paintings prints and stuff

This one started life as a digital drawing using Harmony and was then manipulated and combined with colour in Photoshop. I am still in love with the marks that programme can make! I think I'll pursue developing paintings from digital beginnings a little more this year. Our little group have also decided on 2 major themes for future exhibitions - one to look at still life in our own particular ways, something we all rarely do, so a new challenge. Another is an exhibition with a theme and title worked out (secret as yet), that again we'll tackle in our individual ways - more on this later in the year. I'm also planning to get down to Cornwall to do more plein air work and more plein air paintings locally.

We had a new arrival over Christmas :>) My daughter had a little girl - after a scare with possible swine flu and a second emergency Caesarian. I haven't been down to see her yet but hope to get down as soon as possible

Merry Christmas everyone :>)

Of Thistles, coloured pencil, Vivien Blackburn I'm up to my eyes in stuff to do but took time to work on this coloured pencil drawing based on some digital images I did using the mr doob programme, Harmony. I wanted to see how the marks would translate into traditional media. It's something I think I'll experiment with further. This is just the first version in a moleskine folio sketchbook. There is more subtlety in the colours than I can pick up in the photographs or scans :>( Worth pursuing do you think? maybe in watercolour plus pencils? pastel and much larger?

Last Light, oil on deep canvas. 12 ins square. Vivien Blackburn Not a great photo as it's shining - but one of the recent series of 12 inch canvasses. I'm deep in Christmassy stuff and hopefully will catch up with the blog this week.

I've made time to reopen my Etsy shop - link on the right. I'll be adding items daily so please check in if you are interested. I've got some giclee prints that I'm going to add - including the one above - so some prices will be quite low :>)

Frosted leaf, Vivien Blackburn It was -6C today and the mist and ice looked beautiful so I stopped going to work and coming home to take some photos. The remnants of warmth in the leaf colours looked amazing contrasting with the coldness of the ice. and the sun was setting as I came home - just after this I left the clear skies and drove into very very thick fog and grey-whitenout-ness. You can see more here and look at this excellent post by Adebanji Alade on his recent marathon, planning, pricing, comfort and more

Pictures from the exhibition ...... Table with some of my paintings and giclee prints - and the book too On the left hand panel paintings by Ros Kite, on the right hand panel, mine Setting up the show Above shows the lovely old beams and wooden floor of the Old Grammar School built in the 1600's - there was another floor - you can see the holes for the joists on the far side. The headmaster and his family lived up there and this was the schoolroom. and another look at the outside. The butter market would have been underneath on market days, to keep dairy products cool. Some of the giclee prints I had done - when I've got a minute I'm going to put some new work in my Etsy store, including some of these prints. I'll reinstate the link when I get this done. New year resolution is to get to grips with sorting out a paypal button for here too. On Saturday I was frozen all day and ended up wearing my coat and scarf. Those non cavity insulation walls and high ceiling

Approaching Rain, detail, oil on canvas, studio painting from plein air sketches, Vivien Blackburn Organising an exhibition as a group: This will depend on the type of group - I belong to large organisations who have committees, members voted in, who arrange and hang the shows. These may be juried and have a limit on the number of paintings that can be shown. This group is a small group of friends, who meet up once a month. We are all graduates/post graduates and critique each others work, talk about or arrange visits to exhibitions and put on shows of our own work from time to time. Being small it's essential that everyone helps out with the organisation in our group and that ground rules are arranged in advance. Venue: For this show I came up with the venue but asked 2 other members to check it out and book it, to make sure that we would all be happy with it. The price was right, the space was just big enough. We were able to book it for a time that suited us, aimed at t