Tuesday 24 January 2012

photoshoppery

photoshoppery is good for figuring out where the painting is going before committing paint to canvas. The next painting may resemble some of these



Saturday 21 January 2012

My current projects

In the summer I paint cows but in the winter my thoughts turn to old derelict Victorian buildings and memories of growing up in a small town dominated by large imposing redbrick breweries. This current series of paintings explores the nature of childhood memory overlain with information from old photographs and the experience of walking in places made unreal by the absence of remembered buildings. I work using the drippiness and layering of the paint to evoke a sense of lost places and the haunting nature of early memories.
This has a couple of problems.
Working with memories - each time I recall a place then look at old photos and go to that place now the memory becomes corrupted with new information. What did I remember and what am I finding out now? This project will have to be a short one while the memories remain.
Working with drippy paint - it looks easy slosh the paint on and let it drip. And sometimes it is. But it's really nerve racking getting the right consistency of paint, waiting till just the right dryness to  rub off the drips to the paint below or overpainting again. And it's phenomenally profligate with the paint.
I'm writing this now while waiting for the paint to dry on this - still unfinished needs more layers.

Thursday 5 January 2012

paintings don't always turn out as expected


I really wasn't expecting this painting to turn out like this. It is the next in my old brewery buildings series, and I expected it to be more layered, more collage-like, more full of buildings and much less an image of the river. But it's definitely not finished yet. I shall probably get rid of the right-hand side in some way

old brewery buildings

Deserted old redbrick solid massive Victorian brewery buildings - I feel they should look spooky and brooding but when I photographed them they just look dreary and uncared for. Time for some photoshop.