Brushstroke exhibition is ready to open

 

Our friend Sheila has done a great job curating of the Brushstrokes exhibition works; and it is all looking gorgeous for the opening event 5-7pm Friday 29 November. 

This is a pop up exhibition so it is on for one weekend only - Saturday 30 Nov and Sunday 1 December 10am-4pm. 

As well as exhibiting my watercolours Fiona will be showing The Shape of Things - works developed in collaboration with Annwyn. There will also be a 25% off sale of all other gallery-shop stock - but just for the opening and two days of the exhibition.

I know a lot of folk cant make it to the exhibition but might enjoy seeing a few images of the set up.

Beautiful bees, blues and purples

The warmer and moister weather is encouraging so much blossom and fortunately bee action. In the photos above you can spy bees going about their lives.

On my walk the colours purple and blue just caught my eye.

Such beauty to remind me to stop and rejoice in it.

Experimenting with ink

 

I have asked Megan to work with me to test a new 'watercolour' technique. I want to see if I can do pieces where you build up layers using permanent inks - maybe even starting with main image on the bottom layer.

The above image shows where we got to experimenting with acrylic ink over permanent ink pens and a touch of salt.

I had talked to Fiona about wanting to test this approach and she immediately said, "I have lots of inks from my calligraphy days so why don't you try those." Fiona has both alcohol and acrylic based inks. The first thing Megan got me to do was to test the colours and different types of ink on 300gsm watercolour paper - see below.

The alcohol based inks did not work well on the watercolour paper - but we will give Yupo paper a try.

I wanted to test the acrylic inks on a cottage dusk image - the opening image; and one of the cove fishing nets drying poles. 

See process-process images below - including paper drying under a heat lamp. I will keep adding layers of ink to the last piece to see if I can build it up to get a rich colour and layered piece.

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun playing with this new medium.

Whole lot of framing

 As you can see from the above photo Fiona and I have done a whole lot of framing of the postcard sized watercolours for my Brushstrokes pop up exhibition - opening event  5-7pm Friday 29 November; and open on Saturday 30 November (10am-4pm) and Sunday 1 December (10am-2pm).

We set up a bit of a production line for the framing as you can see from the cluttered table image below.

Following a few more images of some of the framed works of "buildings, boats, birds and the occasional bovine".

Fiona and I will be doing the curating of the artworks on Wednesday and Thursday next week - all will be ready for the evening opening.

Mainly orchids but a few other bits

 

We are in a rain depression at the moment - it means there will not be many outdoor walks for the next week. So today's post will be dedicated to the beauty of G's orchids that have been photographed over the last couple of week such as the one above; but also few other bits like the green-yellow spider, below,  that dropped on the washing on Monday.

 

Back to those orchids. Interesting how the colour of the spider seems to match that of one of G's spider orchids.

 A couple of other bits of natural beauty.

In the grey of a rain depression we probably need bits of beauty even more. 

Five more in the no background series of watercolours

 

Last Thursday I completed five watercolours - see above. These will be the last in the 'no background' series for a while as I want to investigate another technique with Megan.

Following are some images of the works in progress on Megan's towel covered work top. A bit of time was spent on shading in the watercolours.

Talking about the towel covered work top following are a few photos of the abstract art created by students wiping brushes on the towels.

The tasks for my  Brushstrokes exhibition continue - but more on that later.

Cataloguing

 

My watercolour exhibition, Brushtrokes - buildings, boats, birds and the occasional bovine, opens on 29 November at Deckled Edge Press. Whilst the works are done the of course are all the associated tasks including name, signing and cataloguing the works.

So as you can see from the photo above I have been group in the works and working ion the dining room table to create a catalogue. All watercolours are postcard size.

Following are some more images of grouped works.

I'm hoping people can make it to the opening celebration 5pm on Friday 29 November; and if not come into see the work on Saturday 30 Nov and 1 December. - 10am-4pm each day - one weekend only. Remember there is also 25% off all Fiona's and my other gallery-shop stock - great Christmas and other gifts.