I've heard it said that artists are never completely happy with the final result of their efforts, and I think it must be true in my case at least. I find when I've "finished" a painting there's always something that I think could have been done a little better. But I also know that you can "fix" something worse than it was before, so you have to stop somewhere.
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As of this week I'll be working as a fire engineer for 2 to 3 days a week. This will cut into the painting time, but will bring in some much needed cash! I've finished another acrylic painting, see below. It is of the west coast just north of Raglan. 
I'm very pleased to report that the two paintings I submitted for the Peters Doig Marlborough art awards have been selected for the competition. The two paintings are "The Eyes Have It" and "Napier Headland", both of which can be seen on the Pastel page.
The exhibition opens on Saturday 19th May from 6 to 8 pm, and runs to 17th June, at the Yealands Estate Marlborough Gallery, 204 High St, Blenheim. Degas to Dali Last week I went to see the "Degas to Dali" exhibition of works from the National Galleries of Scotland. It's interesting to see paintings by the so-called "Masters", and I guess at the time they were done they were fairly radical and daring. But to be honest I found it to be fairly unexciting.
A major difference between acrylics and pastel is the time it takes. I've just finished the acrylic painting shown below and it took me close to three full days to do this. Maybe it will be faster when I get more used to the medium - it's still taking me quite a while to mix up the colours I need.
Back to landscapes for these two. The first is another in my Tararua Sunrise series - Number 3. This painting uses a limited palette of French Ultramarine, Green Ochre, Charcoal Grey and Titanium White. The sky was blocked in with Pan Pastel colours, then finished with soft pastel sticks. The background mountains were a mix of Pan Pastel dark ultramarine and pastel sticks.
A bit of progress today - not as much as I'd hoped, but still should be able to finish it tomorrow barring interruptions.
The outline drawing was a bit fiddly and took a while, then sorting out the colours for the distant hills was difficult. Finally settled on Davy's Grey with a dark brown blended in, and Green Ochre for the highlights. New Painting
Started a new painting, another Tararua sunrise with a slightly different perspective from the last one. Pastels Another painting finished today - "Tararua Sunrise".
The Tararua Range runs between the west coastal plains and the Wairarapa Valley in the lower North Island of NZ. So from the coastal side the sun rises behind the mountains, giving interesting colours and patterns of light and shade. This is what I have tried to capture in this painting. |
About Me
I'm a self taught artist, attempting to make a living from my art. This blog will include ramblings on any subject I feel like, hopefully mostly art related. Archives
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