Category: Paintings

#1298 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Colour, Paintings, Serendipity1 Comment

Yesterdays blog about my collection of water colours prompted a bit of digging around in art folders.

#1297 theoldmortuary ponders.

I always thought this failed attempt at a colour wheel looked a little like a Phoenix from the side .

Combining her with a pigment tray from the near the Vatican and some printing experiments has been interesting.

I think I like her best as a dark disco creature.

The reason for all this artistic time wasting, is that for once I am as prepped as I can be for the next art exhibition. The original works are ready and framed. I have done my experimental print run, and am now just waiting for the real print run to be done. The mounts and envelopes are in the studio. Everything is poised for the next flurry of activity, but creatively I am at an impasse. So footling about with some odds and ends was quite cathartic. I might even have rinsed JMW Turner out of my head.

Or maybe not.

#1297 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Colour, Colour Squares, Paintings, Serendipity5 Comments

Do you have any collections?

This morning I scrolled past the question above. Posed by my blog hosts. I am not by nature a collector of anything, but maybe my stock of watercolours could possibly be considered a collection.

About 50% of my watercolours.

One of the reasons I believe these paints might be considered a collection are the lengths I go to to acquire new colours.

In Athens last September we took a long walk to an untouristy suburb to find an art shop that hand made oil pastels. Now I don’t use oil pastels but being able to visit someone who creates art materials in a centuries-old traditional and artisinal way was too enticing to be missed. He also sold very lovely Greek manufactured water-colours. I bought an Olive Green which is memorably authentically Greek every time I use it.

The picture above is a pigment shop close to the Vatican in Rome. It remained resolutely closed for the whole of our visit. But this picture is almost enough  for me. Almost.

I think if I seek out colours deliberately, in foreign cities, that possibly I might be considered a collector.

I also always make colour charts of my new purchases. Obsessive, hmmm. The jury is out. Am I just an artist or am I a collector?

#943 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Paintings, SerendipityLeave a comment

And just like that the summer blew in. Elderflower and raspberry Gin and Tonic is a short-lived perk of early summer. As was  an early early morning bob with bobbers.

And cupcakes.

The bobbing was, as usual overseen by B.V.M. ( the elderflowers were also plucked from her borders) Oh for the sake of comedy how I wish it was an Elderberry bush, but sadly it was definitely a tree.

The prolonged Autumn/Winter/Spring wet weather has not been kind to her. She could do with some of my masonry painting skills.

But that would involve trespass and all sorts of shenanigans, so instead I gave her a digital cup of coffee from a local independent coffee shop.

Which despite being excellent coffee failed to bring a smile to her face.

In other masonry painting news my June project of painting 20 feet or 6 metres of a heavily textured boundary wall is completed by the 10th of June.

Just towards the end of the project it became clear that the bright white of the project area made the garage, steps and another walled area look very shoddy. I am not promising myself to get that all done by the end of June but it is possible. My wrists and shoulders need a little recovery though. Working paint into stippled and ridged concrete   makes all sorts of muscles ache. Fortunately gin is a very effective muscle relaxant.

#939 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Paintings, Yardening2 Comments

Another day, another paint pot, another direction. I had no idea how to paint one section of the yard walls. Complicated by mixed surfaces and under colours. I decided to use colour blocking , beloved by interior designers. Who knows how that is going to work out.

But the big reveal is the, almost psychedelic, colours that appear when painting white on a west facing wall in the morning. Nothing like that happened when I painted the north facing wall at any time of day. A most odd sensation. I sense the big old chunk of concrete that forms a seat is also going to need painting. Whilst waiting for paint to dry I let the digital tweak make some patterns from my paint pot .

Time to do that next coat.  This blog will grow as the day progresses and I need to let paint dry…

And as it turns out, sunshine and shadows quite like my colour blocking.

“What is the point of doing anything in life, if you know what the exact outcome will be.”

#938 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Paintings, pondering2 Comments

A day of transforming a yard from off-white to white turned out to be both extraordinarily colourful and a self-limiting occupation. The colour change can be seen just by the O of off-white. The early morning dog walk set the colour bar high when I noticed that the luminous cows had moved.

To make way for a very fancy shoe, advertising a Theatre show.

Nature also created wild flower paths between cows and shoe

Dog-walk over it was time to flip off the paint pot lid. With just a moment to tweak Pure Brilliant White into something a little more lively, with fingers still clean enough to touch my phone.

Radio at the ready and I was off.

6 hours later, I had not reached the end of the job but  the end of the pot of paint was a most welcome sight.

So much for providing myself with many different audio treats, mucky fingers meant I was stuck with Radio 4 for the day.  My ears and mind were taken to places I might not necessarily have chosen. Other people pondering the concept of unconditional love. Very thought provoking. I had some thoughts to add, but radio isn’t like that unless the show offers a phone-in and I would not have had clean enough hands for that sort of shenanigans. Rolling news reports. And some poetry, who could possibly have predicted gentle tears while painting.

