Recent Moodscapes and Abstracts

I have recently returned to watercolour wet into wet work and have really enjoyed moving between landscape inspired moodscapes and purely abstract pieces. There's a great freedom in mixing a range of colours and tones, wetting your paper and launching in with no clear idea of how the painting is going to look. Here are some of them...

Rossendale Art Trail

We had a great time opening up our home in sync with the Rossendale Art Trail this weekend, met some of our neighbours, fellow artists exhibiting at the church opposite and managed to sell a decent amount of work. Here's a piece that was well liked at the exhibition:

Recent Work

I visited Hebden Bridge open studios last weekend and really enjoyed the 'artistic vibe' that was going on there. At the end of the day, I came across an artist called Anna Gibson whose work was just the kind of work that I am striving towards - on the line between landscape and abstraction and very evocative. So I was inspired to come back to the studio and continue working towards this goal. Only one or two of the images that I produced were anywhere close to that line but the others had value in their own right I think. Sometimes I have to allow myself to go through a transition from the realistic painter that I have been previously, to the semi-abstract painter that I hope to be. Here are the small pieces which are mostly oil paintings with a couple of acrylics as well.

 

View from the Studio Door

I have been reading a book called 'The View from the Studio Door' which is about how artists find their way in an uncertain world. It has made me reflect upon why I paint and what matters to me as an artist. Initially, I wrote this in my journal and shared it with some of my students at s o u l s p a c e art studio. They encouraged me to 'put it out there' in some way and so I decided to begin with my blog. Rather than putting it on this page, I decided to create another page 'About my Work' so that it can stay there and remind me. Please select the tab for the page (above) or in your menu to take a look.

Four moodscape prints sold through Longitude Gallery

I received an early Easter present last week with the sale of the following prints from Longitude gallery in Clitheroe. I'm heading over there this week to take them a small collection of original moodscapes to display in the gallery. The prints meanwhile have headed down to their new home in Kent - it's all good:)

Misty Moorland

Evening Glow

 Quiet Sea

Colours of Autumn

Updated Website

I've been working on this website for the last couple of days, adding the 'Seascapes' and 'Happenings' pages and tweaking my information generally. Please have a good 'rummage' around in the site to find any hidden Gems!

s o u l s p a c e art studio bliss

There are days when I feel like God is in his heaven and all is well with the world. This week's workshops in s o u l s p a c e were like that. As theologian Frederick Buechner once said 'Our calling is where our greatest gladness and the world's hunger meet'

Artutor - Final Filming Day

My last day of filming for the Landscape Sketching Course went really well, I think. I produced 4 final Landscape Sketches, bringing some of the elements of landscape sketching together from the programme and adding one or two new ones in. You can take a look at arttutor by following my link on the online tutorials page (Click the tab at the top of this page or in the menu on your mobile). If you decide to subscribe through this link, arttutor kindly pay me an affiliates fee - every little helps! Hope you like these:

Trees in Landscape for Arttutor.com

I had a fairly intensive day of sketching and describing for arttutor.com in Liverpool yesterday. hopefully when Jon has done his editing, the tutorials will make sense. I was fairly satisfied with the sketches I did though - looking at trees in the landscape...