The Art of Monettilica

Peterborough Artists Open Studio

2008-06-21T16:08:00.003+01:00

The Peterborough Artists Open Studios weekends have almost come around once more.

If you had told me 10 years ago that I would have ever considered exhibiting I would has answered 'Don't talk rubbish'.
This will be my second year exhibiting with my friend Prue Pye in her Home and Studio in Atherston Avenue, Peterborough.

This is our entry in the current 2008 catalogue

Prue will be painting in a marque in Central Park next weekend the 28th & 29th June at the Peterborough Festival event as part of the Open Studios 'Meet The Artist'. This event helps to raise the awareness of the Artist Open Studios among the general public.

New Abstracts

2008-06-20T23:21:00.002+01:00

These three new abstracts acrylic canvasses are now finished (well I think so anyway) I've been working on them for a few months now. I need them to be finished ready for the Peterborough Open Studios weekends in July. I've used allot of red paint again. I just love red!

Life drawing

2008-05-16T13:58:00.001+01:00

The 'Life Drawing' classes at The Stamford Art Center have become a Thursday morning 'must go to' for Prue and me. She's always enjoyed Life drawing and skillfully turns out really good pieces. From a nervous shaky start I'm beginning to regain my drawing skills. Life drawing takes quite allot of concentration to get the form, shape and texture of flesh to be half believable.The classes are very well attended as this form of art class are few and far between in the area. The class next week will be the last one until the Autumn but luckly another tutor has quickly arranged another set of sessions to help fill the gap. I wish they would find a desent couch for the model though! I really feel for them on the make shift affair they put together.

Life painting the Nude

2008-05-14T15:00:00.006+01:00

Lucian Freud's 1995 life size canvas of Sue Tilly, a Job Center Supervisor, has just sold in New York for a phenomenal record $33.6 million. The painting called 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' has been nicknamed rather cruelly 'Fat Sue'. This lunch time Sue an attractive 51 year old lady was interviewed live on ITV News and objected 'on air' to the female news reader calling her 'Fat Sue'. The fleshy light, shade and character on voluptuous curves are far more interesting than those on stick thin modelsAlthough I'm not a great great lover of Freud's work I do appreciate the technique and the style he uses in his paintings. Although I feel some of his paintings are cruelly real like his portrait of the Queen.

Freud's painting makes my humble pencil drawings done over the last two weeks at a 'Life Class' in the Stamford Arts Center look extremely insignificant. But then, this is my first time at attempting Life drawing. I was nervous at first, not because of a naked bodies, I've seen a few of those over the years! but I didn't think my drawing would be good enough.

After the first class I found I had thoroughly enjoyed it and I had produced two pencil drawings, The first one not good, but then I found my 'eye' and made another better attempt with the second pose. Our model was actually covered all over his back with tattoos.................I left them out. He was a really interesting character

The second week we had a female model. My position in the room for her first pose produced a strange drawing I didn't like but the second pose I managed a much better attempt.

Getting the dimensions of the body and limbs correct and getting the pose to be believable take me a fair bit of concentration. I have to think carefully about 'negative space' and that helps me to get limbs in the right position.

White Tendrills

2008-04-01T15:01:00.002+01:00

I started to expirement with texture before I went to Canada last September. That was when I started this trio. I started by using polyfiller. It wasn't very sucessful and difficult to work with.
In Vancouver I discoved texturing paste at the Opus Art store on Granville Island.

Brushes to paint with

2008-04-01T14:49:00.003+01:00

What do you paint when inspiration has gone to sleep. Well, the paint brushes of course!
This water colour study was done in Prues studio. Oh and they're her brushes as well.

more figs

2008-01-29T23:19:00.000Z

It was a morning for painting with Prue today. Casting around for something to paint I decided to finish this water colour I started back in November whilst I was in Canada. The background and the figs were almost finished before I brought it home so I had to finish painting the apple from memory. Much easier when the item your paintings in front of you!

water colour on rough paper

Oh yes, and I ate the figs as they were so ripe the juice was seeping out of them

Another red picture

2008-01-29T23:08:00.000Z

I don't know what it is about red paintings but I just love them and am instantly drawn to them. I saw a red textured abstract painting in the Vancouver Culture Crawl last November that I could have bought If only I had enough dollars left and a suitcase big enough to get it home in.
The alternative was to attempt to recreate a similar one of my own.

