paintings prints and stuff

Sunset at Sennen Cove, oil on deep sided canvas, 12 ins square I did a series of sunsets in watercolour and oil of the sunsets and it really brought out how cameras distort the colours of sunsets and aren't really at all helpful.  The silhouetted rocks and breakwater lose all colour as well. They make beautiful pictures in their own right - but they aren't the reality of the experience at all. In the photographs, there is far more red (which there wasn't in reality) and the sun is white.   In fact , the sun was blazing red and the skies were a range of softer reds and peaches and sometimes soft yellows.   So the canvasses were done quickly while the memory of the colours was still fresh.   There were vivid pale blue ripples against the darker shadows and subtle reflections of the reds in the water.  Those electric ripples were beautiful and just didn't show properly on photos.  These are 2 examples - the actual sunset look...

 Detail 1   detail 2 progress so far .... Still a little way to go but here is a quick update.  I'm waiting for the paint to dry before working on it further. You can see a bit of pentimenti* - the copper shape shining through in the trees at the back - some will remain but the unnatural shapes, like the circle and almost triangle,  will be lost/adjusted in subsequent layers and glazes. *Isn't that a nice word for an altered underpainting showing through?

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...

Sennen Cove, Windy Day, oil on 10 inch square canvas, Vivien Blackburn I worked a little more on the 10 inch canvas today - the photograph annoyingly doesn't bring out the viridians enough. I'll try again tomorrow. Adjusting in photoshop alters too much and has tipped it towards turquoise too much but I thought I'd show that I am working! I will lighten the bottom of the sky a little when this paint is dry. I started another 10 inch canvas with an underpainting - it's from a sketch of a subtle pearly dawn -all soft peachy colours in the sky with mauves and pale jades and soft grey blues in the sea, all very pale. I think I may do a series of these little 10 inch canvasses as they work well together. I also worked on the 16x20 canvas below. It's just at the blocking in stage as yet and it all needs finishing and pulling together. Botallack Mine, 20x16, oil on canvas, Vivien Blackburn I decided to make the weather wilder and stormier in this one. It suits the ru...

Cornish sunset, oils, Vivien Blackburn The skies from observation project If you are taking part or would like to take part in this - you have until 30th May - I'm going to list the links to the participants then. Do have a go! All the people taking part feel they've got a lot out of it. There's nothing like observation to hone your skills :>) No work from photographs - all work to be done from 'life' Link to the original challenge post The above image is a quick sunset study in oils in a Canson watercolour sketchbook.

The foot of the Cot Valley as the stream joins the sea. Oil painting, approx 15ins. Vivien Blackburn I think this beach is called Porth Nanven, it's at the foot of the Cot Valley. The valley is a steep V shape, with a very narrow road leading down it, above a small stream that tumbles steeply downhill over rocks and joins the sea at this tiny, perfect little beach. This is somewhere I want to revisit to paint more. There is a little more viridian in the sea than is showing in this photograph. I haven't quite managed to adjust the colour to show it enough. click the image to see 3 other studies in oil on our Watermarks site.

A windy day at Sennen Cove, surf coming over the harbour wall Oil paint, size about 14 ins, Vivien Blackburn High tide on a windy day with huge swells sweeping in and crashing onto the reef of rocks offshore and over the harbour wall. At the front a confused lacy pattern of foam. This was done last week in Cornwall, in Griffin Alkyds. I love these for working on quick plein airs as they dry overnight. Thinner applications of paint are dry within hours but they give enough time for pushing and pulling colour and marks, unlike acrylics. This speed of drying means glazes can be applied the following day where required instead of a long wait. Griffin Alkyds are proper oils and are used in the same way as any other oils. They are NOT water soluble and are NOT acrylics as some people imagine. Alkyd resin is a drier mixed with the paint to speed and even up drying times and I find this very useful. These were painted on Friday and were perfectly dry to pack up on Saturday :>) even...

work in progress. 40 inch square canvas. Wild Seas. Vivien Blackburn The beach is a typical Cornish cove - funnel shaped - so the waves come racing in and clash from different directions, bounced off the rocks, as they are forced into an ever narrowing route. I love the chaos and tumult. The sand is carved into hollows and ridges and patterns as the tide moves. I don't know how well I'm going to be able to catch this but it's what I'm trying to catch. My Monday class doesn't start up for a couple of weeks so I managed another day of working on the canvasses :) I'm now at the stage where there is a lot of thinking time or waiting for paint to dry and progress slows. 30 inch canvas work in progress stage 3 - seascapes Vivien Blackburn This one is the most resolved so far. A quieter day, looking diagonally across the beach when the tide is out. The evening clouds a soft apricot. I still have work to do on it though. 30 inch canvas work in progress seascape. Vivien...

There are a lot of 'systems' for mixing colours out there - instructions on which colours you should use, telling you never to use black or always to use black, to use or not use complementary colours to create neutrals, to use certain brands because the mixing is all done for you and you just follow the 'rules'. I believe that you can look at them all if you want but the only way to understand colour and colour mixing is to do it! and never ever to follow someone elses rigid painting by numbers system in your work. It's more important to understand complementary colours and the way they make each other more vivid when placed next to each other or neutralise each other when mixed - then how to use this in a subtle way by using coloured neutrals to make a colour sing. Or understanding how to adjust a too bright colour by glazing it with a thin wash of its complementary colour. Learn what the colours you have do, by mixing them and painting little grids like thes...

Wild Day copyright Vivien Blackburn mixed media on paper An unfinished painting I came across and finished off today, after painting the sides of some of those @&2+**@ canvasses - I HATE that job with a passion and usually keep up to date with them - but this time they were all 'in progress' and so all need doing :( This was watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil, I added a touch of acrylic and it was finished. Following on the last post I thought I'd look at contemporary still life that I find interesting and see what sort of objects they are using, what media and how they treat the subject. First of all is Shirley Trevena - exciting, dynamic and vibrant watercolours with touches of mixed media. I love the excitement and buzz of her work, her glorious colours, her distortion of perspective, overlapping elements, tipping up tables or plates if it works to make a better painting - a delicious explosion of colour. You can see her work on http://www.shirleytrevena.c...