Mornac Sur Seudre Paintings in Oil and Acrylic

Back from France where I've had chance to relax, paint and think of Art. I love colour and the light over there encourages brighter colours on my palette. Here's a few completed oils and acrylics with a new one started and left over there to finish next time we visit. All were based on a recent visit to Mornac sur Seudre.

Morgan Evening on Poole Quay

Finished at last. Its big, 120cm wide, so it took a while. Painted in Pebeo High Viscosity acrylics over the top of a textured background. Actually underneath it all are two other paintings which I have rejected and covered over, re-using the framed canvas. The black frame cost £80 on first painting so I wasn't going to waste it. Don't know what I'm going to do with it now. Its too big for our flat!!! Its sitting in my studio in France and I hope the mice don't eat it. I rather like it so thats the main thing.

For those that know me you will see our family group, painted from my imagination and including the latest addition....

The first covered-over painting was an abstract entered for the John Moores Competition in Liverpool. it was selected for the judges in one of the stages so had to be delivered up there, but was rejected so had to be fetched back by courier.  It was too serious to live with in a small terrace so I gessoed over it. Together with material costs it worked out an expensive lesson and put me off entering UK send-it-away competitions. I prefer the French paint-in-the-street type competitions. People can watch you as you work too and they are fun.

The second painting was a serene view of Poole harbour which was ok but I got bored with as anyone could have painted it. You couldnt say that about this one. I have changed my signature since taking the photo to just Gabriella as it looked wierd.

My Celtic Animal Collagraphs and a few Cats

I love making small celtic animal aceos using up to 3 layers of cartridge paper which I score into and draw onto to produce the effects. One sealed with button polish these are intaglio printed which means I wiped the ink off the surface and used dampened paper to take the ink out of the lines and recesses when printed on my Sizzix Big Shot. Once dry they are coloured with Prismacolor crayons. I love the plates too as well as the prints.

Collagraph influenced by Vicky Oldfield

I first saw Vicky Oldfield's work in a gallery and I loved the effect of the textured line in her work so I decided to try her technique. As I didn't have any carborundum I used marble dust. She is featured in a video which gave me enough information to produce this small 'vicky oldield' collagraph using my sizzix big shot to print it. I had stamped some small roses onto tissue paper and decided to use them as chine colle. This was for convenience and I don't like the yellow colour choice for these but this was really only a learning exercise. I do like the white dots I made with a biro end dipped in ink.

It was fun and I need to work on some of my own designs now.

Collagraph printmaking...testing coffee grounds and paprika to create a textured line.

I like being able to make small aceo size collagraphs and I print them on my Sizzix Big Shot. I usually use layered card quite successfully but I wanted to try something new. I have used marble dust and volcanic ash with wood glue in the past to create an ink retaining line but I wanted to get a smoother effect. Carborundum is normally used for this and I need to order some but in the meantime I decided to try coffee grounds which Belinda del Pesco mentions in her blog.

I dried some used coffee grounds but they looked very granular and I wanted a finer texture so a quick search in the cupboard and I decided to try paprika..... here are the results, an added bonus is that the paprika also adds a redish colour...

A watercolour painted on shiny card primed with absorbent ground

I coated a piece of shiny cereal packet card with several coats of absorbent ground to see if it would take watercolour paint well. I painted a view of Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. I was able to create texture effects in the ground prior to paintng which was an interesting idea.

Here's the video

Poole Harbour watercolour by Gabriella after Ray Balkwill

I painted a Poole Harbour scene after following a Ray Balkwill exercise in his book. I used similar colours and his boat in my scene. I was only working on a small scale again. My own style comes through quite strongly and it has none of the looseness that Ray's work has. I'm happy with it though as its ok to be me.

Link to video of me painting this