Coastal collages and mixed media

Coast I - IV   15.5x15.5cm each   mixed media and collage   ©2019LisaLeQuelenec

Four little-uns exploring some notes I made during the February project. I have been really enjoying working in this way. After the weekends hot spell and blazing sunshine my palette has brightened again. I seem to be very influenced by the weather and light - I wonder if this is a particularly British thing....we do talk about the weather a lot ;o)

All four are available at SeasidestudiosUK on Etsy.

Coast I   15.5x15.5cm mixed media and collage   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

Coast II   15.5x15.5cm mixed media and collage   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

Coast III   15.5x15.5cm mixed media and collage   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

Coast IV   15.5x15.5cm mixed media and collage   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

FOG!

Sailing through the mist II  watercolour on paper 14x19cm   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

We had a little early morning fog a couple of weeks ago. Fog is soft and silent. It muffles sound, confusing the listener. Things loom in and out of focus making everything soft and silhouetted. Yet every time I see, hear or read the word fog in my mind I hear Brian Blessed too much watching Peppa Pig - he is the voice of Grampy Rabbit, and I smile. (I have included a link to a wikipedia page for anyone not familiar with his name or the variety of his achievements - what a life!)

Sailing through the mist  watercolour on paper 14x19cm   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

I will leave you with a quote from the 1980 film Flash Gordon and Brian Blessed's most famous catchphrase;

'GORDON'S ALIVE!!!'

I hope it brightens your day ;o)

Sailing at the Ocean's End

Sailing at the Ocean's End   acrylic on canvas board 20x20cm   ©2017LisaLeQuelenec

I couldn't resist trying another version and including the sail boat. I wonder if this one reads as a larger expanse of space compared to the one in the previous post. What do you think?


This painting is available on Etsy at Seaside studios UK.  and as a print on RedBubble.

Colour inspiration   ©2017LisaLeQuelenec

Summer sailing

Summer sailing, turquoise seas and a gentle breeze....... Who could ask for more? (A far cry from the torrential rain we have in the UK at the moment but a girl can dream.)

Summer sailing I   watercolour 17x17cm  ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

Summer sailing II   watercolour 17x17cm  ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

These paintings are available in my Etsy store SeasidestudiosUK 

I have also listed the first five in the edition and a proof print of my Nautilus drypoint.

Storms End

Storms End   17x17cm watercolour on paper   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

With all the printmaking going on I have made a little time for painting too. A small painting inspired by the end of some wild weather. This painting is available at my Etsy store here

A storm in a WIP....

Guiding Light (unfinished)  acrylic on canvas 50x50cm   ©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

I didn't appreciate before just how long putting together a blog post takes. There has been painting going on during the past month just not much time to sit at the pooter to edit pictures and get a post together......must try harder.

This is the canvas that I have been battling with. I think I am almost there. I need to live with it a while to 'see' the adjustments that need to be made. I feel that it needs more colour. The reality is not so contrasty and more warmer and subtle in the tones but the camera hasn't picked that up. So the battle continues....

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

I started by going through my colour notes sketchbook and choosing my palette. I wanted to keep the colour fairly subtle and not too dark. It was important to me that the colours leaned to the warm side, to give the feeling of the hot, humid, heavy feeling before a storm. This palette of ivory black, indanthrene, azure blue, buff titanium and parchment fitted the bill. I have added titanium and zinc white and a touch of pthalo turquoise to the mix.

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

Blocking in and deciding the tonal patterns are my starting point. Everything is very rough and ready getting the bare bones down quickly. I stayed fairly close to the original watercolour which you can see in my previous post here .

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

I was starting to work on the shafts of sunlight by dry brushing the paint and added the sail of the yacht in. The painting was trying to tell me that it needed something else. Something subtle but very necessary was missing.

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

I did what I usually do when faced with such a dilemma. I turned to my sketchbooks. Flicking through I found a tiny sketch of the Isle of Wight and the Needles and decided that the small little detail was just what I needed. I had to keep it subtle though I didn't want anything fighting with the light which is the focal point of the painting.

My sketchbooks are beyond valuable to me and such an important part of the way that I work. Sometimes just for small details like this and the notes about light and atmosphere.

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

I kept the tones very close so that the land is a mere suggestion. It also appeals to me that the there is a second 'guiding light' with the addition of the lighthouse but that it is outweighed by nature's guiding light.

©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

Reassessing the painting I concluded that the yacht was now too far over to the right of the composition and needed to move to the left a little. I also increased the scale. The sail is acting like an arrow to the sun streaming through the cloud.

Awaiting the tide

Awaiting the tide   23x23cm watercolour    ©2012Lisa Le Quelenec

I love the patterns left by the tide in the sand. The ripples where water collects, reflecting the sky, makes a lovely contrast in tone with the darker sand especially during the early evening as the light mellows and shadows turn purple hued.

This painting is included in the Hayloft Gallery Christmas show. The exhibition is open until 20th December and is open 10 - 4pm.

Evening sail

So much can change minute to minute or less at this time of day. What a challenge to paint and try to capture it! I painted these from a group of sketches, photos and memories that I made at the beach in Southbourne during the summer. All the work done on site is invaluable during the winter months when it is too wet to get outside. The rich store of information sees me through the winter.

