I’m having my first ever sale on Etsy. Between now and early December I will be featuring THREE paintings every week at 40–60% off the original price. Three different paintings will be listed at very special prices every Thursday. Click on the images to visit my shop.
This week’s paintings are:
‘Grey Duck’ is one you probably haven’t seen before. He was an art school ‘life drawing’ exercise from a few years ago; a four-hour sketch; a resident of the Canterbury Museum (yes, sadly, an ex-duck)… and I’ve only just decided to let him out into the big wide world. Some art is like that. Some art wants to stay with you ― privately, secretly ― at least for a short time until you figure out what you want to do with it (if anything).
If you like him as much as I do, you can click on the image above and buy him from my Etsy shop : )
Yes, I’ve been having fun styling the cards for my shop. But now it’s back to painting… that way I’ll have something to show you next week. Thanks for reading.
“The most joyous painting is not done for the art world, it is done for the inner world.” Michael Leunig
The quote is from Holy Fool, a wonderful book crammed full of Michael Leunig’s art ― not his cartoons but his playful, colourful, joyful paintings and drawings. Highly recommended.
It’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally turned some of my drawings and paintings into note cards. They are all 6” x 4” because that’s a nice size for framing.
The really hard part has been limiting myself to a dozen designs for my first printing. The following are now available from my Etsy shop:
I have finally completed the commission I mentioned in a post about a month ago: an abstract landscape triptych for the owner of a Christchurch hair salon. Sonya (who is a bit of a genius when it comes to cut and colour) is changing the name of her business from ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ to ‘Sign of the Times’ (yes, she is a huge Prince fan) and wanted to mark the occasion with a significant artwork ― ‘significant’ in both senses of the word.
Sonya told me that I could paint whatever I wanted ― the only guidelines were size (to fit a large area above the door), colour (grey and orange, to match the colours in the salon), and for it to include the new business name and symbol. And it had to be a surprise. Sonya didn’t want any WIP images… nothing until it was finished! Oh and it needed to look good in the mirror too. No problem!
I opted for an abstract landscape because I thought that would be a suitable background for the words and symbols. Quite a lot of my inspiration came from the salon’s location near Barrington Park (in the photographs below):
We did make one final (and fairly major) change to the triptych before calling it ‘finished’ but I can’t show you the paintings until we’ve put them up in the salon and that won’t be until October 1st. Sorry for the long wait. I have, however, just started another painting…
Update: The paintings are now in the salon (a little ahead of schedule). Visit this post to read more…
“Draw on both sides of the line, not just what you’re enclosing. The shape you’re making on the outside is as important as the one you’re making on the inside.” Leon Polk Smith
My latest painting, the one that began last week with this photo and sketch: a combination of brilliant sunlight and playful cloud shapes. And who doesn’t love finding things in the clouds?
I’m reminded of the Joni Mitchell song Both Sides, Now: “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall ― I really don’t know clouds at all.”
Anna Cull ~ Art & Music 