Art I Made Before my Heat
I was so pleased to be back in my art studio and the prospect of making art again after a few months of home-blooming-schooling was filling me with joy! For those of you that are new to my blog, I had given up my art studio to my partner and eldest son in the first lock-down.
I just needed to start mark-making and so I did that, no timing myself to start with just making art that I had been building in my mind’s eye. Does anyone else do that? I have bits of art and subjects or locations stored in my brain-box that I’ll eventually get out into an artwork somehow. As this preparation was for a landscape competition, landscapes it was. Fortunately, as we couldn’t go anywhere because of the damn lock-down and pandemic I had lots of daydreams about landscapes and vistas that I have either observed through sketches, photography, and walks that I could draw upon.
A large canvas and a lot of paint! Never one to shy away from broaching scale I started well within my natural canvas size. Charleston is very close to my heart, I grew up in East Sussex and both Jason & I are members of the Omega Group. We regularly visit (pandemics permitting) and it features as a regular subject in my sketchbooks.
Charleston Farmhouse Garden is available for sale here.
Another large canvas and my second prep work of art. I love this one. This sign is a real thing and the painting is based on photographs I took on a particular lock-down walk near Henfield, West Sussex.
This work has been shortlisted for the King House Gallery Competition and can be seen online here
After Lock-down 1 ended we could get out and about more so I did a hell of a lot of sketching and observational landscape work, a lot of it quite abstract and a lot of continuous line drawing work. I don’t look at the page with this style and just really look at what’s in front of me.
Newhaven Pier is a small 26cm x 20cm x 4cm canvas and was the first timed work of art for me. It took me 2 hours and I loved it them and love it now.
I’m not a pretty green landscape kinda gal and so industrial observational landscapes work well for me.
This one is available for sale here.
The big ol canvas is one I am in love with yet I haven’t finished it yet! When I started it I knew it would take longer than 4 hours so I spent a few days on it and decided to leave it to another time when I’d need a big canvas and a lot of colour to cheer me up. I’m just about to start work on it again soon. It is hanging next to me as I type waiting for me whilst I figure out where to take it.
The gorgeous little Venice landscape was another pre-landscape competition work. It’s my wipe off canvas so I have no idea how long it took me. I always have a wipe-off canvas on the go as I hate wasting paint so use up the day’s paint on a canvas below it. Invariably these guys end up being fab and selling super fast (I have no idea why!)
I’ve been a bit busy making other art to put this up for sale so here it is, a beautiful observation of time spent in Venice. My much-loved wipe off canvas, here’s the link to purchase.
And that concludes my prep art for the competition. In my next blog post, I’ll be sharing practical stuff I did in the run-up to my heat.
Enjoy this week’s episode of Landscape of the Year, Wednesday 8 pm SkyArts Channel.