Back to Work.

We had a fabulous Christmas and received loads of lovely presents from our nearest and dearest. I wanted to entitle this post 'Back to Lovely Work' but it's a different kind of lovely, of course!

Here is an oil painting I've just finished (I think). It's called Splashing Free.

I've hung it high on the wall to dry so that I forget about it and don't get covered in oil paint when trying to move around it.

Happy New Year to all!

Success Story

Well it wasn't long before I made some finishing touches to that painting.

I had a bright idea and offered it as a replacement for a larger picture of the castle at Mearns Arthouse, where Fiona didn't have room to properly display my North Sea Diptych. She loved the new 'Through the Mist' idea of the castle and has taken it to put on the wall in the shop.


Maybe I'll be able to show you the display she puts up over Christmas.

No Snow Influence!

When you know Dunnottar Castle you'll know that it sometimes emerges from the mist like this on the warmest days or dullest days. It doesn't need snow to give it a magical feel because the ruin itself and the ever-changing coastal conditions make it an enchanted castle any time.

I'm not sure if this painting is finished but I want it to be slight and simple, light of touch but effective. Seeing it on my blog will help me decide and perhaps your comments will help me decide too, whether it needs more work. Sleeping on it (not literally!) will help, of course. What I don't want to do is overwork it so I'm exercising restraint and must do something else to take my mind off it.

Welcome to my new follower; and if this happens to be my last post before Christmas - Happy Christmas to all!

x x x

Ladies in colour

The black textured canvas in my last post was in preparation for an abstract expressionist version of this beautiful pose, sketched quite boldly last week in our Life Drawing session at Muchalls. We are giving the models and ourselves a break during the harshest winter months and I shall miss the practise; but it is a good chance to use the time for developing some of the drawings into great paintings.

Work In Progress

Here are a few photos to show you that I continue to be busy even though I don't post often on the blog.

Moving On

It fills me with joy and pride to know that other people enjoy having my paintings and creations around them. I've no lofty expectations of being a Turner Prize winner or any kind of esteemed name in the realms of High Art: I create therefore I exist happily, that's all.

I don't always create beautiful things. Sometimes they go wrong. Sometimes the colours are far too rustic or dreary to be loved - that's fine. Art is a process. Sometimes I blow even myself away with producing something great, so the adventure goes on.

Quite by surprise I sold this lovely little textile, tactile canvas last week. The buyer was in my studio for something else (buying a semi-abstract similar to For Ever and Ever at the top of this blog) and wanted this too. She has found a perfect home for it in her house: hanging on a mirrored alcove.
This person enjoys having things she loves surrounding her in her home and I'm happy she's chosen some things I've produced. That's what art is all about.

Three Cosy Dogs...

Here are the three little snoods - or perhaps you could call them dog-cosies (as opposed to tea-cosies) - for my friend's three greyhound dogs. I hope they'll fit and feel comfortable.

When I go to fit them I'll take some buttons to sew onto the dogs' outdoor coats, to ensure their snoods will stay in place.

Mmm... very cosy on a wintery day...

Snood for Grace

This could be wishful thinking and the photos are only a rough guide too, but I'm hoping this piece of knitting will fit gracefully over my friend's beautiful greyhound dog, Grace, when she's out in the snow and cold wind. She'll be wearing her winter doggie coat but needs something to keep her ears warm, so hopefully I can sew a button on to the coat to hold this in place.

Not having a dog  nearby to model it, I used someone's leg to show how it'll bend to the right shape!

If this turns out to be OK, Ros, then hopefully the slightly bigger one that I'm working on, on the 15mm knitting needles with 8 yarns, will be about right for Henri... and then all they'll need is some very cold weather!

Blue Is Not Sad

I love wearing red, it makes me feel better.

Not an unusual statement: it's a known scientific fact that certain colours have effects on the people who wear them. However, I am coming to realise that colours are far more integral to my sanity than to many humankind. It's one of those things you live with all your life and presume everyone else does until discovering otherwise, like having tinnitus or tunnel-vision.


I was listening to Jacky Niven, and watching her art demo. She has a condition called synaesthesia and although I don't have it in such a clear-cut way as her, some of what she was saying rang a bell and made perfect sense to me. Others in the audience simply found the phenomenon downright peculiar and even frightening. Heavens, no.

Acrylic on paper - size A3

Many of my paintings are blue, or based on blue. I love blue sky. I love the sea. I love living in Stonehaven because we get plenty of blue skies. The sky is blue – even behind the clouds – because air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer wavelengths, and of all the rainbow colours on this earth from the sun, blue has the shortest wavelengths. We are surrounded by the blue! Blue is uplifting, a breath of fresh air.

So blue is not sad.

Red is not angry. Red is confident, warm, cosy and bright. For me it stands for brilliance, intensity, clarity of thought and positivity. Red needs to be in a painting, if only in a hint or a streak. Sometimes I need to paint a large canvas with red in a huge wide arc, with bold, dramatic brushstrokes, steeping myself in the beauty of red. Every house, every room, needs a red painting.

Jacky Niven described her synaesthesia as so clear-cut that triangles are yellow.

I could go through all the colours here, discussing the various shades and their nuances, what they mean to me and how I like to use them or not in my paintings but if I have any kind of synaesthesia (and I doubt I have, just an artistic brain) then my emotions, thoughts and memories are connected with colours – but they are not always the same colours. That would be too simple and … dare I say it: boring.

Extremely Knitted

My Extreme Knitting drew a lot of attention when I demonstrated it throughout my stewarding stints at Johnshaven Gallery for NEOS (North East Open Studios). I regretted the feeling that it took attention away from all my paintings on the walls but I was pleased to engage people's interest and let them have a go. Some were absolutely fascinated by it, others surprised me by being almost frightened; but everyone loved the colours and boldness, the warmth and heaviness of what I was creating.

