Art Celebration 2011

Art Celebration 2011 is now on! Had our Private View last night, Jason Bowyer President of the New England Arts Club opened the exhibition.

Exhibition continues Friday 21 and Saturday 22, 10.00 - 5.00pm; Sunday 1.00 - 5.00pm.

Duke Street Church, Duke Street, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1DH

My next mini giraffe is in progress

My second mini canvas is starting to take shape. I spent a couple of hours on it today. I think the two will look good together. I'm enjoying working on these canvases, you can work on them wet easily by hooking a finger around the edge of the canvas to avoid the wet paint. 

First mini canvas finished

I finally got a couple of hours to finish this one off over the weekend. I strangely enjoyed the painting the patchy pattern. Now I need to make a start on the other giraffe.

Mini canvas wip

I've made a start on the top giraffe, mainly trying to make sense of his skull shape, and to start to tackle the folds in his patches. The bottom giraffe has now a skin of paint to give me an idea of total values and the balance of the composition. Today I need to crack on with the patchy pattern, I don't know if I'll have time to make a start on the other giraffe.

My mini canvas project

These are mini canvases 8 x 8in, both oil. There are intended of an exhibition at the end of November with my KAOS art group. The exhibition is the Very Affordable Christmas Art Fair, as the title suggests the exhibition is an aim to make art affordable to all, artwork is to be priced £100 and under.

I'm working these two alongside one another, the top painting has a thin skin of lean paint on it, to give me an idea of the overall balance. You will notice a grid on both, I'm painting them from photos, taken by myself, so due to the complex pattern on the giraffe's fur, and the unusual dimensions of the animals, I thought it would be best to use a grid, to help with proportions and to stop me getting lost in the patchy markings on the giraffe.

Giraffe w.i.p

I didn't think I'd start anything more this week, however had a few hours, so decided to make a start on a mini canvas. It's only 8 x 8 in. I've two of them, both are going to feature giraffe. They are intended for my Xmas exibition with KAOS, end of November. The artists are getting together producing lots of these mini canvas, so we can have a canvas wall of very affordable original artwork. There will such a diversity of work, I think it will be great.

I have used a definite grid work for this under-drawing as the patches on the giraffe's fur have been stretched and folded with the pose of the giraffe, making them very hard to follow.

Ponte Vecchio 2

Finished off my small drawing of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, just in time to start getting myself straight for this weekend's exhibition. I feel I want to go back to Florence again, it's such a magical place, so pretty.