South Downs: 2

I've done some more work on the three landscape paintings that I started the other day.



This one's got some definition, but it still needs more.



This one has more definition too, and there is a sense of distance emerging.



This one's still loose in the foreground, but oops, those cliffs are already too realistic. I don't want this to end up like every other picture of the Seven Sisters.

Landscape patterns: 1

Another linocut, combining multiple images. Trying to extract the abstract patterns of the landscape. Some of the sections within this picture work for me: there's enough naturalism to make them look like landscape, and enough abstraction so that the landscape isn't the first thing you see. But it's a fine balancing point: some of the sections are too naturalistic, and some of the sections are too abstract.



Three stage reduction linocut, 16 x 16 cm.

Bramleys

Here's the final version of the painting that I started last week.



Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20cm.

(This has to be the final version... We just made apple crumble.)

South Downs: 1

Here is the first stage of some landscape paintings that I am working on. But there's a long way to go yet.


View from Firle Beacon


Lewes from Firle Beacon


Seven Sisters
Each acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50cm.

Prints in progress

After several weeks of struggling to produce some new linocuts, I've finally done something that is starting to move the right direction. It's a bit different to what I've done before.

Two-stage reduction linocut, 16 x 16 cm.

There were several aims behind this print:

• First, I wanted to simplify my technique, and product linocuts that actually look like linocuts. Some of the linocuts that I've done before had as many as eight or nine layers. Each layer takes about a day to dry, and so each print takes far too long. So this print has only two layers.
• Second, I wanted to avoid twee landscapes. Pictures of Venice are very nice, but it's about time I did something different.

This print was inspired by several sources:

• the "Revolution on Paper" exhibition of Mexican prints at the British Museum. Powerful use of two colours: red and black. No twee landscapes here.
• the Warhol room at the Tate's Pop Life exhibition, which had a wall of his celebrity portraits.
• and even the way we hung my paintings in groups of four and nine at a recent exhibition. Putting multiple images together creates narratives and relationships between the images that make the total greater than the sum of the parts.

More prints coming soon...

Work in progress

Work in progress. The first piece of work I've done outside life class, and that isn't in pastel, for ages. Its a commissioned portrait (so painted in a particular style) of an 11 year old girl being made for her mother's 50th birthday.

Group 2nd Feb 2010

A few photos from work in progress from this week's group.

Lynn Warren

Marina Casarino


Michael Gage

Sheri Gee


Richard Wombell