Phillip Larkin

#937 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Paintings, Yardening1 Comment

What does a blank page in the diary and a favourable weather forecast predict for me in June. More white wall painting is the answer. A job where radio, podcasts and pondering will be my only companions.

Convoluted meanderings of the mind.  I am very grateful to not be a perfectionist in the sense of this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/03/im-a-recovering-perfectionist-heres-how-i-embraced-the-joy-of-good-enough?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0lvZCpm1yDsptmXi83nLboujvNPrCN_oy17VpQwcRIi1iBu7UrILDbruE_aem_AbC73IqsBP4kO2UKVKib_ovRpJFnkY_wwZDxwVEgpeis9dgSldBfeRETx76rzQuoU3-COBfRdrwpFFeLnXe_L37k

I slide about on the ‘good enough’ scale. White wall painting needs to be fairly close to the perfect end of the scale. Aesthetically pleasing and competently executed will do for me.

Creatively I love happy accidents, these are not born from perfectionism or control. Being a little casual is the thing and knowing when to stop is the golden rule of being creative. Knowing when to stop is not a retrospective skill.

With the potential of a whole day to paint walls white, knowing when to stop is going to be essential. There is going to be a nail biting moment when I am going to need to be creative. Impossible to imagine I know, but when it happens the blog will be the first to know.

#937 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

Monday of the first week of June and possibly the dullest subject possible for a blog reveals itself. Painting white walls white and then, just to own the cliche, waiting for the paint to dry.

After the excitement of having the slatted trellis extension to the yard wall fitted, we skittered about repotting plants and finding them their happy places in the yard. Skittered is rather a bright word for the backbreaking effort of some of our repotting , but skittered is how I like to think of the process.

This weekend should have been a consolidation phase with simple tinkering but a ‘back of the mind’ irritation had formed last week, and a large pot of white paint was purchased for future white wall painting.

It is, however, impossible to sit in an imperfect white yard when there is a pot of paint winking at me in the corner

I had an hour to spare and a small corner that could be completed. 

Now I have started the job I’ve made a pledge with myself to get the job done by the end of June… Let’s see how that goes.

I once pledged to write a daily blog for 3 months . 4 years later I am still at it, no end in sight. To bring some colour to this endeavour I am going to use the new digital tweak that my camera phone offers.  Simply put  the tweak knows the sort of digital edits that I routinely use and the images that I then save. Yesterday the surface of my white pot of paint was transformed into one of my colour block paintings.

Watching paint dry for the whole of June. You have been warned!

#472 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

Cue the Rolling Stones, Paint it Black. Although to be accurate the Rolling stones would have to be singing. Paint it Farrow and Ball ‘Railings’ which is not the same thing at all. Our art collection deserves a Gallery Wall and that is the project for this weekend.

In between painting the wall F&B Railings we discovered a, new to us,park with spectacular views.

Now the dogs are not the biggest of fans of DIY but a new park is something they can fully invest in.

The views seemed to be immaterial to them but an hour or so of scampering for them and Vitamin D harvesting for us was a great break in the day.

Pandemic Ponderings #33

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

I’m an abstract painter with a love of colour and texture. I’ve painted abstracts predominantly for the last ten or so years. Two years ago I took some watercolour classes and since then I’ve dabbled with watercolour painting for a quick painting fix, one of the things I love to paint with watercolour are dead fish. They’ve always fascinated me as a photographer. I was lucky for a long while to live near Brixton Market was but it was long before I rediscovered watercolour. Cool box next time I visit though to bring some exotic models back to Cornwall.

The reason this is a pandemic pondering is that I have plenty of time for some fishy watercolours but no fishmongers. I’m going to have to find something to fill the gap. Tinned fish is the obvious answer when I do the weekly shop.

For now I give you my fishy friends from before the pandemic.

Greyscale

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Medical imaging, Paintings, Photographs, Serendipity

Diagnostic imaging was my trade for many years. The majority of modalities in imaging produce pictures in black and white or more correctly in Grey scale. As an artist grey scale has always been my guide when judging my coloured work. A black and white photograph always lets me know if a painting has the balance I am hoping to achieve.

Cookworthy Knapp © theoldmortuary

In photography I often search out a monotone image in the real world.

Petersham Nurseries
https://petershamnurseries.com/

Hugo and Lola have been known to pose in locations that lend themselves to Black and White.

In this case at Dungeness, Britain’s only desert on the Kent coast.

The unusual environment lends itself to greyscale.

All round the coast of Britain, black and white somehow brings peace and silence to an image that could, with colour be garish or over ripe.

Wells-next-the-sea

Gigs at Saltash, Cornwall

Another monotone shot in real life colour.

Retaining walls at Samphire Hoe Country Park. An artificial land mass built from the extracted materials created by the tunneling for the Chanel Tunnel. A Nature Preserve.
http://www.samphirehoe.com/uk/visit-us/

And finally back to Radiography.

A cardiac angiogram of the left coronary artery, the basis of the pattern that heads this blog.

Left coronary artery