The Story Behind the Art

Still Waters Run Deep

2011-11-15T17:03:00.000Z

Still Waters Run Deep.

I have a number of palettes of colour that sing for me. I have a great many friends that make me feel happy. I have a number of people who I consider just a bit more than friends and I have some very special people in my life. This makes me a very very fortunate person. The world is full of sad and lonely people and my heart bleeds for them, because there is nothing worse in life than to feel alone.

There are times in the year where this becomes so much more poignant.

Today I was thinking at a depth that makes you feel such friends. How I wanted to capture the thoughts and the emotions. I tried to do so by using my favourite colours. This is what happened.

Still waters run very deep indeed and love touches every wave of feeling.

It Seems Ages Since I Was Here

2011-11-02T07:36:00.000Z

It seems ages since I sat down to write either of my blogs. As I look back my most recent posts it seems that at that time my paintings were selling well. This has continued to be the case. Yesterday I was back at my easel and produced two paintings I was hoping to enter into a gallery exhibition next week. I was feeling good that I was back to the fore mission accomplished.

Las night I sat down to have some quiet time in front of the television. I checked my emails on my IPad only to discover that another of my works had sold from a website I put it on last week. So today back to the easel. One of yesterdays paintings will have to go and replace the one now sold. It is heading off to the south of England.

I will show you one of the new ones and the one that has sold today and maybe tomorrow the other one that I did with an interesting little thought about the production of similar works of art.

I have been managing to read some of your ongoing and wonderful blogs and really have missed being here and sharing with you.

At present I am beginning to believe that I just might be an artist. it seems people want to own my art.

The painting at the head is the new one. the Below is the one that has just sold.

Hope to speak to more of you soon.

Love Along The Coast on a Rainy Day.

2011-10-06T17:00:00.001+01:00

Love Along The Coast on a Rainy Day

This was just a very fast painting to keeping me out of the way of the heating engineer who was trying to fix my boiler. As you know I spend a lot of time along the coastal paths where I live. I therefore spend much time drawing in the atmosphere of the place rather than trying to depict just what I see.

Now and again I catch those little intimate moments. A couple standing in the rain under an umbrella what can be more romantic? I ask you for real.

Done on a small box canvas and painted over the edges.

This painting like another recent painting of mine sold within five minutes of appearing on Facebook. Sometimes I just seem to do something right.

2011-09-30T16:13:00.000+01:00

Life Moves Ever Onward

I have to say that I get so angry, well unhappy that only those who have art degrees or art qualifications seem to be the artists of worth. I visited an art gallery recently where I paid a considerable amount to enter and I cannot say I was a t all impressed by what I saw. Yet this artist was rated because she had an art degree. Not one single work of hers made me interested. Now that just might be me.

I have been fortunate to have sold a number of works but will I ever be considered an artist? I suspect not. This is my latest work of not art. I like it and hope you do also.

Toward The East They Looked.

2011-09-28T10:49:00.000+01:00

Toward The East They Looked

Yes it looks very similar to the painting I sold within five minutes of painting it just the other day. But I just could not get the idea out of my head, and the more I looked at the blue version the more I saw yet another thought and another view of the idea. I still feel there might even be another version in green but who knows.

I though hard and hard about painting this second version but then many artists down through history have returned to a subject again and again. Monet painted so many lotus ponds. I know why they did it, not because they thought they were good at it, I think it was because their heads were full of further ways of saying the same thing.

So I do not feel I have cheated at all by giving this another try. I had a painting that I was never happy with from the day I painted it. The canvas board it was painted on already had the base colours there if I painted it over. So two birds with one stone really, the old has gone and new is with me.

I would love to hear what you think of what I have done. Please do not be afraid to tell me if you think I am being less than honest in my reasons.

The Moments That Make Dreams

2011-09-27T10:00:00.002+01:00

The Moments That Make Dreams

There are days when you open you just realise how fortunate you are. When things just go well, or you realise how much you are blessed with good friends. For the artist these days are often linked closely to how the art is progressing. I began to realise this yesterday when I read the email I received from a friend. The email was saying that the person had not really realised how well off they were. It went something like this.