This is my effort. I think its finished but I need to live with it for a few weeks to be sure. In the mean time I'm doing a second one as the canvases were prepared last September before I went to Canada. The paintings are acrylic on canvas and the base paint is a dark brown. The finished colour's are reds dark brown, black and gold leaf.

Figs in Canada

2007-11-21T06:11:00.000Z

Well folks I'm still in Canada and painting. This is the second completed paintings since I've been here. It's just called 'Fig' Very original I know! Oil on paper. This paintings staying in Canada.

Culture Crawl Vancouver Style

2007-11-19T06:35:00.001Z

The East Side Culture Crawl in Vancouver, Canada makes Peterborough Artists Open Studios look in an embryonic stage. These Artists have taken over derelict industrial and warehouse buildings and turned them into multiple occupancy studio spaces.
Sunday is the last day of the 'Crawl' and Nancylee and I spent a long afternoon from 12.30 to 6pm just walking around four of these buildings. This absolutely exhausted us both and we were suffering from an acute dose of culture overload by the time we were driving back to Richmond.
The first building we visited was 901, Main Street a 7 story building housing 19 artists. These studios were large, light and airy, but, with no lift! It was in one of these spaces I saw the painting that made the most impression on me out of all we saw. It was red acrylic, very textured and layered and had a small area of gold leaf the just made the painting jump out at you. These studios were under threat from 'the developers' and the artists were trying to save the building to be retained as studio space.
From Main Street we headed for the William Clark Studios on Williams Street . Here there was 18 artists exhibiting. The spaces were not as good as some of the other buildings as many had no natural light.
On again to the Mergatroid Building where there were 34 artists displaying their art. These studios were safe from developers as the owners specifically wanted the space to be used by artists. On the Parker street side of the Mergoidtroid building was the glass blowing workshop and the display gallery of Jeff Burnette. We stopped for a while here watching Jeff and his helpers work the moulton glass into a colourful plate. The process is long hot and quite involved also not always successful as we witnesses.

After a brief tea stop at the Uprising Bakery to revive our flagging energy we headed for the last stint of the afternoon at the A.R.C. on Powell Street. This building was different, being really good well planned individual studio and living space for artists on 7 floors with a large coffee shop on the ground floor of the building. There were about 17 artists displaying in these Studio/apartments. On the ground floor in a large apartment a steel artist called Roy Mackey was displaying his 'Flaming Steel' steel art sculptures. I bought a small rectangle metal pot from him as a memento of the Crawl.

Below are some of the displayed work. All art disciplines were represented in the Crawl and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thoroughly exhausted and very cultured we hobbled back to the car and drove home,

Autumn in Canada

2007-11-18T16:27:00.000Z

It's quite a while since I posted any paintings. There are several unfinished ongoing ones of course and there are four in progress in the two months I have been in Canada. I've seen lots of art though in the Vancouver Culture Crawl and of course the wonderful Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition in the Vancouver Art Gallery

I've called this painting 'October' Its oil on canvas. Inspired by the wonderful Autumn colours here in Canada and the layers and colours of the Maple leaves on the ground.

Glass bottles in the Kitchen

2007-05-27T22:52:00.000+01:00

This second watercolour in contrast to the last one was painted quickly over a period of 3 hours one grey morning in Prue's conservatory.

Back to Watercolour : - The Feeding Station

2007-05-27T22:41:00.000+01:00

This watercolour of the bird feeders in Prue's garden was done over several weeks in March and April 2007. It had been a while since the water colour paints had been used and I had to become familiar with the techniques again. Of course doing this over several weeks also meant the greenery altered each week and became lusher and so the painting changed each week.

