Two moons

This is my play with oil colours, and learning that Artists' Spririt smells differently to what I thought it should - well, I still learn English, I will work on this further once I get rid of the ever present smell of the solvent....

Multiple drama

Technique used:

 

- The first layer is invisible now. It was a beautiful sunrise painted in watercolours, mainly pink and diluted reds – and in its invisibility it is no longer depicting everyday life, or a life before.

 

- The second layer is visible as there are some cracks under the paint. It  is painted on top of the first landscape. I put thick layers of poster paints, black and grey shadows in order to depict something unspeakable and painful in people's lives - maybe hunger, war, or persecutions, even dangerous escape. This layer dried and cracked and is peeling leaving a broken ugly feeling, with glimpses or memories of a previous better life.

 

- The top layer - which is the one visible now is done with acrylics and crushed eggshells - it shows an iceberg or a wall with rubble or sea waves in the foreground, and a rough sea and ominous skies in the background. There is no visible way out; there are no happy colours, there is no idea where to go from now on...

 

The message:

 

What I tried to show is the complexity and multilayer of the dramas or difficulties of life, or within one place. It is inspired by, but not restricted to, the stories of the multitudes of immigrants escaping the atrocities of their homeland desperate for a better life, It is also for all those who did not make it alive, all the broken families and embraces the people who feel endangered by their arrival, by the numbers, by the businesses they could be losing, and the message of the politicians who say nothing or  worse, say offensive things...

 

And where is help? Where is hope? What to do?

The meadow of smiling lips - against the rules of colours

I wanted to check whether it is possible to go against the rules - I tried to create picture with blue in the foreground and warm salmon-ish colour in the clouds, in order to play with the feel of distance - according to the rules it should be warm colours in the foreground, because they seem closer to the viewer and bigger too, and cooler tones should be in the back, because the air is bluish tint, and cool seems smaller too. With this attempt I actually have both cool and warm in both positions, the habit of many years is difficult to change - but I shall keep experimenting.

Enjoy the picture!

PS My poppies are still work in progress, to some look more like lips or saucers, the merrier the better. :-)

More modern flowers

My artistic appettite is growing - now I am learning from other artists, Inspired by the exhibition in Eden copurt I have created the flowers in a more contemporary fashion. I like the colours, but feel uneasy a bit about the simple almost schematic aproach, it is not something I am used to doing.

This bandid stood sideways - I had a horisontal photo, on my laptop showed horisontal, when uploaded to blogger - jumped ike a mad horse, Sorry to all the viewers...

Art duo

This is co-production with a fellow artist Alina Katarasinska Tokar.

Withering flowers

This is the picture of the flowers in the meadow, also of the transient pleasure in life - on two levels. The flowers were collected on a happy tandem trip, I knew they woud not last long, what I did not know, the picture will follow suit - it was thrown away at the weekend, as the final clean up started earlier than I expected (this was the last week of classes for the academic year and for the building itself).
Now my flower meadow
is part of a history, glad I had taken the photo in time.

Goodbye Midmills college and my last picture tehre...

Tulip study

Today I exercised tulip study - analitycal painting is my Achilles's heel - it is belowe level of my perception so i am struggling with imagiing and painting what i know is there, not only what I can see myself, and the little I can see is still so difficult to catch in colour shape etc. but practise makes perfect, So I start here:

The beauty comes for free, the paint, sometimes, too

Today's pictures came to being due to somebody's stupidity or carelessness first (throwing open paints and mediums to a box) and Sally's effort to clean it all - I 'rescued' the paint which was going to go down the drain and to the bin. Couple of hours later look what happened... (I have to admit here it is mainly yellow and red which were rescued, other colours came from a regular source).

The biggest problem of my life - for today

Today I created a very mixed media picture entitled 'get inspired' though the original title might have been 'holidays' or 'happy place'. It suits very well the weather of today, cold dreaky day... And the dillemma is - where shall I put the boat / hat?

 

Or is it better without one?

 

 

New Canvas, New ideas and old Sunset motif

I am thinking on seriously working on discovering myself in as many techniques and media as possible, Today I came across a nice 'ugly' canvas - rough and brown, and here below is my beloved topic sunset, also two Scottish landscape, and close to midnight it's high time for cindirella  disappearance (the blog shows Californian, not Invernesian time zone)

What I like about my new drawings and one painting is, the multisensory availability, apart from looking at them, you may feel the roughness of the fabric, you can also smell the mixture of pinewood and waxyness of oil pastels, the last one I am not sure for how long though.

Lost in the rain

I am not sure if it will be finished the way it is or i will continue to work on that - today I spent  10 hours at the college, mostly painting, part of this time using to deal with the anger and frustration at other people. I was astonished to see how much power the wilde emotions can give to a painting, and, to my surprise how gentle it looks - I was fuming, about to shout scream or who knows what, I took red black and all other dramatic colours but....

In technical terms this is mixed media on stretched paper, (acrylic, crayon, hay, sugar, egg shells, seashells, cardboard, PVA glue). Size - depends how even i will cut of off the support...

Some Shine in Inverness

I am very pleased with my newest photo, which is going to be part of the exhibition which is going to open on Monday 25th of May 'highland people and places'.
What I like about it is he concept, the play on words, ideas and suggestions and the fact that almost half of my friends don't notice the joke at the first sight.

I wish I could enhance it in Photoshop a bit more to create even stronger effect. 

A gift and an idea - various approaches to art

Today I received a beautiful gift from my friend John - a book on history of Russian art as collected in Russian Museum - the fascitanting collection of 200 illustrations - I will have a feast on many levels and for various reasons with that.

- I have already found the name of a painter whose pictures I was trying to chase (Arkady Plastov), and I am so grateful I have seen the real art work in Sanktpetersbutg because of descepancies between the original piece and printed version. I specifically remember the bright orange underpainted the bottom of toes to make glowy feeling of skin almost translucent in the sunshine, I cannot see in in the illustrations but I trust my memory better than the printing process.

- I shall educate myself on the history,  I would like to learn to spot any differences in the different artists from different epochs and compare the uniqueness of both.

- The oldest art is Christian - all those icons I know from thousand a reproduction - and even more I should have recognise by now. And also I can feel more inspired because...

... a short wile ago, an idea came from my fellow artist Alina Katarasinska Tokar who suggested we prepare an icon together - she'd prepare the detailed sketch and I'll work with colour - s0unds beautiful and interesting, and I smell some challenges in the precise colour matching. I love the idea of the exploration of two mind sets, two ways of thinking, feeling, perceving the reality.

Below there is a book cover, a modern icon, not unlikely to be re-worked... Alina, what would you say?

Autoportret and (lack of) shamrock

The title says it all - I am starting my new blog on the day of St Patrick in 2015 to record my journey at the art course at University of Highlands and Islands in (sometimes) sunny Inverness and the way it transforms me, and also to evidence and date some of my famousse to be art works.

I wish I had some shammrock ready but well, let's start with my multimedia autoportret i finished just yesterday - this is my interpretation what it may look like if you see your face reflected in somebody's eye - something which is below my level of perception and my Himalayas - that I dared to do it, and managed not to look into google images for that!