I am so rich, Silver in the Hair, Gold in the teeth. Crystals in the kidneys and sugar in the blood. Lead in the ass and iron in the arteries, and an inexhaustible supply of natural gas. I never thought I could accumulate such wealth.

Anyway back to the serious stuff of yesterday. I was looking at some pictures of marathons I had run. As I looked I noticed this group of people standing behind the finish line. They were not looking at the finishers. I started to ask myself, what are they saying, what are they thinking and doing. As I thought a picture came to my mind.

I had already started working on a canvas board but was very unhappy with the progress I was making and had washed it off. I went back to the task with my mind now full of new thoughts. Using Platho Blue and White I painted what I could see clearly in my mind.

What appeared on the canvas board was not exactly what I had in my eye but it was very close. I had only used the two colours and I felt it was ok. I took a picture of it while it was still wet. I put a copy of it on Art Wanted and I posted it on my FaceBook page.

Within minutes of it appearing on Facebook I had been made a solid offer for the work. Obviously a person who knows just what they like. This person now owns two of my works. The first was purchased two years ago but I can see the similarities of thought in both works and I feel sure they will fit in the same home.

I was feeling pleased and to add the sugar to the icing I got an email just ten minutes later saying somebody had made my painting a pic of the day.

I never knew I was so rich as the story above says.

Hope you are all well.

I Remember Days

2011-09-20T08:32:00.000+01:00

I Remember Days

I heard a song that reminded me of days spent both as a youth and in the past. Summer days with summer thoughts. I cannot even remember the name of the song or the singers, I heard it as the backing song on an advertisement. Yet this snippet of song made me think.

My thinking was not of the days spent with other people, the games played or the moments shared. Rather it was about happy times of peace and quiet in places that I was alone and yet at peace. Solitary moments, happy moments. Most of those were in times of holidays and warm places.

I had many thoughts of how I could express this and in the end this was what came of the thinking. When the colours were there before me this was what happened.

I painted this first as a little acrylic on a sheet of acrylic paper and put it in a little mount ( Matt). MY friends who shared it with me all said the same as I was feeling, they liked it but could not say why.

Yesterday I got bold and painted it on a large canvas board 16" x 20" The scale meant making some small changes. Does it work? I am not sure, but i have put it in a nice black and silver frame and put it behind glass and each time I pass it and look at it I do feel some sense of peace. That is actually something, because right now I am in considerable pain, from what i do not know, and for a painting to bring some peace and comfort is saying something.

Memories of Summer ( The Small Version of the Painting Above.)

Where Do You Go To My Lovely ( Canvas Version)

2011-09-15T13:27:00.000+01:00

Where Do You Go To My Lovely ( Canvas Version)

A customer liked my painting of the above name but expressed an interest in having the painting on canvas rather than on acrylic paper and behind glass.

This being a theme of painting I have enjoyed so much playing with it was exciting to have another reason to try yet another version of this work.

I painted it on a box canvas round the edges. The customer and her husband seem pleased with it. So another painting now hangs on another wall I hope enhancing the lives of those who see it.

Tortured Cityscape

Yesterday seemed a good day in terms of art sales. I also sold my abstract painting Tortured Cityscape. This painting is going to a home where at least another two of my paintings already hang.

It is nice when somebody purchases a work of art that you created but there is something very special when more than one work hangs with the same owner.

The Calm Before The Storm ( Heading Home)

2011-09-13T13:42:00.000+01:00

The Calm Before. ( Heading For Home)

This painting was painted after a run along the Fife Coastal Path. It was one of those atmospheric days that you cannot describe the power of an oncoming storm. The dark colours of the sky, the sea as yet still calm but the first hints of the wind rising. Boatmen and women head for the safety of shore and the birds head for the safety of a roost.

