Busy, busy, busy....

Into the blue
acrylic on card 8x8cm
©2011 Lisa Le Quelenec

Soar! framed in a 10x10inch whitewashed ash
with a double white textured mount

Exhibitions seem to come along like buses and deadlines have been coming thick and fast. (I'm sure I've said that before on this blog...) On top of finishing paintings for shows, time has been taken up with mount cutting, framing, cello wrapping, labeling, stewarding at the Hayloft and preperation for a commission. I love to be busy and I'm not complaining but I do wonder why it is when I'm upto my eyeballs that I have all these ideas racing through my head for new work. I've a few pages of thumbnails and notes just waiting to be explored, if only I could invent a way of gaining just a few hours extra in a day.

Anyhoo, hopefully I've managed to photograph these two peices of work with out too much reflection in the glass. The first is of a tiny study, just 8x8cm. It's painted on bevelled edged mountboard (I used a mountcutter to get the angle after it was painted so the edges would be clean white.) and floated onto a second piece of card. To set the image back in the frame a hidden mount lies under the upper mount raising it to keep the image away from the glass. (I do hope this makes sense?)

The second photo Soar! - which you may remember from a couple of posts ago is now framed in a double mount with a 10x10 inch white washed ash frame. The warmth of the wood coming through the wash fits well with the warm colour in the cloud and keeps everything quite subtle. Both of these pieces will be coming with me to the Christmas Arts & Crafts Fair at Hobourne on Sunday. The venue has been renovated since I was there last year and I can't wait to see the work that has been done - it was lovely before but I'm told it is even better now. If you are in the area do stop by and say hello it would be lovely to see you.

Completed Reeds and reflections WIP

 

Reeds and Reflections
acrylic on board 34x37cm
©2011 Lisa Le Quelenec



After resting my eyes from this painting for a few days I returned to it and can now call it finished. Edges have been softened and colours adjusted (especially in the two back reeds). My aim at the start was to paint the soft, golden light which I think I have achieved. The lightest areas still photograph as very white but have been glazed with raw sienna and so are more golden in the actual painting.

One of the things that attracts me to the reeds is the range of colours that they contain. In the painting there are many small passages of colour ranging from blue to green as well as magenta but with unifying glazes of siennas the overall impression is of the soft sandy ochre which is what you first see. Had I not used so many colours in painting this area I think it would look a lot flatter and lifeless. My palette is usually much more restricted and it has been an interesting process to use more colours whilst still trying to keep a harmony between them. (I think I have achieved this, I hope that you agree.) Nine colours were used overall; naples yellow, cadmium yellow, raw sienna, burnt sienna, quinacridone magenta, burnt umber, azure, indanthrene and zinc white.