Abandoned Work

I've just realised that i've lined this work up wrong! The houses on the left are supposed to be higher up than the ones on the right... Kind of annoyed. But i get so bored with measuring out where things should be that i always jump into things without making sure all is correct... Got to stop cutting corners!! Anyway here it is:

I think i was being a bit ambitious with it tho, i should maybe draw some individual houses etc and not a whole scene. 

Blue landscapes

Often times i tend to paint pictures based on somebody else's photos, so i went looking thru my holiday snaps to see if i could find some inspiration from some of my photos, and lo and behold it turns out that Italy is 'inspiring'.! I know, who'd of thunk it? So i painted this one of the mountains across Lake Garda looking west from Malcesine i think, or maybe it was a bit further to the south... Anyway, we stopped for Michelle and Dara to have a swim in the lake and i read my book on swarm intelligence and took a few photos and enjoyed the  evening sunshine. Sun-starved Irish people need as much sun as they can get!! 

It's not 100% accurate but it's more painted to convey a mood. The style is also new to me, a little less focused on 'realism' and a bit softer too. And painted pretty fast as well, over two nights or three. Also i don't recall painting a landscape before either. Or at least one that looks like the thing that it's supposed to look like anyway.

Motivation

I'm trying to get back into painting again after a lull during the summer. Summer was hectic really, work does go mad busy, and we went on a great holiday too, to Lake Garda, which was just fantastic. But now it's back to school time again, and i want to get painting but just can't seem to find the motivation.

So in the meantime i'm gonna post up a few bits that i've done in the recent past, mostly unfinished practice stuff, with a brief explanation.

This one is called 'Plastic Trouble', i can't remember why now. It was nearly the very last of a series of abstract circle based pieces i was doing around May/June of 2011. Some of the earlier pieces i've uploaded here already. The backround colour started as black and gradually got lighter as i went along.

Ha, this one is called 'Plastic Furbie', i think because i was watching or listening to something about how the Furbie toy mimics intelligence and 'learns' or mimics learning. It's nearly the last piece of the circles, looking at it now i'm not sure if i like it or not, one second it looks great, the next second it looks like pepperoni slices falling from the sky...

This is called 'Plastic Fade', and i like this one, tho it is the end of the series. Perhaps i'll go back this direction, they are very enjoyable to create, and look at too maybe?

Well the title on this one is 'Metalseries no smoking text', catchy eh? Anyway it is the text on a piece of a metal sign at a filling station warning people not to smoke etc.

The text above is to be written on this sign. At the time i was looking a lot at metal and rusting metal and signs and things like that. This is unfinished, and is really, looking at it now, not much more than a colour sketch.

'Wings'. This isn't quite finished either, it's a 'study' (hate that term) of the remains of a seagull i think, that i took a photo of down on Streedagh headland. I put it on a black backround, and i like the look of this one, abstract but solid.

It's funny, the name i have on this one is 'Kabuki-Style Sketch', and i think i called it that because i was trying to mimic the David Mack pen-and-ink style he sometimes does. But of course i'm really terrible at that kind of thing and i always end up doing tonnes of detail, hence it takes me bloody ages to get anything done!! And also i end up with a lot of unfinished bits...

Like this one, 'Practice Face'. The mouth and chin clearly need a lot of work, as does the hair and in fact the whole thing!! So i don't know where to re-start this autumn, a new piece (suggestions please), or tip away on something unfinished to get me moving? Answers on a postcard to tomnipresent... Your feedback is much appreciated.

4 new pieces

Have a few more abstract pieces here, not sure about titles yet but i'm sure something will spring to mind! Lovely evening here, sun is shining and the weather people say it's gonna be hot later in the week. 'Hot' meaning 20degrees C....

I might call this one 'Pigs In Spaaaaaccccceeee' 'cause they look a bit like cute little piggys... i think.

More cosmic bubbles in space

I was trying to DIY block mount today... Not the easiest thing in the world to do i might add. The results were mixed to say the least, tho i do remember back to the first printed canvas i stretched, that was pretty pretty bad! The trick is getting the mdf cut straight, then orienting the print onto it, well, duh!! Anyway the reason i'm looking at this angle is cause the abstract stuff i'm doing right now is fairly sharp looking, so a canvas print will deaden that sharpness, a high gloss print is whats needed. But there is no way in hell, (hell, i tell you) that i can afford to get stuff professionally block mounted. So it's gotta be DIY. So maybe if i start out on some small prints and get them right, then i can maybe get a large sheet of mdf cut professionally, like A3plus or even A2 or go totally mental and get an A1 cut, then print a massive photo print and paste it on, i think it would look pretty pretty pretty good!!

Here's the two latest psychedelic freak-outs:

Being driven to 'Abstraction'

Hit a bit of a wall painting what was on front of me, so i started spacing out and drawing circles, which i love doing. Then i tried to mess a little bit with perspective, remembering some lessons from Piet Mondrian, trying to confuse myself, is the canvas a surface or is it '3-dimensional'. So here are 3 experiments:

I'm thinking of something like 'Plastivs' or 'Plcastivs' or something like that for titles...

Cracking up...

I've finished the garlic more or less, my mind has been slightly elsewhere, and i've been trying to book a holiday for the summer. Listening to Stereolab now, 'jenny ondioline' from 1993, class band!! So here's my garlic sitting a-top 'Orbital' (Brown)...