I can't believe I haven't posted here since April - I mean it's not as though I haven't been doing much, quite the contrary - probably doing too much and posting to my blog fell way down to the bottom of the pile. However, I can report that some of that busyness has been due to many things involving the Fishguard Arts Society, for which I am now a committee member - well, that hoovers up a bit of time! But also the society has had various exhibitions this year and I challenged myself to enter some of them (which I haven't before), not only that, but I decided that I would create new material for them, largely. By the summer I had ramped this up and decided that I would fully engage with oil painting, which was only an occasional foray into in the past, to the tune of probably only managing about ten pieces in my life. So why not just really push myself and try something completely new in oils for the Arts Society summer show, having done maybe two oils in as many years? I think I pulled it off with this tractor painting I called Growing into the Weeds which is around two feet wide.
I was pretty happy with that, although it didn't sell. Onwards, and for a recent Arts Society show in Fishguard with a watery theme, I produced this next one entitled Winter Light, Lower Town, from a photo I took last December. I just about managed to get it finished, dry and framed in time for the show in September, which has now finished. I was even happier with this one and I feel a progression with my paint handling that pleases me. It's a similar size to the above picture.
Moving on and another Arts Society show, currently at Oriel y Parc, St David's until November, which prompted me to produce this next one, which if I'm honest about, I'm a little less happy with than the above two, but you can't paint a gem every time and it's all experience isn't it? This is named after the Shipping Forecast sea area - Irish Sea (Pwllgwaelod) and was finished, dried and framed within a squeak of the start of the show.
I'll maybe take a short break from the exhibition-enforced creation for now, but the exercise has been more than worthwhile to reignite my painting. Due to cleaning up-time, messiness and slow drying times with oils, I next plan to give a painting a try with some water-soluble oil paints I have just purchased and we'll see where that leads.
But for now it may be situation normal and more pen and pencil sketches, especially as we're about to go to Anglesey for a week, and I'm not planning to add quantities of painting materials to the car load, or expecting the weather for au plein aire painting either. I hope to be back here again with more posts soon (especially as we're moving into winter and expecting plenty of poor and indoors-type weather.
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