Angel Face

Happy New Year friends!  I hope you’ve all had a wonderful festive season and break. We’ve had lots of fun both home and away, spending time with family & friends and enjoying the snow! I just wanted to share with you Angel Face. I know this is my first blog post in a while but she was actually created for Christmas, but with the general hustle and bustle it has taken me until now to publish her here!  I’ve used a combination of media starting on a heavy water-colour paper which is fixed to board. On the paper I used heavy clear gesso which I stamped into whilst wet, and layered up acrylic paint and pencil. I’ve also colour washed and wiped back to reveal background detail and mute some of the tones.

This other photo shows the edging detail; a pretty contrast in sparkley pink glitter!

Angel Face (Side Detail)

Girl with Golden Hair

I’m really getting in to painting girls again – I just love painting girls, and I love experimenting with mixed media. Here I started out with some left-over pink acrylic paint which I had previously spread about as a background on to paper. Then I applied some antique decorative paper from the inner leaves of an old book as the border around the face. Then I layered up using stamps, acrylic paint, modelling paste in the hair and pencil crayons. I ‘m pleased with this portrait. Autumnal shades yet a glowing warmth are right for this time in the year!

Lady in Blue Mantle

Here we have another sketchbook image done in the same layered technique of acrylic and pastel. I produced the image about a year ago in graphite and it has just sat there in my book which I was flicking through earlier. It just seemed to shout out “Paint Me!!”, and so I obeyed. I think it’s made an improvement upon the original drawing, but just wish I had photographed it before paint to show you. N’mind!

Amanda. 30cm x 13.5cm. Acrylic on MDF Board.

Meet Amanda!  She is a good friend and a brilliant solo guitarist and singer.  She wanted me to create something for her new home as she sets out on new horizons, so this is it!!  I’ve stuck mostly to black & white as those are her favourite colour combo and tried to make it most like her – she loves her little waist coats and pin-stripes!

Had a bit more time free to get back to painting recently, as the kids are now back at school.  I have been able to replenish my sanity once again!!

Funny Faces

So, here is my latest piece. Illustration rather than mixed media. I just wanted to create something simple which would serve as promo material. It is a combination of acrylic and watercolour pencil on birch plywood. I am thinking of having this printed onto some nice organic cotton tote bags so please let me know if you are interested so I may reserve yours now!

I’ve dabbled here and there with this painting throughout the school holidays which have been fantastic. There hasn’t been much time for work as we have been busy having so much fun!! We have been to Leeds, Manchester and London. We have slid the luge, boarded the London Eye and chilled out on board a narow-boat amongst many other exciting things. And here are some more funny faces too:

South Bank, London

Playing in art installation - Invisible Rooms

Aboard 'Liberty'

Daffodils in Vase. Tissue, acrylic and gutta. 30cm x 40cm on MDF board.

Oh My!  Nearly 2 months since my last post.  So much has happened.  I have purposely been trying to take life a little more slowly so made a conscious decision not to worry about my blog but to adjust gently to the move with a ‘come what may’ attitude.  And so……. we came, and so did life and lots has occured.  We got here in Derbyshire at the end of May, and it is a pretty place.  I do love it here.  The children are settling well into the Steiner school (with a few bumps along the way, but I think that is expected), and we too are adjusting as parents to the changes.  I don’t for a minute have any doubts that we have done the right thing.  Our kids seem to have become ‘fuller’ and so much more of themselves already.  They’re growing well with their new challenges.

Jamie's Space

Sue's Space

I have some studio space set up in the house this time, sharing a work-room with my partner. (Mine’s the messy end!)  It is nice having it back home again and I am getting used to doing ‘a bit here and there’ when I can, fitting in it with my role of motherhood.  I saw a link in Jane DesRosier’s blog to this documentary film concerning motherhood as well as being a creative.  I resonate with it all: www.whodoesshethinksheis.net

I only started to paint again last week as I have been so busy with home-making and putting down new roots for myself and the family.  So, here we have my first piece from my new space.  I must admit that the initial outburst of creativity came out of frustration.  A little bit of anger and resentment which I was feeling was due to the fact that I had worked like a dog since I got here and hadn’t actually taken the time to do anything ‘creative’, sparked this piece.  And then it just seemed to flow.  It just fell out of me.  I like this piece – I translated that enegy in to something joyous.  But the harsh lines!!!  Why do I always end up creating such rigid paintings.  I guess that is just my style – authentically me.  But what does that say about me?  Uptight?  Contained?  Orderly?  Contol Freak??  Who knows?  I keep trying to blur edges and then forget again and get back into the habit of definite out-lines.  Old habits die hard or what!  I took up mixed media painting about a year ago to try to get me out of the habit of being so ‘perfectionist’ about my art.  In my previous incarnation as artist I was mentally torturing myself with finecky details and actually not being that creative at all.  You can see my old work here: www.susan-rhodes.co.uk.  In Steiner schools they have a very interesting method of painting without lines, especially in the earlier years.  They just use paint (natural pigments), wet on wet, and everything blurs and blends.  I think they are trying to teach children to create without boundaries, which is a wonderful means of expression.  These paintings have an ethereal quality and a sense of free spirit.  They are really lovely, – I think I need lessons!  Here’s one my daughter made:

Steiner painting without boundaries

Well, it’s been nice to have touched base with you all.  Will hopefully keep my blog updated now.  Although……….my children do break up today for the summer holidays so I am likely (like all mothers) to have my hands full at this time of year.  Never a dull moment!!

