument with my brain.

Because as an artist I like to paint in read daylight. Much better for colour balance.

Sunshine!

But my brain doesn’t get revving up until the sunlight is starting to disappear. (because I’m possibly a vampire)

Moonlight!

I’m dreaming of the day I can just install a giant daylight panel on the ceiling and have perpetual daylight at my command.
Is someone working on that? I hope so.

Studio Tools and Zoo

2016-04-02T18:06:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago I did a series of Facebook posts of "studio porn" - and thought it'd be fun to gather it all in one place. Along with a small "studio animals" set.

Studio Porn

The tools of the trade...

The furry holder for the tools of the trade

Chickens and paint! (my painting apron)

FREEZE RAY! (for my hands)

For Science... charity shop find

The remains of the day - leftover paint goes in a plastic cup.

BONUS!

The Studio Zoo

Lesser spotted hippo

Highland coo feeling a bit blue

One of the many dinosaur fossil guardians

And of course we can't forget the actual real animal:
Mort the studio dragon!

Day 26 - New ideas

2016-02-26T13:39:00.001+00:00

Day 26 of 29: New castle cliff ideas!

For day 26 we're back to the sketchbook with some new concept for paintings. Revisiting the castle cliff today... the painting for Coastival didn't quite capture the layers of sandstone and the tilted layers in the section that has fallen to the bottom of the cliff. I really liked that odd contrast.

Sorry it's a bit dark! It looked much brighter on the iPad.

Day 25: Green, Gold and Blue

2016-02-25T09:30:00.000+00:00

Day 25 of 29 Days of Art for February!

Green, Gold and Blue
Acrylic on watercolour paper
Postcard size - 4"x6"

Day 24: Surf Left

2016-02-24T10:00:00.000+00:00

Day 24 of 29 Days of Art for February!

Surf Left!
Pencils and watercolour on cartridge paper, size 14cm x 21cm

Day 23: Surf Right

2016-02-23T10:00:00.001+00:00

Day 23 of 29 Days of Art for February!

Surf Right...
Pencils and watercolour on cartridge paper, size 14cm x 21cm

Day 22: Blues

2016-02-22T09:30:00.000+00:00

Day 22 of 29 Days of Art for February!

Blue sea, cliffs and sky of South Bay, Scarborough
Acrylic paint on watercolour paper
Postcard size - 4" x 6"