Let's Talk Art Blog

I've been playing around with creating impressions from a site I'm referencing for my current project using collagraphs. The print process can be a little unpredictable..

Here's a little play around with a sketch that wanted to be a landscape to begin with, which I wrestled with as you'll see. This threw up an interesting observation for me about how I work. Often the first thing I see is a horizon line or other landscape element and only once I've registered that can I move past it and into the abstract. Enjoy!

I'm working on a couple of big paintings at the moment for an upcoming exhibition in early 2023 and whilst I had greens on my palette I wanted to capture some of the colours in my sketchbook for future reference. ....

If you've been following my Instagram you'll know I've been exploring new colour combinations lately and blue/purple/magenta came up. I make a quick video of this little painting coming together in my sketchbook.

Working on my latest big painting from my Habitat Series I was really wrestling with the greens. On the wall at the same time I had all the other pieces from this collection which had a multitude of lovely greens - from golden yellow to vibrant lime. I was keen to try and bring this big piece into the fold and I thought that getting the greens in tune with those in the other paintings would be the answer.

Understanding and mastering 'value' and learning how to place it effectively in a composition takes plenty of practice. In this exercise, I'm looking at 'value' in terms of light and dark. 'Value' can be explored in many other ways but here I'm just looking at using light and dark values to create contrast. Exploring this idea just using small thumbnail sketches is a great way to practice looking for values and training our eyes and brain to recognise contrasting light and