creative process

Sundays

three paintings shown together in the context of a line-drawn living room to give an idea of their size and how they look hung together as a triptych
| Anna Cull
The Pleasant Valley Sundays, acrylic on canvas, 405 x 405 mm (each canvas), 2023. Available.

The Pleasant Valley Sundays were painted to exhibit at this year’s Pegasus Bay Art Show and are based on a view of Port Chalmers from the Lady Thorn Rhododendron Dell lookout on a misty summer’s day in 2017 (the photograph below).

“I used to think I knew all the answers. Then I thought I knew maybe a few of the answers. Now I’m not even sure I understand the questions. Nobody knows anything.”

Pete Nelson

I had a plan and I had time. I thought I had time. I had three months and then two… and then two weeks… two days… and when I ran out of time, I stopped.

For your viewing pleasure, I have put together three slideshows of the key stages in each painting’s progress:
WIP 1 ~ charcoal drawing / basic composition
WIP 2 ~ tonal underpainting to determine values
WIP 3 ~ exploring colours and resolving issues
Final ~ “A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places.” Paul Gardner

Pleasant Valley Sunday I

  • WIP 1
  • WIP 2
  • WIP 3
  • Final

Finding the shapes in the middle group of trees and adding one final pale blue glaze to the water and distant hills (in the final image) really made the whole landscape ‘pop’ ~ and then, with a careful scattering of power poles, I stopped. This style became the template for the other two paintings.

In case you’re curious (and I certainly was), the big red building in the foreground is Buffalo Lodge, a turn-of-the century hall that has been transformed into accommodation and listed with Airbnb New Zealand. We will definitely be checking it out next time we visit Dunedin.

Pleasant Valley Sunday II

  • WIP 1
  • WIP 2
  • WIP 3
  • Final

The variety of houses in the second painting was a joy to behold. I initially thought the pointy building in the middle was a café because it didn’t look like any of the surrounding houses. In reality, however, it is a delightfully unusual residential property (online research is a wonderful thing). The roof is not conical and is not quite as tall as I’ve painted it ~ but that’s how it wanted to be painted and so that’s how it is.

Pleasant Valley Sunday III

  • WIP 1
  • WIP 2
  • WIP 3
  • Final

The beautiful character house in the lower left corner (above) is one of my favourites in the Pleasant Valley Sunday series. I looked this one up online too. The house, built in 1907, was for sale last year. No doubt it sold for a little more spare change than we would’ve had available. Still, it’s nice to dream.

So… more trees, more houses ~ a splash of orange light and a bend in the road, deep purple shadows and a few more power poles. Three paintings completed. Or one triptych. Either way, that was quite a mission.

It took a little over six weeks (six weeks of actual painting time) to finish all three. A lot of thought went into finding a sort of architectural abstraction in the trees and also into limiting the amount of detail in the buildings so that the manmade appeared more organic and vice versa. If it hadn’t been for the deadline of the art show, I would probably still be painting them.

Reflections on a Lily Pond

| Anna Cull

Reflections on a Lily Pond series – final paintings

I’ve been on one of my painting journeys over the last few weeks, revisiting Sparkle and Shine, a landscape (pondscape?) from 2013.

WIP#1 – works in progress – underpainting and figuring out the composition

WIP #1  I started with black canvases and used intense colours for the underpainting because I wanted the lily pads to really stand out against the blue-black water.

WIP#2 – adding colour

WIP #2  Then I painted green over the pink and yellow over the purple. Lighter blue ‘sparkle’ shapes were introduced to the water.

WIP#3 – the final touches

WIP #3  The final stage included adding touches of pink for the highlights.

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I’m going to wait a week or so for them to dry properly, varnish them (because I think reflections should be glossy and I want the water to look deliciously dark and deep), and then these four new paintings will be available on Etsy.

The Black Canvas

| Anna Cull

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“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Pablo Picasso

‘Chinatown’ (Melbourne) is my first ever painting on black canvas. I bought four little 4″ x 12″ canvases more than a year ago but I haven’t had the confidence to paint on them. Until now. I have no idea what flipped the switch that suddenly made it the right time but I’m so glad I did. Picking up a few tips from tutorials posted online definitely helped and it turns out that I absolutely love love love ❤❤❤ painting on black canvas.

There is a second black canvas diptych waiting in the wings, another Melbourne night cityscape. I have also bought some black gesso so that I can make my own black canvases and continue exploring this new way of painting. Happy days.

Together

| Anna Cull

Working Together, They Proved Everybody Wrong — acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 mm each, 2018

Two more mini paintings ~ the title is another of my six-word stories: “Working together, they proved everybody wrong”. It seemed as good a title as any.

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Unafraid (word prompts)

| Anna Cull

“The main inhibitor for creativity is just being scared…. You’re afraid that your ideas aren’t good enough. If you can get over that hump where you don’t care whether your ideas are any good or not, then you can be successful.” James Kochalka

The following six-word stories were prompted by the Page Flutter Six-Word Story Challenge. I’m also posting a few of my favourites over on Instagram.

28. She can. Of course she can.

29. She was unafraid… and dangerously optimistic.

30. School’s out! Now life’s lessons begin.

31. Writers gonna write, prompted or not.

1. Reputation shmeputation. It’s actions that matter.

2. Leap? I’m happy with baby steps.

3. Foolhardy, he was clearly not responsible.

[May/June prompts: she can…, unafraid, school’s out!, (no prompt), the lion, leap, daredevil.]

P.S. The background image is a detail of one of the new little paintings which I wrote about in my previous post.