Solo exhibition at SOTA

 

Here's the apple tree painting all framed up and ready for delivery to the gallery. It forms part of a solo exhibition I'm having at the SOTA gallery in Witney. The exhibition focuses on my 'forest' paintings, so sneaking this extra tree in felt right :-)

 

Graham Rice

Solo Exhibition

1st March - 8th March

Mon-Sat 9.30-4.30

Sun 10-2PM

SOTA Gallery

9 Langdale Court

Witney, Oxon

OX28 6FG

 

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Apple tree painting part 2

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

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Apple tree painting part 1

I've been working on this painting for an up and coming solo exhibition at the SOTA gallery...more details to follow :-)

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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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Mirror mirror on the wall...

First gesso frame all finished...:-) This one has been gilded in white gold, painted in off-white, limed and aged, then fitted with a beveled mirror. It's 19x23 inches and is on display in the shop now :-)

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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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Last of the Bole...

One more coat of red to go on the top frame & I'm just going to go with a single coat of black on the mirror frame as I want as much warmth to show through the silver as possible. These need to dry out for a couple of days now before we move onto the next stage... :-)

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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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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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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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Cycles finished

Here are the finished pieces from this weeks studio session. I’ve experimented with the colours of each of these to see how far I can push things and learnt something useful from each, so a productive weeks work :)

Stage 2...

Here’s todays progress. I’ve cut into all the copper, added the gold and then cut into that. Tomorrow I’ll start on the painting. I’ve got some nice lines appearing from the leaf, so, so far, so good :) too many SO’s in there, but I’ve had a beer…LOVELY seeing some of you readers tonight :)

Cycles stage 1…

Well a very cultural day today, went to see some Shakespeare this evening and have been working on these small pictures all day. I’ve done all the drawing and added the first layer of leaf, in this instance copper. I’ve started cutting into the one on the left, just a little left to do on that in the morning. Once all three have been cut I’ll add the next layer of leaf, which will be gold, that’ll then need cutting and then the painting can begin… :)