Anglesey Arts Weeks Open Studios Countdown Video
Anglesey Arts Weeks Open Studios Countdown Video Read More »
The Anglesey Arts Weeks Open Studios Guide is now available as a pdf. There are loads of exciting artists opening their studios across Anglesey so lots to see and do. Download it quick whilst stocks last!
AAW Open Studios Guide Read More »
I’m excited to be participating in the Anglesey Arts Forum Open Studios 2018. The festival runs from Saturday 24th March until Sunday 8th April, and features a number of very talented artists from across the Island, so please put the dates in your diary. Why not make a day of it and come and see as many of us as you can?!
More exciting details to follow, so please share as widely as you can!
Anglesey Arts Forum Open Studios 2018 Read More »
The Association of Anglesey Art Club Biennial Exhibition ended yesterday, so I’ve just been to collect my submissions and was thrilled to learn that the two paintings above sold. Together with Jenny Armour, I also won a ‘special award for an exceptional body of work’ in the People’s Choice, so I just wanted to say a big ‘Thank you!’ to all those who voted!
My thanks to all the hard working ladies and gentlemen of the AAAC Committee who organised the exhibition, as well as to Oriel Ynys Mon for hosting it.
AAAC Exhibition Sales and Award Read More »
The judges for the the Association of Anglesey Art Clubs Exhibition were kind enough to select the six recent paintings and drawings above (including the significantly reworked triptych, ‘Up and Down South Stack Steps’) for the exhibition. It’s now open in the Oriel Ynys Môn in Llangefni until 4th March 2018. There is some fantastic work on display by many talented artists from Anglesey and the surrounding area, so it’s a great way to spend an hour! Why not drop in and take a look?
Work Selected for the AAAC Exhibition in Oriel Ynys Môn Read More »
The following paintings are on display in the Art for All Exhibition in the Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead until Tuesday 5th September 2017.
Art for All Exhibition in the Ucheldre Centre Holyhead Read More »
Yay! Someone kindly bought my painting ‘The Inland Sea Pontrhydybont New Year’s Day 2017’ from the Island Art Group Exhibition in Beaumaris last Saturday (for which ‘Thank you!’) so I hope this post isn’t a bad idea, but I thought it might be interesting to show the development process the painting went through…
Here’s a photo from one of my visits there just so you can get a feel for it if you haven’t seen it.
I’ve always loved that particular view of the Island Sea when the mill and Holyhead Mountain are picked out against the sky by the sun. If the tide is right, a variety of water birds (e.g. herons, little egrets, various ducks and waders) make the most of the exposed banks in the middle of the Inland Sea, and standing there listening to their calls and painting is like trying to paint a little piece of heaven, so I’ve been returning to this spot on and off for ages.
I painted the following version ‘en plein air’ (which, I believe, is French for painting outdoors whilst getting sunburned and receiving funny looks from passersby). As you can see from the photo above, a fair bit of artistic license has been used to try and fit the key elements into the composition.
At the time, I was really taken by how the water seemed to be as smooth as glass in certain parts and yet still have a slight sense of movement from the gentle tide in others, providing interest and texture as well as changes in reflections and colours in the water, depending on where and when I was looking.
I then worked on recreating the painting on canvas over a number of weekends in my ‘studio’ (spare bedroom) to try and encapsulate how I felt about it, as evidenced by the following gif (made with gifmaker.me).
On standing in the studio recalling the experience of being ‘on location’ painting it, the main things I remembered were the bright sunlight making the fragmented reflections look like a stained glass window, and the contradictory sense of stillness and movement, so I was very keen to try and replicate those in the finished painting.
This fragmented approach also brought to mind a quote by Maurice Dennis (BrainyQuote.com):
Remember that a painting – before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.
Maurice Dennis
As someone who is particularly interested in describing clearly delineated physical forms, volumes and planes in finite spaces, I find it an especially difficult challenge working out how to represent the enormous empty spaces and distances involved in landscapes, so this stained glass window approach using flattened colour shapes provided a way for me to try and address that.
I just hope that one of the previous iterations doesn’t appear to be better than the finished version!
(For info, for those that haven’t been to Pontrhydybont, just out of the picture to the left is ‘Four Mile Bridge’ bridge itself which is responsible for the cast shadow across the water and land, brought further into the picture for compositional reasons…)
Inland Sea painting development Read More »
Just to mention that the Island Art Group Exhibition starts tomorrow Saturday 27th May 2017. It’s being held at the David Hughes Centre, Beaumaris and is open between 10am and 5pm ending Friday 9th June.
There’s a great selection of work on display from members of the group, including the following 5 pieces by me, so why not drop in and have a look if you’re in the area?
Island Art Group Exhibition at the David Hughes Centre, Beaumaris Read More »
Thanks to a very generous invitation from Stuart Burne (seen in the photo below with 3 of the pieces) and the kind folks at the Roadking Truckstop Cafe in Holyhead, the following 5 pieces of work are on display for public viewing for the next couple of months, so why not drop in and have a look if you’re in the area? More details of the pieces can be seen in my shop as well as in any related articles at the bottom of this post.
Exhibition of Work at the Roadking Truckstop Cafe, Holyhead Read More »
Below are the 8 pictures accepted by the Association of Anglesey Art Clubs for their recent Exhibition in Oriel Ynys Mon. ‘Still Life – The Death of Painting’ received a commendation.
Oriel Ynys Mon Exhibition Entries Update Read More »