On the day I finished painting this I took it to show my friend. On my way home I was stopped by a young lady who asked about it and offered to purchase. It is an amazing feeling when a work just done has touched the heart of somebody else. My friend made the comment that he thought it was one of the best seascapes I had painted, if not the best.

The painting is on a large box canvas 40" x 20" so I hope it will make a beautiful statement somewhere and bring pleasure and thought in the years to come.

Abstract in Blue

2011-08-31T12:44:00.000+01:00

Abstract in Blue.

I was out purchasing art materials when two small canvas caught my eye. A friend recently told me she was painting some miniatures, when I saw these canvas I just could not resist buying them and having a try at painting small.

My first love as you all know is to paint abstract. When I do I get so involved in the artwork. I use everything lying around. My fingers, knives and yes forks and even my credit card. The one thing I seldom use is a brush. I tend to splash paint around and add texture.

Now I challenge you to try this at this small size. The canvas is 7" x 10" maybe not real miniature size, but for me miniscule. I once before was challenged to paint using more blue than I would normally use so I thought I would use the same ideas as I did then for this abstract work.

I put the original work on my website and it is very very tempting to go and compare them but I am just not going to do that. I will post it on here and then I have somebody in mind to give this small canvas to. I just so hope it brightens that persons life just a little on a few days in the future.

I hope this post finds all those who read it, well and feeling good.

Where Do You Go To My Lovely

2011-08-17T09:39:00.000+01:00

Where Do You Go To My Lovely

How often music seems to influence my thoughts and my art. A song catches my mind as I run and for days it is there in the back of my mind.

For the last few days I have been thinking of the song from the 60s with the first line, "Where do you go to my lovely when your alone in your bed. Tell me the thoughts that surround you. I want to get inside your head.'

So often this ends with me putting something on a canvas or sheet of paper. Such was the case yesterday with the painting above.

I am aware that it is similar in style to some of the works I have done before. I do not apologise that this is the case. Somebody reminded me that Monet painted a great many different versions of his lilly pond paintings.

Most of the other similar paintings to this have been done large scale. This one is done on acrylic paper and kept to a size that with the mount is 16" x 20".

This blog is linked to my other. What Ever happened To Good Old Service?

The Path To Enlightenment..

2011-08-11T09:25:00.000+01:00

The Path To Enlightenment.

I suppose I had to try and paint something to do with Buddhist Monks or Shaolin Taoist Monks to be more accurate. Having attended a very moving show II have found myself constantly thinking about my own path, the journey already made and that which I hope still lies beyond.

I see this painting as part of that. When we are young and full of the colours of youth it is easy to think that we know it all, there is little to learn. Before us are those who have already travelled the road to various stages. These are the ones who know that there is always much to learn. Those who, in some cases , have forgotten more than we have yet learned.

I think of the many paths I walked with those I learned from and hoped that I could yet impart some of the learning.

But no matter how far along the path we have travelled it is still possible to walk in the footsteps of the stranger and learn even more.

Now to the painting. I am not at all sure about the worth of this as an art form. I may keep it for a bit and then paint over it. It is often the case that the value of the work is in the canvas and not the paint. It is also in the learning experience and not the art.

This blog is linked to my other. Lets Make A Good Job Of It.

The Mirage

2011-08-10T09:48:00.000+01:00

The Mirage

For some time now I have looked at this painting on my living room wall. It is not very often that my wife suggests that one of my own paintings should adorn the walls of our home, our tastes are so different.

Strangely, this was in fact a second version this work. The first one my son took to hang in his workspace. When he moved to his won office it was brought home and hangs in his house. At the point my wife said she had thought it would be nice in our living room.

At the time I put it on a website and had forgotten to take it off. Last week it sold. It is now hanging in a dining in Somerset in England. I hope it brings much joy to its new owners and that it stimulates much discussion round the dining table. We were glad to have had it for a time, but even more happy that it may bring joy to others.

It means I now have another of my paintings hanging where it has gone from.

