HARBOUR LIGHTS – ACRYLIC PAINTING

I was a bit low after my last plein air outing and the resulting paintings produced (last post). Wanting a change from another landscape, I rummaged among my pile of the incomplete and abandoned paintings in search of fresh leads. This one above was an abstract attempting to recall the wonderful colours seen on a visit to Corsica a few years ago. The trouble was, I wasnt getting the deep blues and clear turquoises I was after and the whole thing looked a bit sombre and so it got abandoned. I decided to lighten it up and add flecks of colour. The process lifted my spirits and it occurred to me that it was like coming back to the familiar, a return to comfort and I thought about the effect of the sight of harbour lights for a crew returning in the evening gloom. So I had a title. The process opened me to similar themes on the subject and to the possibility of repurposing old paintings. I have another one on the go at present.

Abstracts are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

FURTHER SEMBLANCES – INK AND WASH SKETCHES

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Still playing around with the inks and washes. I am trying to get something to work up onto a canvas. So far I feel the simplicity of the pieces just fail to maintain interest on a bigger scale. I am applying the ink with a pipette but get much more interesting lines with my broken pipettes rather than the ones supplied with the acrylic inks. The one on the right, above, was done with my broken pipette as opposed to the one supplied with the ink on the left. Although I did like the effect of mixing the different coloured inks in the lines on the image on the left , the blue is certainly a less strident colour than the black..

The style and orientation of the lines also bring their own images, such as the grid giving an urban feel on the right above.

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So with another difference in orientation of the lines, a more nautical feel emerges which is then reinforced with colour.

Here, above, I`ve tried to add further textures though I dont feel that it has moved the image on much and made it more messy. So I will keep on playing. Fortunately I have a lot of discarded paintings I can work on the back of.

Other abstract painting can be found for sale on my website; grahammcquadefineart.com

DROP IN THE OCEAN – ACRYLIC PAINTING

I have seen a number of poured acrylics recently and decided to have a go myself. I have always liked the effects of poured paint and experimented with it around ten years ago with oil based gloss paint and below is one of my more successful ventures, Marrakech,  which, because of the lightfastness of the gloss paint, now hangs in my conservatory.

I did not think you could get the same filigree effects with acrylics that you could get with the more viscous oil paint and so mainly used the liquid acrylics in a more dilute way such as in Dancing the Blues Away, which I posted some time ago, in 2015, on this blog.

So my prejudice has been exposed and I realise it might be worth experimenting with the liquid acrylics in a more concentrated form. I must admit my first attempt included as much manipulation as pouring as I played around with the paint with a palette knife, but the strands and swirls gave a satisfying result and looking at some of the work other people have produced,  further variations can be had with the addition of silicone oil. I will be having a few more goes.

Other acrylic paintings for sale can be found on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com