So this post is a little out of order
chronologically speaking, however seeing as I have just now received back all
the paintings listed as ‘still in England’ in previous posts, now seemed like
the perfect time to fill in those gaps. Listed then in reverse order, starting with paintings
and posts that are more recent and working backwards, here they are:
2008 - Paintings
The box canvas set of four is once again complete.
These are all 12x9" oil paintings on 1" deep box canvas'. I scanned the one titled ‘Ruin’ again seeing as upon its arrival I realised
that it is much darker than the quick photo I took of it all those years ago.
Sadly its counterpart night scene below titled ‘Lake,’
got a little damaged in storage. You can see the two pock marks in the surface
where something has pressed into the canvas and stretched it. If any fellow
artists out there know a good fix for this type of canvas damage, I’d love to
hear it!
Lastly the desert/sun set landscape that I hoped to
work into.
Also it seems there was one painting I forgot about
created around 2008 or possibly 2009. Unfortunately I am notoriously bad at
remembering to sign and/or date my work so I cannot pinpoint precisely when I
decided to create the following piece of fan art. The only certainty is that I
had obviously watched the anime Death Note by that point.
It is an anime I love to this day, not for it’s animation
but for the twists and turns of its story and small yet unforgettable cast of
characters. Oh yes and Death Note knew when to quit, just about, unlike other
anime that get forced to dredge and stretch over what feels like a lifetime to
some utterly implausible and flimsy conclusion.
So yes I respected it enough to make fan art,
twice. This first one I didn’t exactly title, so we’ll call this 8x10 oil on canvas, ‘Light
and L with Tea.’
2007 – Final Year at Uni
This is the only painting I created whilst at university.
An 15.5 x 19" oil on canvas
board titled ‘Snow Cottage,’ just to try and show my fellow team mates what I
thought the house should look like in our film and to try and give them a sense
of the snowy atmosphere.
This is a patched together scan of the painting,
due to its height and again as you can see, time has not been kind to the
bottom left hand corner of the canvas. I am uncertain when the corner became
damaged, seeing as ‘Snow Cottage,’ spent a lot of time travelling to and from
university, then from Bournemouth to Northampton and now all the way to Canada!
2004 – Paintings
This would be the year of the infamous tiger and my
mysterious ‘large’ painting that I failed to photograph. Well now I have
finally taken a photograph, measured and titled that piece ‘Twisted Wood’,
after um, how many years?
However another smaller painting that had slipped
my mind from back then was this 8x10 oil on canvas, ‘Fruit Bowl.’ Personally,
whilst I didn’t think much of it and was unsure if it was finished, I think
folks liked this at the time because it was one of my first departures from
painting in very dark shades.
Ok now you get to see the woodland painting. Still not the best quality photo but then this
measures a whopping 53 x 31” and I only own a phone camera - go figure.
Anyways I recall curling up next to the flat wood laid
on the carpet of several houses whilst I worked on this – my poor knees! The spiral
staircase (white blob to the right of the arch/at the top of the path) as I mentioned before was an homage to an older painting, the first
painting I ever sold to be precise which was in itself created with reference to a
vivid dream I had.
As for the trees made of mannequins and dragon
topped canopy, I was heavily into surrealist and illusionary works so painting
something like this really fascinated me, enough to work on this painting over
several years. Alongside ‘water tiger’ this painting has also lived in every
single weird and wonderful house or room I have lived in (which is quite a lot
I tell you!) spent time at a friend’s, around six months in the back of car for
one reason or another and yet still emerged unscathed!
If you noticed and are wondering
about the split in the wood at the bottom right, well that was there before I
began to paint, this wood was literally an offcut being thrown away in a
factory, one I decided could be put to better use. :)
2003 - Paintings
Way back in 2003 it seems I had attempted to create
another painting involving water, although I will say I think I abandoned the
below piece before it was complete. Perhaps I left it because I realised I had
to learn more before I would be able to paint the water and reflections I imagined
beneath the cabin. Again an untitled oil on canvas this piece measures 15.5 x 12".
Sadly I never revisited this piece, but I guess
by that time I had begun grander projects that simply interested me more.
Speaking of grand projects, those of you who have followed
this entire blog may recall that my friends and I decided to build a miniature marble bowling
alley back in 2003. Naturally being the arty one and also a huge Dragon Ball/DBZ
fan, I set about decorating the sides. So here is the missing half, ‘the girls
team,’ featuring Akira Toriyama’s characters (l-r), ‘Chi-Chi, Bulma and Lunch.’
This measures 25" x 4.5" and was painted in gouache on wood from a dismantled drawer. The black line in the middle is obviously where the drawer panels split, waiting still to be glued in place.
2001/2002
Lastly the below image could be considered as one
of my very earliest pieces. Again created on a ‘spare’ bit of wood. Now on the
rare occasion I remember to sign and note things down (with regard to my art, I
have hundreds on notes to do with my written projects) I usually go full hog
and write a lot. So the below piece got an overly long title, ‘The boy and the
moon and planet earth,’ notes on the surface ‘created on wood from broken down
dresser,’ size, 'painted area = 15 x 8" approx' and materials used, ‘oils and acrylics,’ plus the date, ‘2001/2002.’
I’m going to assume I painted it between December
and January by that, also I haven’t a clue why I would be using acrylic paint
or where I might have gotten it from as I don’t recall ever using acrylics only
oils and gouache!
So there you have it, all present and correct,
updated and finally reunited which makes for one happy artist!
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