I realised as I came home from my run this morning and saw the new work, how lucky artists are that we can surround ourselves with images that bring us joy.

This blog is linked to my other. Before We Try To Change The World !!

I Don’t Like Mondays

2011-08-03T09:10:00.000+01:00

I Don’t Like Mondays

I was feeling terrible first thing on Monday morning. I awoke with a terrible headache and a fever. Try as hard as I could I had no energy and really did not want to do anything other than sit and feel sorry for myself. As the day progressed I felt no better but thought that I could not just sit about all day doing nothing. I headed through to my painting space and poured some paint.

I had been thinking about the Mondays of my youth. The school days! After a good weekend remembering how terrible it was to have to go back into school on Monday.

Then there were the times when I spent the summer holidays with my Gran. Monday was her day to have the communal washhouse. She lived in a tenement building. At the back there was a large pole. Strung from this pole to each of the houses back window was a rope pulley system. My Gran would lean out the back window and hang her clothes on this rope and pull it until the clothes were out between the pole and the window, where they caught the wind.

At the bottom of the garden was a washhouse with a large boiler with a coal fire underneath. The clothes were boiled in this with some of the soap powder from a little box. I even remember it was , “Akdo.” It took her most of the day to accomplish this washing. An event. What it meant was that on Mondays she an I did nothing much else.

So I heard again the song, by the, Boomtown Rats, “I Don’t Like Mondays.

So this abstract came from these thoughts. Painted on acrylic paper with acrylic paint. Most of it was painted using my fingers. I hope you can see all the things I was thinking, especially the line from the song that says, “I want to shoot the whole day down.”

This blog is linked to my other. The Toils of getting old.

Crosswords

2011-07-20T12:33:00.000+01:00

Crosswords.

Holiday is for me, times to relax, to run and walk, visit new places, read and do crosswords. It is also a time to meet new people and to enjoy a new culture.

It was while relaxing and doing a crossword that the thoughts for this abstract began to emerge. I have always loved the play with words and how they can have so many different meanings, strange really considering that while a boy I found reading and writing very, very difficult. I love the thoughts that words paint in the mind. I have always loved philosophy, and the way it makes you think beyond the obvious.

So I was doing a crossword, then I was thinking, cross words. So the first level of this painting is simply the play of the words you see on the canvas.

The second level came from the fact that a Crossword is a game. I added the word game and the name of a game I often play. This painting plays games, on this level. It also plays games on at least another two levels that I leave you the viewer to find.

It is an abstract you will love or hate. I suspect there will be no middle ground.

I would like to hear your thoughts though. I promise to catch up on all the blogs I read very soon.

This blog is linked to my other. Listen before Speaking

The Summer Come The Summer Goes ( The making of an Abstract)

2011-06-23T16:01:00.000+01:00

How hard I tried to find out how to put words onto a painting without the hard slog . At last I seem to have found a way of doing it. So before heading off on holiday I leave you this.

I am not sure what you will think of it but it has made me think of all the things I might do in the future.

I will be reading blogs while on holiday but unable to comment so sorry

Hope you are all well thinking of you all,

Hope you like .

At The Going Down of the Sun

2011-06-16T10:25:00.000+01:00

At The Going Down of the Sun

I have not painted very much in the last few weeks and what I have painted I have not been 100% happy with. Then of course like so many of us I never am. I had once again got to the point where I was allowing all the other things I do fill my days rather than head to the paint room and get on with it.

Last week I decided I could not pretend any longer. I decided to have a try at something I had not done for a long time. In truth I was trying to break out of the normal abstract mindset I seemed to have been caught up in.

SO I painted this seascape. Now please do not say it is good. It is not terrible enough for me to bin but it does have its little corners that could so easily have been better. It was different for me and that was enjoyable. I had to take my time concentrate on my subject and paint something that was recognisable as a place. It was a good exercise for me and I share with you the finished work.

