Fresh off the easel: the lights of Christchurch as seen from the Port Hills. The paintings are lightly textured and best seen from a bit of a distance. I was going to varnish them but I am really liking the subtle shifts in colour and texture of the unvarnished canvas and so I’m not going to risk it.
I have been thinking about painting this landscape for a little over six years. When I took the reference photo, the rainbow appeared to be shining directly into our neighbourhood, showing us the way home. I liked that : ) The only thing that made me reluctant to tackle it was also one of the things that made me want to paint it in the first place: the out-of-focus raindrops on the car windscreen. I wasn’t sure I could do what I had in mind ~ something representational but not too realistic. I needn’t have worried; the raindrops almost painted themselves (at least they look like raindrops to me). No, it was the painting of the rainbow that was the most difficult thing because I wanted to paint a rainbow that was not too ‘rainbowy’ (i.e. to paint a painterly painted rainbow and not an emoji 🌈 ).
I got there in the end by overlapping layers of translucent rainbow colours, blending the cooler colours with the clouds and sky (which is why some of the colours have almost disappeared), and using subtle lines to suggest reflected and refracted light.
Almost a year in the making, I started this painting in September 2019 and then put it aside to work on other things, then lost interest, then forgot about it, then found it last month while tidying up and felt sorry for it and finally (finally!) finished it. There’s a lovely glow to it and a rather nice 3D-ness now that it’s varnished.
The two six-word supermoon paintings look so good together in the Drawing Room, you’d think I’d planned it : ) Both are available from my Etsy shop.
New Zealand, you inspire me!
“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.” A.A. Milne
If, like me, you are feeling a little older and a little less like running and jumping and sparkling these days, that’s okay. “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
‘Travel With Me’ and ‘We’ll See the World’ are two small paintings inspired by the mighty Waimakariri River, a braided river that flows 151 kilometres (94 miles) from the Southern Alps across the Canterbury Plains to the Pacific Ocean. I took the photograph that became the reference for this diptych back in February… which seems like a lifetime ago now… back before we really had any idea what 2020 had planned for us. It was a wonderful trip. We spent the weekend at Lake Brunner and performed at a music festival. I felt much more like a little stream back then.
While painting this scene, I thought a lot about that trip away and about how so many of us are having to travel vicariously and virtually this year. I have also been thinking about what it means to ‘travel’ and about how we travel when we are stuck in lockdown ~ hopefully we are making good use of art and books and music and videos and conversations ~ and that is what the titles of these paintings are intended to reflect.
My travels this year have included watching online tutorials and time-lapse videos of artists producing the most wonderful landscapes and portraits ~ I thoroughly recommend Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year and Portrait Artist of the Year and also the Put Some Colour In Your Life series.
Safe travels, everyone.
P.S. Below is the reference photo that I used for the paintings ~ a quick snap taken through the car window on our way to the festival (and no, I was not driving).
It has been fun making these teeny tiny art prints and turning them into magnets (that’s proper magic, that is : ) I have listed a few over on Etsy and will make more if they are popular.
The hardest thing about the process was deciding on the colours for the stick figure magnets (final image below) and then coming up with names for them. Happy colours deserve happy names, so I have ended up with Sky Blue, Violet Blue, Strawberry Pink, Pumpkin, Sunshine Yellow, Spring Green, Lavender, and Midnight Blue.
And now that I have the little magnets all sorted, I think it must be about time I started painting again…
❄️ Winter Sale ❄️ 25% off selected paintings including ‘On the Road Again’ (20 paintings are on sale this month and there will be a different selection of 20 paintings next month) ❄️
P.S. ‘On the Road Again’ has now SOLD : )
If you missed it, you can read the story behind this design in my previous post.
This ‘Love Birds’ design was originally created for a student project in 2011. It was part of a boutique brewery branding campaign (yes, really) and was inspired by the textiles of William Morris. With a few minor tweaks and new text, it is now a quirky little art print.
Below are some of the original images that I created for the completely fictional Old Mill Brewers. The idea behind the campaign was that the brewery was located in a converted textile mill, a sophisticated venue where boutique beer is savoured like good wine. As well as coming up with the name of the brewery and designing the logo and bottle labels…
…I also invented the six flavours: Red House (pilsner), Honey (lager), Vanilla (pale ale), Spice (witbier), Black Cherry (porter) and Chocolate (stout). Yum!
I even added the bird logo to the barcode on the back of the labels : ) It really was one of my favourite projects (as you can probably tell).
