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

October 13, 2014September 21, 2023 | Anna Cull

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

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 : )

Wordless Wednesday #36

October 8, 2014October 6, 2014 | Anna Cull

The very small painting with the really long title

September 22, 2014July 5, 2016 | Anna Cull

Where shadows grow long at the foot of the mountain, ghost trees shine like gold. Acrylic on canvas, 102 x 102 mm, 2014 — Where shadows grow long
at the foot of the mountain,
ghost trees shine like gold.
Acrylic on canvas, 102 x 102 mm, 2014. Sold.

Ghost trees, Arthur’s Pass, original photo, 2013 — Cropped and Photoshopped, 2014 (click to embiggen)

The really long title is also a haiku. I’m thinking it may be the first of a series of mini canvas + haiku combinations.

The painting is based on another phone-camera image edited in Photoshop. Good old Photoshop!

Shoot it, Sketch it: Southern Alps, Oxford

September 19, 2014June 15, 2015 | Anna Cull

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.

Wordless Wednesday #33

September 17, 2014September 4, 2014 | Anna Cull

Design time

September 16, 2014June 24, 2020 | Anna Cull

During my break from blogging last month, I was given the opportunity to create a couple of logos. One client wanted a design based on water, the other client asked for a ‘rising sun’ graphic — and this is what I came up with:

Ruth wanted her Relax Restore Massage logo (above) to be simple and modern and to represent the soothing and healing aspects of her massage therapy business. The river lines were hand-drawn, scanned and converted into a vector graphic. They also became the background pattern for Ruth’s gift vouchers and Facebook cover.

Julian asked for his design (below) to communicate potential, strength, growth, moving through obstacles and breaking new ground to become unstuck. He says that the services he offers can be quite challenging for people and not always ‘relaxing’ in the traditional sense. He also wanted a dramatic panorama for his website banner. The banner landscape is an acrylic painting which I scanned and adjusted slightly (for dramatic effect) in Photoshop. I was so happy with the end result that I used it on the business cards and gift vouchers too.