Here's a photo of it - nearly finished - awaiting more tassles and some big buttons (and other finishing touches).

Big Strokes

Back to work and I'm loving it. This is an oil painting with a LOT of texture and it's intended to be quite abstract, at the moment. It's at the stage where I might be tempted to make it a seascape and I would probably be resisting realism if I didn't... but what I want to do is transform reality to make this painting into something special so that the viewer decides how real it is.

Here are two stages:

There's more work to be done but the oil paint will make me wait and leave it to think about instead of being tempted to make it look finished before I've given it enough thought.

I'm disappointed that the photo doesn't show the variety of blues used. Oh well, you get the gist.

Link to publicity

Thought you might like to read this recent article in our local newspaper.

Freedom!

A quickie while I'm here.

I have deleted my Facebook account so as to free up more time and stop getting so utterly confused by it. Life is too short! I can write interesting emails to individuals more quickly and efficiently than getting caught in the quagmire that FB was dishing up with increasing complexity. I am free of it!

So please - email me, follow my blog, tell me about yours. mrs.bern.ross@googlemail.com

Reclining Lady

 At last I can get to my easel - just. Clambering over boxes and canvases that have been misplaced and brought back from exhibitions here there and everywhere. I'm pleased to have my babies back and pleased to have found good homes for the ones that were bought.

The model for this reclining lady loved the painting before her outline even arrived on it!  This isn't quite finished: I'm not happy with the line of her hips.But I do love the marks around her hairline and want to achieve this elsewhere on the painting.

By the way, it is created in oils on an acrylic background and the best effect was achieved when painting with my fingers. Must get back to it...

Prolific or What!

I seem to have been quiet on here recently but it's only because taking photos and changing gear inside my head to explain what I've been doing is too much to ask when I've been so very busy!

The first three images below show what I've started today and the rest are various details from pieces I've recently displayed on Affordable British Art

....Inside one of the boats!

This little figure on the beach is a revision - long awaited but well worth it. Soon to go back on my Affordable British Art Gallery.

Detail from 'Dunnottar Afar'

Detail from the textures on Fidget (lady in blue).

I've also been writing a press release for South Aberdeenshire Abstracts and starting a sewing project for someone as well as 'keeping the home fires burning' as they say. There are not enough hours in the day!
Enjoy.

Triptych

On its way...

Started with a lovely mess...

Progressing with an even greater mess...


This is all you're going to see until I have finished all three.

Who knows how similar they will be?

Alongside my Paintings

With 3 exhibitions coming up (as well as a couple of paintings currently on show at Grassic Gibbon Centre in Arbuthnott) I'm trying to ensure things are finished. I need to make labels for everything and some notices about what's what; and I'm trying to ensure that each exhibition will have a good variety of my work as well as large and small pieces to suit as many visitors as possible.

Today I've been writing descriptions and making a display of photos of the projects I've done in the past. I've also taken stock of a few of the textile pieces I've been working on and here are a few of them, laid out on the spare bed.

They mean NOTHING until you see the real thing and you have to TOUCH them because they're meant to be tactile. I'm looking forward to getting them nicely displayed alongside my paintings.

One Leg of Jeans

A couple of years ago I received a request from a writer in Aberdeen who'd discovered a new mode of transport, especially good for whizzing around on the Beach Boulevard. Trouble was - he needed to carry it through the busy town! So he asked me to make him a shoulder bag especially taylored to hold his mini-scooter.

My client brought with him an old pair of jeans and  - yes - I only needed to use one leg. I designed it, sewed in the zip and the D-rings but he supplied the strap.

Never give up on an old pair of jeans!

Busy, busy, busy

Here are a few photos of projects I've worked on recently, excluding all the textile thingies I'm doing which you'll see at a later date.

This sculpture is entitled 'Daffodil' and I've wanted to complete it for about 40 years! I just never had the time or where-with-all to do it.

Really it needs to be on a plinth at shoulder height; but at last I've created it and that's what matters.

Daffodil is made from wood and wool.

I promised myself I would do some painting en plein air and this subject especially leant itself. Painting outside did me a lot of good and certainly loosened me up so that this picture began to work when I'd originally  thought it was going to be a disaster.

When I brought it indoors for some finishing touches I felt more free to paint what I wanted on it!



You can probably see (from my surroundings en plein air) why I have a penchant for messy organic-looking paintings.

In contrast, however, the clean stark lines of the sea, the crisp air and clear light we have here in N.E. Scotland all make me want to paint pictures that convey the purity of it all too.

Seeing this 'Harbour Lights 2' on thumbnail helps me realise the red harbour light needs to be bigger. Work in progress - ah... there's always work waiting to be done! Always, always.

Thanks for reading!

Urgency to paint instead of blog

Forward, in the general

direction of joy.

Sunshine brings on a painting.

Haiku inspired by Muffinmoon

Thanks Jules. Gotta dash, while I've got time! 

Sewing and Painting

I am filled with joy today because I have moved my sewing stuff out of my studio into a new small room, making space to paint without worrying about splashing!

Although talking of splashing ... this picture is going to be called something like 'In the Wake of the Good Ship Lollipop'.
.... And here is my new sewing room - tiny but very light and cosy and warm!

It's very tidy at the moment because I've only just started using it!

Popular Bags...

I'm pleased to say that the three bags I contributed to Izzy's craft fair, in support of her challenge for independence despite Type 1 diabetes, were very popular and sold straight away! She has a few more hundred pounds to raise before she can go off to the third world countries to do her volunteering but things are looking up and so am I.

Here's the type of thing I gave her.

These bags are VERY roomy, hardwearing, washable, with lots of pockets and each one is unique. They last for ages too.