It has not stopped me from painting, or desiring to paint abstract but it has got me back into the paint room. Yesterday I ventured forth again and experimented with mixing poetry with art. I am not sure as yet if I will show it here but I am happy that I have managed something I did not know how to do before. More importantly I am back and painting again.

I look forward to now finding time to make comment again on the blogs of my many friends.

This blog is linked to my other. Is It So Difficult To Be Honest.

Skins For Gadgets.

2011-06-01T09:36:00.000+01:00

Skins For Gadgets.

As you all probably already know I am an IT Geek. I just have never been able to resist the latest gadgets and gizmos. At the present moment each time I leave the house I make a check that I have remembered to pack into my shoulder bag the following. My MP3 Player, IPad2, Smartphone and my Kindle.

It has always been this way, the one real stumbling block from my ever becoming a fully enlightened Buddhist. My family continually ask me how the fight over the desire for technology is progressing? Each time the answer is the same. “Have you seen this latest piece of electronic wonder?”

The other day there I saw that it was possible to have a lovely gel skins made to cover all of the gadgets I have. I looked at all the possible designs and only one really caught my eye. I went to the website of the company and discovered I could have them made in my own design.

It was so easy to do, and I enjoyed the time it took. I used one of my artworks that had sold on the day I painted it. Although sold I still have the copyright. It was a painting I had liked the moment it was finished. So although it is sold I will be able to enjoy it each time I take my Kindle out to continue reading my book in progress.

I should explain the Kindle is an eBook reader.

Today’s artwork here and on my other blog is a screen shot of what the kindle will look like once I have encased it in its protective skin. Below I have added another example, this time of my latest painting. My daughter likes this painting very much so I have decided to have a skin made for her using it.

Some of you might be interested in this. Watch this space for the on-going story.

This blog is linked to my other. Becoming a Butterfly

Summer Dreams - The Journey.

2011-05-26T12:10:00.000+01:00

Summer Dreams

Amidst the chaos and the grime,

Of growing land.

And muddy slime.

Lies the thoughts of days to come.

With summer sun ,

Will come the glow.

Of blooms and plants.

Nurtured in the gnarled hand,

Of gardeners palm.

His thoughts his hopes

of what will be .

When he and nature are as one

in harmony.

The colours, hearts will lift.

And fill with dreams of love that is and yet to blossom,

In the warmth of days.

Oh summer dreams my heart you fill.

And make me long soar

On wings of song

As in your beauty

Deep I lie.

And wonder at the tales ,

of summer sky.

I think of places I have seen

And those I have yet to

And journeys made

And yet to be.

Oh Summer Dreams.

This blog is linked to my other. Life Is full of Hard Knocks

The Summer Knows

2011-05-18T09:11:00.002+01:00

The Summer Knows

I have had summer days of many years

And wandered midst the greens and reds.

I have seen birds soar in delight

As fledglings took flight

I have blown dandelion clocks

And watched the time float on summer breeze.

I have made daisy chains

With the jewels of summer flowers.

I have watched butterflies flutter

And brighten the bright blue skies

And tasted the joy of fruiting trees

I have listened to the music of the bees

As they buzz on daily chore

I see them now with inner eye

And feel them in my heart.

The summer knows the joy it brings

And make my heart rejoice

And forward on the path I go

To find what summer my way will throw

The things I love and the lessons learned

As ever onward I daily go.

This blog is linked to my other Oh To Be Perfect.

Winter is not the End

2011-05-15T11:22:00.000+01:00

Winter Is Not The End.

This is my latest sale. There are some abstracts that from the minute you finish them you know they have expressed exactly what it was you were feeling at the time, this was one such one for me.

I painted this is a palette of colours that I am not in the habit of using and yet I saw this abstract long before I was able to put it on paper.

It had interest shown in it from the first day I hung it so I guess I am not surprised that it sold just the other day there.

It is now becoming a very humbling experience for me the number of sales of art I have been blessed with. I have a real desire to be able to say to friends that I am an artist. Let me just explain that. When asked what I do I now and then say to the person that I am an artist. The minute I say it I usually feel uncomfortable and go on to explain.

