These two paintings were done while visiting my artist friend Chris Hobel on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Her blog is in a link on this page. As I had no art materials with me I painted sheets of cartridge paper with gesso the night before, and they became quite suitable for painting.
"Desert Town" became an exercise in colour and shape after a saw a photo of a similar place. I have also been to such places myself and I had fun using the memories to invent this picture. "Poppy fields" was another composite from looking at several fields of poppies.
I had a lot of fun doing these as I hadn't painted anything for quite some time and I want to get back into it as I am going to study an acrylic painting unit in the Tapestry Diploma I am doing next semester.
Last week at my U3A art group we tried an easy but different picture. I think the idea came from Michael Winters, a local well-known artist who runs classes. Firstly the canvas was stained with red (can be several different reds), then willow charcoal was used to draw a still life. The shadows were filled in darkly, then acrylic paint was used to complete the picture within the charcoal lines. Some areas were left blank and some just allowed part of the red through. I quite like the strong shapes and colours that result. Maybe this week I'll try a blue background.