Still Life 2007

2007-03-28T23:32:00.000+01:00

This oil on canvas is my latest still life finished last week and using some of my friend Prue's unusual shaped bowls and vases

Still Life

2007-03-28T23:24:00.000+01:00

Done in 2003 this acrylic on canvas paper was a cropped view of a wooden bowl with slithers of wood and was an unusual departure from the usual still life paintings I normally do. It's now owned by Nancy in Canada

Digital Art - Transmutation

2007-03-10T08:37:00.000Z

This photograph of a brilliant orange hemerocallis amongst cerise geraniums was transformed into the digital image below. The photograph was taken in a stunning garden nestling in the foot of the Cascade mountains in Canada.

Something different

2007-03-09T23:02:00.000Z

I like creating digital art. It takes a long time to get right and many digital creations are discarded along the way. I called this piece 'Flower Fireworks'. The original digital photograph was taken in the beautiful Minter Gardens at Chilliwack, in British Columbia, Canada and was of orange dahlias

The original photograph

Infinity 1 and 2

2007-03-09T19:09:00.000Z

These pair of canvases were painted in 2004 and 2005 to complement each other. They are acrylic on canvas and now hang in my Grandsons flat. The colour palate was limited to white, ochre and Indian red

Glass Vases

2007-01-04T22:51:00.000Z

These two art and craft style glass vases and the pottery jug were started several weeks ago at a session in my friends conservatory. I completed the painting at the end of 2006 in my conservatory studio. I found getting the luminous quality of the glass quite a challenge

Exploring the abstract

2006-12-27T10:39:00.000Z

This abstract was about shape and colour it was done in 2004 and is acrylic on canvas textured paper. It went through several metamorphoses before completion.

Another acrylic painting on canvas textured paper exploring the use of colour. Original painted in 2004 it too has no resemblance to the original painting

A Red Abstract

2006-12-27T10:33:00.000Z

Painted in in 2005 this red abstract entitled 'Hot Organics' It was painted in acrylic paint on canvas textured paper The original subject was a flower but this was soon completly lost

Studies in Red

2006-12-27T10:23:00.000Z

These two studies painted in oils on canvas were exploring the tonal qualities of red and were completed in November and December 2006 in Barbara Sewell's studio. The subject is the same arrangements but painted from different angles

Summer in the Garden

2006-11-14T22:42:00.000Z

I had been admiring this pot for some time and eventually decided to paint it during one hot summer morning session in Marc and Barbara's garden. It's acrylic on canvas paper.

Clay jugs

2006-11-14T22:30:00.000Z

2003 painting in the Guildenburgh Gallery this small acrylic painting of a group of clay jugs was cropped from a much larger painting and was the inspiration for a abstract painting below entitled 'Interspace'. The jugs have virtually disappeared from the final piece

Tulips, Begonias and Poppies

2006-11-10T11:42:00.000Z

Painted in acrylic on canvas paper these pictures of flowers were done in 2002 in the Sewells studio. The poppies are owned by my friend Nancy in Canada

Torso 2003

2006-11-09T09:16:00.000Z

This oil on canvas paper was completed in the Sewells studio. The torso was displayed on the studio wall and was a piece of sculpture created by Marc Sewell. The painting is now owned by Addy

Candle, Bowl and Chinese Lanterns 2002

2006-11-09T09:07:00.000Z

This small still life group was painted in oil on canvas paper during a couple of sessions in my friend Prue's studio. The bowl was hand turned from an unusual piece of wood

Autumn Fenscape

2006-11-05T20:05:00.000Z

The original painting from which this oil study was taken was a landscape painted on location in watercolour.

More watercolours

2006-11-05T19:54:00.000Z

These two small water colour studies were done last year, 2005, after a long abstinence from using this medium. I found remembering the techniques quite challenging after the use of acrylic and oil. Both pictures now belong to my friend Nancy in Canada.

