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Google Earth and Resin!
So I wasn’t sure if I had posted about making paintings based on Google Earth images before but I don’t think I have so I will do so here! Anyway, I had the idea a few years ago when I was in Spain and I was looking for somewhere to visit by using Google Earth to see where I could spot some kind of lake nearby. It turned out that the images that I could see were ones that I thought would make really great abstract paintings by just using them as inspiration. As the area I was looking at had lots of undulations and various buildings and things that…
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What Makes a Good Painting?
This is more of a rhetorical question or a throwing about of ideas with anyone else welcome to pitch in, but I find sometimes writing about things brings out more ideas myself in what I can do in future. So, what makes a good painting? I have been thinking about this after I got an email from someone who had seen my work online and who asked me a couple of questions about it that made me think a bit. Most weeks I have a 2 hour drive to do and in that time I tend to think about a lot of stuff and this is one of the things…
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Using Masking Tape for Textured Patterns
Masking tape is a really useful tool in painting I find, whether you just create patterns and paint over it, mask off edges of the painting to frame it or maybe use texture. In the past I have created a few paintings that have had a specific part of the painting that has raised texture using masking tape, maybe just to emphasise a feature in the painting. I have also used this method just to add some extra shapes to an abstract painting. So I have created a quick video to show how I use this technique – in this case I am creating a small painting with a raised,…
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10 Things You Can Add to Texture
This month I have had my studio open as part of the local open studios event and during that time I have been doing some demonstrations on some textured canvases. As part of these demonstrations I have been including some additional elements to the texture to demonstrate different techniques. So as well as just using texture on its own, you can also add things to the texture to make different patterns on the canvas or board and I thought I would share some of my ideas here. So here are 10 things that you can add to your texture mix to give you some different effects: 1.String – I generally use…
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Step by Step Textured Painting
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When is a Painting Finished?
I have been thinking about this post for a while but I have been asking myself the question – when is a painting finished? – for quite a while! It first started when I began to paint semi-professionally in about 2004 when a friend of mine asked if I would like a professional artist friend of hers to come and see my paintings and give me some advice. This was at a point when I had just put together a set of around 10 abstract oil paintings. Many of these paintings had only one coat of paint but I was happy with the finished products. The artist who saw them…
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Forum Section Added
I’ve had a far greater response to the site than I expected and there had been quite a large number of comments, particularly on the ‘make your own texture’ page. This made me think that people had a lot of questions but not only that, there are also artists adding really useful comments about how they make their texture too. So I thought that it might be useful to have a place on the site specifically for people to have discussions about texture – or in fact anything else art wise that they want to talk about. So I have created some forums. I’ve not really tried this software before…
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Gold and Silver Powder for Art
So having had a few enquiries about my gold and silver powder that I use in my textured paintings (and in fact in my fluid abstract paintings), I’ve done a bit more investigating as to where you can get hold of something at least similar to what I have. I got my gold, silver and bronze powder deep in the industrial area of Dubai! I have no idea what it was intended to be used for but myself and a few other artists over there started using it and loved it! You only need the smallest amount possible on your paintings so it lasts pretty much forever. As I had…
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Certificates of Authenticity
I thought I would post on something that I have been doing for quite a few years now and that I think adds a bit of validity to selling paintings. I had seen certificates of authenticity done by professional artists as a matter of course and thought that it would be a good idea to start doing this myself as I was selling a fair few paintings and this would show that I was serious about being a professional artist and not only that it would give the buyer some peace of mind that they were buying something genuine and worthy of them spending their money. Added to that, the certificate…
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100+ Titles For Abstract Paintings
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Textured Abstract Painting
OK so I was looking for a picture of a certain painting today and I came across another photograph of an old painting I did a couple of years ago that was one of my favourites, so I thought I would share it (especially after the last post was about one that I wasn’t really that keen on!). I did this textured abstract painting a couple of years ago and it sold pretty quickly after I got a lot of good feedback from friends and family. It was quite a large textured painting on a box canvas: I think if you click on it you should be able to get…
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Paint Pouring – An Experiment
Firstly a disclaimer – there is no texture involved in this post! So I have seen a few videos of paint pouring and the kind of effects that you can get with pouring acrylic paint onto a surface and letting it do it’s thing. I have previously created and sold quite a large number of paintings using a similar technique in the past (see this article for more info) but haven’t done many paintings like that for a while as I have been more focused on using texture. Anyway, the paint pouring videos I have seen are fantastic and really made me want to give it a try. I will…
