Cath Sheard Art

Tag: acrylic

  • Patea Freezing Works – Framework

    I showed details from this painting a few posts back when I was talking about the colors I am using. Those photos also give some idea of the mark making involved in these pieces. I start most of the works with a few lines in a black Cretacolor pastel pencil – both as a rough guide to placement and just to get some marks onto the canvas so it’s not so ‘new’ any more. From there I put really runny white acrylic over most areas and start brushing thin acrylic color into the white. Again, just tinting the surface and giving me clues about what goes where. In some areas I will keep working away at it until I have a fairly flat area of final color. While this is happening others areas are drying as quite pale washes.

    Once I have paint over the whole canvas, and some areas at a near final colour, I start blocking in larger areas of more concentrated colour. I use big brushes, a lovely wide 1 1/5″Color Scraper, painting knife and old credit cards. As I get more color on I start adding marks using the knife, the edge of the credit cards, brush handles etc. I also scratch paint off again with the same tools. With some of the flatter areas I may mist them with water and then blot some of the paint off with a paper towel. I keep an old houseplant watering bottle on my desk for doing this. The Atelier Interactive paints are especially receptive to this sort of treatment.

    Framework

    Most of the finishing of the work is done without using a brush, except for a rigger, because I like the marks to show.For me it is important that people can see my hand in the work. I think over time we each develop marks that are distinctly our own; even if someone else tried to copy them, they’d never be quite the same. It’s like giving an authentic signature and a forgery to a hand-writing expert; the differences show.

    So, this work is titled Framework, and as with the others in the series so far it is 16×16″ in acrylics on gallery wrap canvas.

  • Patea Freezing Works – Switched Off

    This is another work which I completed at the weekend, called “Switched Off”. It stared with a photograph of a power switch on a factory wall, with the coloured wires going up he wall towards the ceiling. I don’t know what room it was in within the works. All the other works I have done so far have focused on the exterior of the works, but I have some incredible photos of the interior, including gears, switches and chains. Later, as the demolition continues, there will other things come on site, such as air quality monitoring kits and ground testing equipment. All fascinating stuff in its own way.

    Switched Off

    Speaking of fascinating. I am reading a book called ‘100 most important science ideas’. I love science; things like Fibonacci’s Numbers, the Golden Rectangle and Schrodinger’s cat. Sadly, although fascinated, my brain is not very good at science. I have a dear friend who is incredibly logical. If you gave us both 30 bits of related information, all on separate bits of paper we would handle it quite differently. She would arrange them all, mentally sort and sift and calculate – then come up with the correct answer. I would look at them all, handle them and scribble on them, perhaps fold some – then go quiet on you. Two hours later my brain makes a leap of intuition and I yell out the correct answer, frightening small children and animals in the process. (no wonder my husband sometimes panics when I do crosswords) So, I am destined to enjoy, but constantly fail at, science – ah well…
    Anyway, back to art, which is much more suited to my slightly unusual brain. As with the other Freezing Works paintings, this one is 16×16″ in acrylic on canvas and will be for sale through my website.  I may not get it uploaded tonight as I seem to be having problems with our wireless connection.

  • Patea Freezing Works – Bare Bones IX


    Bare Bones IX

    In  my last post I talked about how I selected the colours for this series – a combination of the local light, the colours of our land and probably most importantly the colours that describe how I feel about the Freezing Works.

    I don’t normally work in such a high key palette but in working through Confident Colour, Nita Leland’s book, I realised that on many ways I prefer high key even though I tend to paint quite dark. I made a conscious decision to lighten up. It has been a tiring week and work, then this morning I got up and did  3 loads of washing and ironed 5 ambulance shirts, made our lunches, loaded the dishwasher etc then headed for my art room.

    Remember I said that the colours I am using are partly an expression of how I feel in my memory about the freezing works? Turns out they are also a reflection of who I am feeling at the time, which is no great surprise I guess. How do I know this. Because I painted for a couple of hours then roamed off to get a cold drink. When I came back to my art room – oh my goodness!

    This afternoon’s effort is dark and gloomy, despite using the same few tubes of colour as before. It is my use of them that has changed. Grey sky, gloomy buildings, dark shadowed land. Dreadful…so tomorrow it gets gessoed over and I start again.

    I did the only sensible thing I could do when I realised what I had done. I went into Mum’s room, where she was doing a crossword as always, and got into her bed for a nap in the sun (giving her strict instructions to wake me after 30 minutes). It’s amazing what a quick nap can do for your day. It’s funny, at the weekend I often have a wee nap on or in her bed while she reads or does the crosswords. Some of us never get over needing our Mum no matter how old we are…

    In the meantime, here is one I finished a couple of days ago now. It’s 16×16″ in acrylic on canvas and called Bare Bones IX. It’s for sale on my website here.

  • Odd and ends in our house

    Well, Christmas is over, I have a few days holiday left, and it’s raining so, yes, I have been painting hard out. I should have some work to show you tomorrow as I have 3 40cm square canvas all but finished. Initially things weren’t going so well with them, but once I realised the problem was I had other people’s work in mind, not my own, the problem vanished! People worry about artists copying their work but I couldn’t if I tried. Seeing other might influence me, but once I pick up my mark making tools it is *me* that comes out on that canvas each and every time.

    Today I purchased Alyson Stanfield’s book The relatively pain-free artist statement – you can read about Alyson here.  Why? As I mentioned a while back, I have started on a new body of work; it’s quite different from what I have done before and I want to market it well. That means writing and talking about it, so I figured the advice of a professional was warranted. I’ll be working through the book starting tomorrow, and will let you know how it’s going.

    When I’m not painting I’ve been busy with Mum as the chest infection I gave her sprang back to life as soon as she finished the antibiotics. I think since she had pneumonia in the middle of the year she’s been a bit more susceptible. Here’s what our dog Faith had to say about it today:

    Today I have been relaxing on Grandma’s knee, on the mohair rug in 26 degree heat, cos Grandma’s been sick. Mum went to the hospital with her the other night and waited 4 hours – she was a bit cross when she got home. But not very cross, cos she says sometimes it has been Grandma that makes the doctors and nurses run late, so fair’s fair.
    Grandma has a chest infection, but the staff kept asking about the big bruise on her arm – and Grandma couldn’t remember how it happened. When we got home Mum and Grandma were laughing, saying that a this rate the Police will be round any day to accuse Mum of beating up Grandma.

  • Feeling better, doing more layers

    Having passed my chest infection on to my husband (remember marriage vows – for better or worse – this is worse) and my mother (blast! at 85, it’s not a good thing) – I’m feeling a bit better. Although the house still sounds a bit like a TB ward really. Now that I have my coughing under control, and a wee bit of energy back, I need to get creating. The longer I don’t create anything, the worse I feel and the harder it is to get going again. I am sure many of you know exactly what I mean. So today I have been playing with this idea again:

    I’ve taken one of the two large backgrounds and added some transparent freezing works imagery over the top. I want to print this out at roughly A3 size then work back over the top in oil stick and charcoal. I had already done one, and was pleased with it, so some more will help me decide if this is the path to follow or not.