MY STUDIO WORKSPACES

MY MAIN STUDIO

Alcove where I paint smaller art works. (above)

 Central area where I paint larger art-work 

(My 'apprentice' Bella sleeping on the armchair)

View looking out from my south facing window.

Daily I express my gratitude for our home and spectacular location. I have two studio spaces, the first has large windows all around with oodles of sun and daylight making it an ideal place to paint and photograph my work. (see photos above). My smaller studio serves as a storage room for the bulk of my art supplies, work in progress and completed art work waiting to be sold or to be exhibited.  With covered wide decks on the South and North sides, I am able to lay down super large canvases so I can literally throw paint around.

If you're a fellow artist, I'd love to hear about your own work-space and studio. 

INFERNO work in progress: day 3

Husband Ralph & I were looking at how it looks now .. he suggested I title it 'INFERNO' (was previously;Fire), said it looked like looking down into a volcano etc. So I am hereby giving him credit for the name.

'Shades of Pirongia' Exhibition (W.I.P.) - using Golden Open Acrylics

This series of works requires all the patience I can muster. I prefer to work on large canvases, my style being;  loose, liberated with large brush strokes, splashes, lots of paint and heavily textured. Echoing in my mind are my art tutor Pam  (Watson, Hamilton) words; 'open up... remember ... circles and sausages' and I chuckle as I write. Destiny served me well, causing my first tutor to be Pam, her teachings allowed my natural style to flow; I'm sure had I first attended a fine arts teaching institute my natural gift would have been 'stiffled' and possibly not even given birth. Back to the subject at hand;

Each piece from this series is on average 10 x 10 inches in size, portraying scenes from my local village, Pirongia. Being detailed and of the realism genre, I'm using brush sizes in the small range. As I'm quite short-sighted and prefer not to wear glasses when I paint, whilst I started this series with gusto and passion ... eventually my enthusiasm wore off as the work requires a lot of attention, is time consuming, intensive and thus stressful, mentally and physically. I get so focused as I sit with a table easel, that I tend to forget to take regular breaks, resulting in tension head-aches, eye-strain, neck and back ache. (getting old .. LOL). Initially I used Golden Heavy Body Acrylics, using the Golden Flow Medium to thin the paint. I considered using the Golden Fluid Acrylics but the Golden Open Acrylic range was released. The Open range, in tubes, is of a much thiner viscosity than the Heavy Body and the biggest benefit is they dry much slower, allowing easier blending. This is 'Alexander Tavern' as it looked last year. Check this post for updates,

INFERNO work in progress: day 2

2-3 hours work ... stroke by stroke, layer by layer the image on canvas develops like an embryo in the uterus.