art for sale

The green, green grass (and the red, red hills) of home

| Anna Cull
The green, green grass of home — acrylic on canvas, 305 x 405 mm, 2014
The green, green grass of home — acrylic on canvas, 305 x 405 mm, 2014. Private collection.

Sergei Bongart’s advice to study nature, exaggerate light and be less inhibited (the quote I posted here on Friday) is more than a little to blame for this painting which I started on Friday morning and finished off on Saturday afternoon. It is based on one of the photographs I took during our DC-3 flight over Christchurch last year.

View of the Port Hills from a DC-3, Christchurch, 2013
View of the Port Hills from a DC-3, Christchurch, 2013

Because I wanted to exaggerate the landscape, I decided to go with a fairly adventurous palette (inspired by, among others, the late, great Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s ‘Blobs grow in beloved gardens’ 1975 and ‘Green town’ 1978.

But where did the red hills come from? Well, the bright red is my complementary exaggeration of the dark green trees. And the sheep? That was my way of introducing a calm focal point ― something to suggest that perhaps the hills were not on fire : )

The green, green grass of home, detail
The green, green grass of home, detail

New Brighton Pier

| Anna Cull
New Brighton Pier, Christchurch — acrylic on canvas, 230 x 305 mm, 2014
New Brighton Pier, Christchurch — acrylic on canvas, 230 x 305 mm, 2014. SOLD

Finished, freshly varnished and now for sale sold. Click here if you missed the original post about this painting.

I’ve listed a couple of other paintings ― two I’m rather fond of that I painted last year. Both are available via Etsy or directly from me.

‘Runner’ and ‘Peace and Love’ 2013
‘Runner’ and ‘Peace and Love’ 2013. SOLD

Shoot it, Sketch it: Southern Alps, Oxford

| Anna Cull
Southern Alps, Oxford – acrylic on canvas, 204 x 204 mm, 2014
Southern Alps, Oxford – acrylic on canvas, 204 x 204 mm, 2014  (SOLD)
Southern Alps, Oxford, original photo, 2012 — Cropped and Photoshopped photo, 2014
Southern Alps, Oxford, original photo, 2012 — Cropped and Photoshopped, 2014 (click to embiggen)

Question: when is a bad, low-res phone photo a good photo? Answer: when it’s the only one you’ve got. After opening my horribly pixelated image in Photoshop, I lightened it a little and messed around with artistic filters until I had something I didn’t object to looking at, printed it, and painted it. The details you would normally expect to see in a ‘good’ photo were slightly blurred and kind of painterly even before I started working on the canvas — which was an unexpected bonus because it meant not having to squint (a time-honoured technique for getting rid of unnecessary details). I really like not having to squint.

I’ve struck gold

| Anna Cull
Goldmine – acrylic on canvas, 102 x 102 mm, 2014
Goldmine – acrylic on canvas, 102 x 102 mm, 2014

I’ve just discovered Winsor & Newton’s beautiful Gold artists’ acrylic (seen here on a black textured background along with a few touches of Quinacridone Gold and Dioxazine Purple).

For sale on Etsy and on my ‘Paintings for sale’ page.

Now… what else can I paint gold?

Everything is important

| Anna Cull
Anna Cull Sidetracked 2014
Bluescape – acrylic on canvas, 102 x 102 mm, 2014. Sold.

“The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint… I’d like to pretend that I’ve never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything… and then make something… Every time I make something I think about the people who are going to see it and every time I see something, I think about the person who made it… Nothing is important… so everything is important.” Keith Haring

This mini abstract is now for sale has now sold. At 4 x 4 inches, it’s the smallest canvas I’ve ever painted!