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.

First up, Charleston Farmhouse Garden

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.

Violaters will be shot - A friendly farm sign

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

This little canvas was the sweet spot! Newhaven Pier

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.

One I finished and one I didn’t!

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!)

Misty Venice Morning, 2020

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.