Gaye’s Studio News

Understanding the medium

The series project I embarked upon several weeks ago has taken me on quite a journey.  At the same time I have been honing my technical and analytical skills with membership of the Cold Wax Academy.  A key part of this is learning to analyse and  describe you work. There are some abstract subjects I have tried a number of times before without a great deal of success, namely landscape and still life. So in this project I wanted to experiment with 5 abstract series ideas, amorphous(minimum value contrast), Industrial, still life, landscape and floral/garden with three to four studies in each one.

So what have I learnt.

That still life subjects do not work so well with the oil and cold wax medium

Some subjects work best in water based media

I prefer vertical or square formats, especially with landscapes

Landscape and still life subjects draw me away from abstract to illustration

What I want to do is not always what love to do

My desire to experiment can lead me in too many directions

Some times I finish paintings too soon.

The amorphous(stuctureless) series was by far the most successful. I have worked further on the two bigger of these. The first one shown here is finished.

I have more success with this style of painting and it suit the medium well.  I wanted to see if I could express myself in abstract landscape and still life.  The latter were awful and the horizontal landscapes too similar to my earlier works.

The most successful landscapes were vertical format.

I was somewhat despondent after the last two not very successful sets, so thought the garden/floral inspired one would give me a boost.  This will put me behind in the project however.  Here is an early stage of one of the floral/garden series.

The second phase of the project is to choose one series idea from phase 1 and develop at least 4 and preferably 12 finished paintings by mid January.

While working on the two Amorphous series paintings I revisited two from my Heart series that I completed a year ago, but wasn’t happy with. Very pleased with how they developed.  #973 My heart’s desire and #974  My heart stopped still .

The Art Society’s exhibition this month at the Lady Franklin Gallery in titled Industrial landscape have two works entered   #0622 Industrial 1 (50cm x 60cm) and a small unframed work #0603 Opal light 2 .

Coming up in October are two major exhibitions; the Royal Hobart Show Artery on show at the City Hall from 22-26 October and the Kingborough Art prize at the Kingston Hub from 24-27. I have 3 paintings entered in each.

Last week I rotated my 5 doctors practice exhibitions and introduced some new fresh works. Its a logistical and physical challenge. In place now until early December.

Thank you for your interest and support.  It’s greatly appreciated.

Gaye

Industrial, still life, landscape and floral/garden with three to four studies in each one.his set.  I am about half way there. These are a couple of stages of one of them.