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?