Watercolour 2001

2006-11-03T22:51:00.000Z

The top painting was done in my Studio after a visit to Corbier Lighthouse on Jersey in 2001 and the bottom painting from a series of paintings done on location at Grange Farm Equestian Center This one was painted in late March and dispite the sunshine it was cold

More Portraiture

2006-11-03T22:44:00.000Z

These are two more portaits of Edmund and Grace. Done in 2003/4 and again one was pencil and one in oils.

Portraiture 2002

2006-11-02T22:57:00.000Z

I started drawing my Dad in 2001 to help me 'find' him again. When he died in 1980 I was away in Canada and unable to get home. I never felt I'd grieved properly for him.
It's drawn with pencil on cartridge paper.
I first painted Mum in 2002, in oils on canvas paper and it was my first excursion in attempting portraits in oils. This was painted after a holiday in Jersey where my Dad had died whilst on holiday with her. It was Mums first trip back to Jersey and to her suprised she enjoyed the holiday

Black and White

2006-11-02T22:39:00.000Z

Done at the Guildenburgh gallery in 2003 these were two mono chrome works, one in pencil exploring tonal values and the bottles in acrylic a devilish exercise where the bottles were changed every 10 minutes then the composition was put together from quick sketches.

Red Shoes

2006-11-02T22:29:00.000Z

Red Shoes, painted at our sesions in the Guildenburgh Art Gallery in 2003 I used acrylic paint and a palete Knife.

Study in Red and Stone Jars

2006-10-30T22:32:00.000Z

Our little painting group arrived at the Guildenburgh gallery one morning in 2002 to find a group of red objects set up for us to paint as a tonal study. I decided , unusually for me, to crop into the group. The painting was done in acrylic and was selected for the South Holland Open Arts and the Peterborough Open Arts Exhibition.

This still life group of stone jars was in painted acrylic in 2003 in the studio of Marc and Barbara Sewell . The painting was also selected for the Peterborough Open Arts and the South Holland open Arts Exhibition.

Green Apples

2006-10-29T22:37:00.000Z

This study of a tray of cooking apples was painted in 2002 using acrylic paint on canvas textured paper. My friend Prue and I use to paint in the Guildenburgh Art Gallery of our city before it sadly closed down. The painting is now owned by my 'honorary daughter' Nancylee who lives in Canada.

Watery Watercolours

2006-10-28T20:15:00.000+01:00

These are two watercolours painted on location in The Nene Valley at Ferry Meadows. When I paint 'in the field' I prefer to use watercolours. These were painted on excursions with my friend Prue in the summer of 2001. When painting in my 'Studio' (I use the word tongue in cheek) I prefer to use acrylic or water soluble oil paint. The top picture is owned by my son and daughter in law and the bottom painting is owned by my friend Nancy in Canada. They both prefer very literal subjects.

On the Water

2006-10-24T12:49:00.000+01:00

This oil on canvas paper painting was inspired by a photograph in a 2004 'Cambridge Pride' magazine of yatchs on Grafham water. The painting became too literal and was not how I wanted it to be, disillusioned I put it away. Sorting through some of my old paintings I came across it again and felt ready to work on it further. So I pull it out and painted on. It's now more impressionist which is the effect I wanted. I'm now much happier with the finished results.

Jug with garlic and an onion

2006-10-23T14:05:00.000+01:00

This Painting was executed in the studio of my art mentors, teachers, critics and friends Marc and Barbara Sewell.

Marc, a talented artist and brilliant sculptor sadly died early this year and is sorely missed

It is acrylic on canvas and now hangs in a private home in Vancouver Canada

Sky to Earth (or down to earth)

2006-10-22T17:38:00.000+01:00

Hi Folks, well I've eventually got around to the 21st century phenomena of blogging.

The canvas on the left is an example of my latest work. It's been ongoing and changing for several years, at least three.
An early version can be seen on the right. I get a real sense of satisfaction when a painting I've struggled with finally comes together and you can say 'OK it's finished'.
Needless to say there is a cupboard full of ongoing work! Hopefully, I'll complete a few more before the dreaded 'wooden box' catches up with me