Pussy Cat Lover. Acrylic on Canvas.

In between house hunting, surveyor visits and junk-sorting, I’ve gone back to my girly roots.  It’s been a long time since I made any pretty girls so figured it was time to re-visit, and it has felt most refreshing!  Hand drawn and painted with fine-liner and acrylic paint on 6″ x 4″ box canvas – I am thinking of starting a new range similar to her.  Also I’m thinking of maybe some boy themed pictures too, which will be a novelty for me!

Side and Bottom View.

Side View

Fishy Collage Detail

Ever had the feeling that you should sometimes just give up on something? Well, that’s exactly how this painting went for me. There is a figure (a fisherman) who is the main subject of this painting but it went so wrong I feel a little embarrassed to show it so have cropped him out, ha ha!! However – it wasn’t all bad as I really like the background. I collaged torn rectangles of some papers I coloured up over 13 years ago when I was at school doing my art A’Level.  I think this may be the reason I am disappointed with this piece as I had ‘high hopes’ using these papers I have kept for so long and became a little sentimental over them, but it just didn’t work out as I expected. The fishies are cut from car-body repair mesh and hand sewn to the canvas. Along the way though I have learned about using Golden Matt Medium as a barrier to protect and save the base paper below – so all is not lost. On top of the Matt Medium I have layered up thin washes of acrylic paint which I have sanded and peeled back in places and then layered over again.  The background on it’s own is pretty cool, I guess!!

Tulips with Blue Glass.

Okay, just finished up on my most recent piece!  I’ve experimented with crinkled tissue paper, glue, translucent and opaque layers, dimantes and even toilet paper (for the frame!!).  I drew the lines on first with the black gutta and tissued over and started by blacking the whole thing (see below).  Then it has been a series of acrylic layers, trials and adjustments to bring the whole piece together.  I’ve learned a lot about technique through this painting – a lot about layers,  about adding then taking away and just leaving a residue.  I love how well the stencil turned out on the table cloth.

I’m striving to be original.  Granted, I have taken techniques which have been used before, some for decades – others are more recent, but others I would like to think are my own and are just what I happened to uncover through play and a curious mind.  But it is often hard to be original.  To just sit still and let it flow through you, without having to refer to source material by others time and time again.  I have my inspirations but it is tough to stand apart – to be authentic.  I do try and I am starting to succeed.  I think this has come about through zoning in, listening to the silence.  Taking time out to be alone and going into the quiet gaps in between, and if I don’t find those gaps – I make them.  It’s amazing what comes forth because of them.  Then I roll with it!

On a different but not entirely unrelated note (if we are still to have a planet to grow and enjoy tulips on!), I have come across Earth Hour which we have signed up to.  It is a campaign run by the WWF to make world governments take action against climate change. All you have to do is sign up and then bob your lights out for an hour on March 28th. Their goal is One Billion signatures  and actioners by 28/03/09 – go on!!!!  Do it – it’s easy!  Even whole Cities are pledging to do it with lights out at some of the world’s greatest sites such as Sydney Harbour and The Golden Gate Bridge.

Beech Huts. Acrylic & Water Colour Pencil on 13mm deep MDF Board. 30 x 10 cm.

The sun shone today.  The walls in our office were awash with lambent streams of light flowing in through vertical blinds.  Lovely!  Despite my headache (self inflicted from the previous evening’s pub visit!) I felt a glimpse of renewal.  The heat gently soothed my aching back, massaging me internally.  The blue sky was a welcome change from the dull overcast shades of the past few months.  We even turned the thermostat down!!  Maybe it was because of my new piece which I was just finishing up, that Sol thought she would pop in?  Cheery and bright is this little experiment which is unglamorously textured ceiling paint on MDF (yet to be signed), worked into with acrylic paints and watercolour pencils.  Painting on such a gritty surface has been a challenge for me (not least for my poor brushes!) but the affect is visually interesting. It’s got grit and it’s got depth.  Oh, I love beech huts!  I wished I lived by the sea.  Oooh, I feel a Dido song coming on . . . . . . . . “I’ve always thought that I would love to live by the sea, To travel the world alone and live more simply. I have no idea what’s happened to that dream, Cos there’s really nothing left here to stop me.  It’s just a thought, only a thought……….”

Beech Huts Close-up