One day I will lose this feeling and will maybe accept that I have reached that place. Each sale like this one helps along that road.

I am kind of sorry to see this painting go and yet I have met and know the purchaser and I am sure his wife is going to be over the moon when he takes it home for her, he has told me she has wanted it from day one.

This painting is the kind of thing I am talking about and hinting at in my other blog.

The Spider

Two Paintings I Hope Are Now Sold.

2011-05-10T12:24:00.000+01:00

There are times when you think you have made a sale and for one reason or another the sale does not happen. This was the case with this painting and the one on my other blog.

I was approached by a person who asked me if I could mark these two as sold and he would pay me very soon. I did as he asked. A few days later I took them down and replaced them with two others. I left the two for him to collect.

A month later they were still there so I thought he had changed his mind. I took them and hung them elsewhere. The other day there he saw me and asked, rather upset why I had not sold them to him. I explained what had happened.

So all is now sorted the paintings are at last sold and he and I are I hope both happy.

This blog is linked to my other. The Old Man and The Artist

Gone But Still Around

2011-05-04T11:11:00.000+01:00

Gone But Still Around

It had lived and died and here it lay

Washed up on the shore along the bay

Grotesque yet full of beauty.

Faces of horror

Shaped by time and sea.

A mother holds child

A lover her desire.

Somewhere the years had passed

And wanderers had shelters neath her bough.

But time it's toll had taken

As the bell of death had pealed.

Fallen and cast adrift

To stand as sentinel for me.

How oft we feel we have no more

To offer to the world

Yet still this tree it message sings

And lifts it's heart to me

The mother the lover snake and ram

Each I saw as they saw me.

No more I fret of years gone by

And on my journey go

With love to give and love receive

The tree my heart has filled.

There is beauty all around

And love in thee and me.

This blog is linked to my other. Gone but still Around

Enfolding Love.

2011-04-27T11:41:00.000+01:00

Enfolding Love.

I wandered empty paths

And tramped ore’ lonely dales.

The hands of time moving ever onward

As the sun chased the clouds across the sky.

The tramp of foot echoed the beat of heart.

Enveloped in natures bliss.

Alone was I on path and life

And felt the desolation.

But each little bloom of daffodil

And celandine

Smiled my way to cheer me down the miles.

I saw a tree majestic.

Head reaching high to catch the racing clouds.

As I walked, it stood

And held me in its its grasp.

Down through the years

On sentry stood.

I saw the rocks

Beneath its feet

Its roots embraced and held on tight

Caressing in love

Protecting each other.

Deep Enfolding Love.

Life moves ever onward

The path of life on forward march

The journey could be full of fear

But to know that love enfolds,

chases every tear.

To be held by one

In deep enfolding love

Makes the step grow light

And the way a path of joy.

This blog is linked to my other. Try Again

Cat On The Prowl

2011-04-21T08:33:00.000+01:00

This painting was one of my first attempts at painting a tiger. The tiger is an animal that hold me in its grip. Such power and beauty. It makes me so sad when I hear how they are year by year decreasing in number.

This painting was one with a story behind it. I hung this pastel painting in one of the inns I hang in. A young man told me that his wife was in love with this painting and he was determined to purchase it for her. Every time I saw him he asked me not to sell it until he had enough money to buy it.

Sadly with all the greatest of intentions he would save some money and then he would have a day when he would spend it all as a customer of the inn. I knew that he was not in a well paid job and that having this bit extra was a great temptation to him.

I thought and thought about it. I offered to let him pay me in very small instalments and reduced what I was asking to the cost of the framing. I only ever got one very small payment.

I decided to give up. I replaced it on the wall with another of my paintings, wrapped it up and sent it home to his wife.

I never ever did find out if he told her he got it for almost nothing but I do know she was very pleased to have it.

She has had it for a few years now and says it still makes her happy.

This blog is linked to my other. Chasing one thing after another.