Great Blue Heron painting

Been struggling with this little painting of a great blue heron in the Florida everglades. Been through a few different stages.

STAGE 1

I started with the water using acrylic paint and turquoise blue acrylic ink sprayed with water to create runs. I then painted in the bird. Felt it needed something more at this point so I kept going. Splashed on some prussian blue wash around the bird to deepen the contrasts. 

Spattered in some bright green highlights to the water (using toothbrush and whipping a small headed brush through the air), then added some more highlights and detail to the body and head of the bird - trying to get the shape more right - and finally added some suggestions of waterside foliage to put the bird in a little more context. 

 

At this point, although I had planned to add some larger leaves to the foreground I decided to leave them out for the time being. Left the painting for a couple of days. Went back into studio and thought - actually it might be finished... But then the next day decided it did need something more in foreground, but not leaves. Going back to the original photographic source material I decided to add some sticky stalks to the left of the bird, to give more of the feeling of the bird wading through the grassy Everglades.  

The finished piece. I really loved seeing these birds up close in the wild, and hope that this painting does this lovely feathery guy justice.  The final painting is  29 x 39.5cm  and is destined for the Paperwork 2 show I am taking part in, in August (part of Edinburgh Fringe 2015).

Performance Costume Design at ECA Degree Show

Went to Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show yesterday. Some interesting stuff but as always my favourite section was the theatre costume design (even though I'm a painter!)

 

 

 

This Grasshopper outfit looked really great close up. My photo doesn't do it justice. Big sticky out tail at the back!

                                         (The hanging black thing is a swimming fish!)

 

 

All very creative and inspiring. Especially since I'm useless with a sewing machine...

 

Artist's Block aargh!

Been suffering with artist's block for a couple weeks or so. Probably result of the final push to get my last painting finished before my end of year assessment at Edinburgh Art college.  Have found that the book "Art & Fear" by D Bayles and Ted Orland is always helpful at such times and so been reading it again. Can highly recommend it for all artists, whatever stage they feel they are at in their artistic lives.  

Anyway, finally got my self going again and have launched into some new small paintings inspired by my holiday to Florida Everglades in  February. Have decided to try and capture the fun of me and my family experiencing all the cool wildlife and natural surroundings there.  

Also been restudying the work of two well-known Scottish artists I admire - Joan Eardley (for her paintings of Glasgow street children) and Barbara Rae (for her use of bright colours in the landscape). Love this blue gouache painting of the kids hanging out the window.

New blog resolution - post more!

Hi Blogger World,
I'm hoping to make my blog a bit more informative, and more regularly updated, from now on. 
I've been doing a lot of painting since Christmas and am hoping to keep up the pace. Here is one I finished last week - ~It's called "White Shoes" (Acrylic on canvas, 1m x 1.2m approx.). It's part of a body of work I've been doing concentrating on young trampolinists in training.  

For anyone out there who paints themselves and is interested in how images come about, this one is based on the following photo collage I created in Photoshop (from three separate photos of three different trampolinists jumping, at different times):

Wall Drawing Fun

Have had a very busy time this last week. I spent two enjoyable days making a giant wall drawing with my student colleague Kirstin Johnston. We worked organically to incorporate my drawings of jumping trampolinists with Kirstin's nature drawings. The final work seemed to achieve the sense of flowing movement we were trying to capture. Neither of us had ever done a wall drawing before and it was a great experience. (Need to rest my arms before doing another one though...) 

Kirstin against the blank wall!
 

Getting Started
 

Cracking on

Ta da!

 

 

"Paperwork" Exhibition, at Edinburgh Ski Club

Macmillan Art Exhibition & Sale 2014

I just got back from delivering the below two pieces to the Macmillan Art Show "INSPIRED!" 2014, at Bonhams Auctioneers, Queen Street, Edinburgh. "Rhododendron Joy" can be seen on their show website at www.macmillanartshow.org.uk. Fifty per cent of the sale proceeds for these pieces will go to Macmillan Cancer Care.

Full Bloom

 

 

Rhododendron Joy