Developing a Painting

Life has been very busy around here over the last few weeks. I have sewn a couple of items, but have yet to blog them. The creativity does continue though! I've had very little time due to a huge amount of work to complete over the last few weeks, it feels like I've been working non stop!

I arranged last year to exhibit some work at the Newbiggin Maritime Centre during march 2015. And true to form I've been undecided about the type of work I wanted to show. In the end I went with Landscapes of the local area as it's a location that overlooks the bay and would fit in with the setting.

So how do I create a painting?

The canvases were stretched and prepped, I'd collated together photographs and sketches to work from.

I work in a loose and quick method, mostly outside as I like to pour paint and spray the paintings to create a range of different effects and both these create a huge amount of mess.

I'd sketched basic forms on the canvases and laid down the first washes of acrylic paint. I like to cover the canvas with a thin layer to begin with.

From there I begin to build up layers, slowly adding colour - often very bright colour.

I always document my work as it progresses and I often photoshop my work to quickly explore how each piece can develop without committing to the paint. Although I start with  my drawings and photographs my paintings usually abstract themselves dueing the process.

With this image I intensified the colour and added some darker tones to the background.

This is then further experimented with in paint. I love adding in texture and often use a range of different materials to build this. All this takes a couple of days as I layer paint, let it dry, adjust and add washes and details, which helps build complexity and depth.

These are not the final pieces - come along to the exhibition to see them. It's open until the end of March.