Autumn leaves

 

All resined, framed and up on display in the gallery :-)

 

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Framed tree sculpture 1

 

Lots of sawing and sanding today...I'm calling these framed sculptures, as there's no, or minimal painting, just lots of cutting, carving and sanding. You get an amazing sense of parallax as you move in front of the piece, so I hope people will find these very unusual...:-)

 

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A new tree experiment part 1

 

I started work on this new tree painting the other day and today I'm getting the frame started as well. I want to get the artwork and frame to really work as a package.

This is going to be a more detailed, coloured piece than recent ones, with a landscape in the background a 'little' like my watercolours...very swirly and graphic. The trees themselves will be white, as will the inner tray of the frame...

 

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Natasha painting all finished

 

Well I've finally finished the Natasha painting this week. I'll order the materials for frame tomorrow then it should all be ready for delivery next weekend. Posting this from the pub, so I'm going back to my pint now...will post a new experiment I'm working on very soon. :-)

 

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Apple tree painting part 2

Here's the second part of the painting being done :-)

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Painting

 

Sorry it's been so quiet in here lately, I'm working really hard on the framing to get that business established...longer term this will hopefully give me more painting time...honest ;-) anyway, I'm not framing tomorrow, I'm in the SOTA Gallery in Witney doing a painting demonstration. I'll be working on the Natasha portrait...so I should make some progress on that which is long overdue. I'll be there between 10 and 4.30 so pop in and say hi if you're nearby.

 

I've been preparing some new painting boards today for an up and coming solo exhibition, also at SOTA, these are going got be an extension of the orange forest pieces...I'll post some pictures of those as they develop over the next couple of weeks.

 

Ok, off to sleep now, big day tomorrow...will tell you all about it soon... :-)

 

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New prints going to SOTA

 

Here

Here are a few prints that are going off to State of the Art gallery in Witney in the morning. They're also showing one of the original girl paintings along with a selection of the forest paintings...which are selling well...:-) they're open late tomorrow night for the switching on of the Christmas lights, so if you're in Witney call in and take a look :-)

 

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Natasha sketch

 

This is the initial sketch for the painting of Natasha, the design is all approved, so I need to get some stretcher bars to make up the canvas and then off we go :-)

 

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Swirling house commission

Finally a commission I can actually show you ;-) I painted this piece last week as a present for a customers husband. They had actually moved from the house on the left to the one on the right! I needed to get them both in frame and bend everything around in my usual style, which was a fun challenge as this road is perfectly straight...it's the middle of Queen Street, Eynsham should you ever be there, see if you can workout which houses they are ;-)

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A sunny Sunday...

Getting some panels ready for the winter exhibition paintings and working on a commissioned painting this afternoon...nice and toasty in the studio, The Steeldrivers on good and loud and hot coffe flowing freely...very nice :-)

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Burnishing

Burnishing up the gold this morning....looking lovely :-)

 

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Gilding

Here I am starting to gild the mirror frame, I went for 12 carat white gold, rather than pure silver in the end as this will give a warmer feel to the final frame. It'll need to rest for a day or two now before I can burnish the gold...then I can begin work on the painted areas... :-)

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Burnishing the Bole

Today I'm burnishing up the Bole, until it's highly polished and ready for gilding...

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Bole...

This is the first coat of red Bole (clay & size), both frames will have 5 coats on the areas that are to be gilded, the larger of the two will also have a couple of coats of black Bole as I'm going to gild that one with silver.

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Silky smooth...

L

The two original frames have been sanded and water polished...silky smooth now :-) in the background are three more sample pieces, each of these is using a different profile of moulding, so I should have a nice little selection once they're all done.

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The Forest Paintings

I realized I hadn't added images of all the latest pieces finished and framed...so here they are :) Have been building some new handmade frames today, will post some pictures of those later in the week :)

Gesso

More work on the handmade frames today. I realised I wasn't going to have enough size so I've made up some more, this time using rabbit skin, this comes in granules rather than parchment form. This is what it looks like when you've soaked it in water overnight...

Next, we just needed to warm it through gently and then add the whiting (chalk). Once that was done I started applying it to the frames...here's a frame after the first coat...

The tricky bit now is to keep adding layers of gesso at the right intervals, it mustn't dry out or the bond will be weak. But you don't want to add it too soon, or the new layer will pull up the one below... So basically, it's a case of keeping your eye on it, while dancing around the studio to kill odd bits of time in between layers :-) Here is the frame once its had 6 coats of gesso...

 

Now the gesso needs to thoroughly dry out, this will probably take 3-4 days in my studio...then it'll be ready for the next short stage...water polishing....more on that in 3-4 days ;-)

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First handmade frames

Here are the first of the handmade frames I'm going to be producing, I thought I'd show the behind the scenes processes here on my art blog and leave the main Cuckoos Nest blog for the finishes pieces. Anyway to start with I'm going to make a couple of test pieces, one for a mirror and one for this small pear painting I did a while ago. I'll be using the same moulding for both, but the gilding and paint finishes will be different.

Here you can see both frames assembled and getting their first 'size' coat (that lovely brew I cooked up the other day). They need to dry for a couple of days now and then I'll mix up some gesso for the next layers...

 

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Exhibition all setup :-)

Everything framed & hung, shelves polished and floors swept, the Autumn exhibition begins tomorrow :-)...I've some commissioned work to start on next week and I want to begin working on the handmade frames also...once that's underway, work can begin on pieces for the winter exhibition...;-)

Some Cuckoo's Nest blurb :-) ... Our Autumn exhibition opens tomorrow and runs through to the end of October. We've a new collection of forest themed paintings by Graham along with a selection of prints including some Andy Warhol art prints and beautiful Tintin cover posters. We're open every Thursday 12 to 8, Friday & Saturday 10 to 6.

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Yummy...

 

Here we have the leftovers...

And here's the bit we were actually after...'size'...I'll be using this on a sample piece of frame later in the week....

Not much in there as I cooked it a little too long, but I'll add a little water to it when I use it and there should be more than enough for my little experiment...:-)

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