Evening Sail I 10x10cm acrylic on canvas ©2012LisaLeQuelenec

Evening Sail II 10x10cm acrylic on canvas ©2012LisaLeQuelenec

Cloud Watching

Cloud Watching   11x11cm acrylic on board   ©2012LisaLeQuelenec

A tiny painting to peer into.

Finding the right title - elemental

Elemental II   9x9cm mixed media   ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

I did a lot of thinking about a title for this series of tiny works. In my sketchbooks are lists of words, ideas for titles, hurriedly scribbled notes made whilst in the middle of a painting. None of these seemed to fit. Quite a few words came to mind but none seemed to capture exactly what I was aiming for. I started to look at dictionary definitions which helped to clarify in my own mind, in words, what it was that I want to say. I often find titling work the hardest part of the creative process, to articulate the idea and to be succinct can be a big challenge. I want to give the viewer a clue as to what I am aiming at without dictating to them how they are supposed to respond. I find this is a tricky line to walk.

Elemental was a word that I had kept coming back to, below is the definition of  'Elemental' as an adjective from  http://oxforddictionaries.com

 
'forming an essential or typical feature; fundamental... related to or embodying the powers of nature... (of an emotion) powerful and primitive...'


How do you title your works? Do you find it as hard as I do? Do you think titles are important? Maybe you think that all that needs to be said is within the work itself? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Elemental III   9x9cm mixed media   ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

 

September storms - part 2

Before the Storm Broke   watercolour on paper 17x17cm   ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

The rain, it kept on coming. The news was reporting the worst September storms for thirty years and seventy flood warnings were in place, mostly in the North. Flood water has caused a lot of destruction already and I hope everyone stays safe.

On the coast the rain clouds started to disperse and we had intervals of intense, bright sun. Intuition is now taking over painting these watercolours as I start to add tiny amounts of other colours. In the painting above small hints of raw sienna are used in the sky at the horizon and in some of the cloud.  I've also added a tiny amount of gouache for the sails and sparkle of the water. Unusually for me this one is painted on rough Arches. Whilst I frequently used to use rough paper in the passed the last couple of years I have preferred hot press. I shall continue to experiment with it for now.

Today the sun is shining and it feels like a crisp autumnal day so I will head to the beach to walk and make the most of it whilst it's here.

 More postcard sized experiments.

Waiting II

Waiting II acrylic on paper 16x26cm ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

I finished the partner to my previous posts painting over the weekend. Both are now double mounted in a textured white board and available in my Etsy gallery  here .  In the coming months I think there will be more Venetian paintings. I see these as a continuation of the themes in my work - light on water, spatial and quiet contemplative depth - just maybe a new arm.


An artist whose work I admire who often talks of working from memory is Loriann Signori. Her latest post here on working in a series very eloquently and succinctly describes the power of producing a body of work in this way. You can see very clearly from her new  website  the themes and relationships running through her work.

Waiting

Waiting   acrylic on paper 16x26cm ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

This seems a very apt title for this painting. Let me explain.... I visited Venice for five days in 2008. I'd wanted to go for years and was so excited that I spent weeks putting together a sketching kit whittling it down to the essentials then adding more in to the pack then whittling it down again. I bought a new memory card for my camera just in case I ran out of room on the one I had. I had a new sketchbook, new paint, I was so excited counting down the days.

Once there it was everything and more than I expected. In fact it was so 'more' than I expected that I was completely overwhelmed and visually overloaded. I managed a few very poor sketches and took a few hundred photos and did very little else other than trying to absorb as much of what I was seeing as I could. As a holiday it was amazing and I would recommend to everyone to take the time to visit. I would love to visit again and am sure that one day I will. 

At home I tried and tried to paint the Venice that I had seen but in hindsight it was just too fresh in my memory. Whatever I tried came out too literal and didn't express any of the thoughts, feelings or experience. They didn't cut the muster as paintings for me and I felt very frustrated. With a subject that has been painted so many times by so many artists it is difficult sometimes to to paint without emulating someone elses vision resulting in a poor pastiche.

It has been just lately that I feel like I can paint the Venice that I felt and my over riding visual memory of the place; the evening walks, the hustle and bustle slowing down for the day and the softening of the colours and edges of the silhouettes of buildings, bridges and gondolas. The distance of time has filtered out the visual clutter and white noise distilling and refining the experience. It's the distillation that seems to become more and more important to my work.

Sunday sailing

After a gloriously sunny Sunday it's back to being chilly and grey today making photographing this painting hard work. (The sky is slightly bluer in the painting than this picture shows.) A sleepy evening sail on a silent sea.

After my trip home I am having trouble settling down to work as there are so many ideas running through my mind. It's the opposite to painter's block and just as tricky to overcome when there just aren't enough hours in the day. I've been making lots of thumbnails and notes to get things jotted down on paper so as not to forget. Any tips for silencing my inner butterfly would be greatly appreciated.

Sunday Sailing acrylic on canvas board 20x20cm ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec