St Peter's Church Villemorin

I painted this in water based oils on a small canvas. It would be lovely to see it again in real life, this pesky covid virus has spoilt many plans to travel over the past couple of years but this month we will go! I have made myself a small strong card pochade box that fits my bag, (my wooden pochade is too cumbersome) and something called a 'paint garage' out of acrylic. It should make painting en pleine aire easier with paints at the ready and no tube lids to struggle with. My test paint was successful and my paints are still soft after a week thanks to the clove oil.

A Dog in Oils

 I enjoyed painting this A3 size work in oils. Its for a friend's daughter, I hope she likes it. I would quite like to do more so let me know if you want one. The colours on my monitor are subdued. The green is brighter in real life.

Harrys Rocks Dorset

Trying to get a feeling of vertigo in two of these these acrylics and pastels.

Oil pastel painting of my still life arrangement. It is on card treated with a gesso and pumice ground. Only a4 size mount so quite small for an oil pastel as the sennelier sticks are quite soft and thick. I used a variety of blending techniques and scraping back to neaten edges.

French Fields Watercolour background and gouache foreground.

Had fun painting "french fields" in watercolour for the bright background working light to dark in a traditional watercolour manner and then painting the foreground dark to light like you would an oil painting but using gouache which is basically opaque watercolour. A few sections of this painting could be compositions in their own right.

For the background I used Gaston Balande's work "view of the village of lauzières with the house of balande" recently sold at auction in France. I printed it out, its an oil shown below and on my work in progress.

Watercolour Landscapes

An exercise to revive my watercolour techniques after painting so much in acrylic

Fish Market in Venice

I have joined the Society for All Artists (Saa) to challenge myself as I often lack direction but want to paint. I am going to take part in their competitions and online workshops. Here is one that I took part in today but did my own thing as they were doing watercolours and I tend to paint dark to light like an oil painter which means I tend to stray to the gouache when doing watercolours and work from dark to light. I like strong colours too! I started in a watercolour way then used watercolour pencils then gouache then finally I vanrnished.

Final work before removing the tape and below is the reference photo provided by Saa

La Jarrie Audouin .. Painting competition

July 2nd. Another painting in the streets competition in France. This time at La Jarrie Audouin. My fourth competition painting in the streets in France and another prize. A certificate, a 25 euro leclerc voucher and two books of my work to be published for free although I am not sure what the latter means. (I have won a couple of books and a sculpture before). 

Not bad for getting a soaking in the rain. Luckily my oil painting did not wash off although there was not a dry spot on it and I had to give up. I was rescued by a very kind frenchman named Daniel and given a lift to a bus shelter to dry off. The professionals had umbrellas, tables and trailers full of equipment. I am going to buy an artists chair with my winnings. Very glad to see my family turn up and take me home to dry off

Peacocks and Klimt Tree of Life

It must be my lucky month as I have won another prize. I joined the saa last month in order to give myself a few specific challenges as otherwise I procrastinate dreadfully about what to paint. I entered a collage competition and are one of the five chosen to win a small prize. Every little helps as I spend a lot on artists materials. Here is my collage and my blurb.

Peacocks and Klimt Tree of Life

Media: Acrylics, Mixed Media, Oil pastel, Watercolour
Subject: Wildlife
WxH: 38 X 52 Centimeters
My most unusual material used in this collage is Old Man's Beard or Travellers Joy (Clemati Vitalba). It is mainly hidden now amongst the flamboyant layers of cut-out leaves and shapes and glitter which compete with the finery of the peacocks. I have photos of the early layers showing the tissue foundation layer based on Klimt's tree of life with the old man's beard applied on the trunk which was painted with acrylics when dry then metallic oil pastels were dragged over the high-points. Finally sheer joy took over and the imaginative decorative layers of birds and butterflies fluttered in to hide the initial construction. Varnished to finish.

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.

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

Ray Balkwill Watercolour Exercise from his book by Gabriella

Exercise from 'painting landscapes with atmosphere' by Ray Balkwill'. I used a lemon yellow with a cadmium yellow and a raw sienna. Blues were winsor and manganese and reds were a rose and a cadmium. I painted this at too small a scale really and mention the improvements at end of video

Link to my video

Mosaic

Heres a mosaic I started to work on but abandonned based on Van Gogh's work. I liked it but wanted to produce my own scene of an Italian lake (which I have nearly finished). So I disassembled it and re-used the expensive Venetian Smalti (bought whilst on Murano) or my new scene.

And here's another mosaic group project that I am involved in, The barbeque fire and scene with the pond and birds is my creation. Its a question of whether it will be finished before the winter weather destroys it.