colour schemes

[helenic]

I was in Camden this morning averting a rent crisis (by depositing large amounts of borrowed cash in my current account; but it's okay, I have a big cheque that will clear before the end of the week) and I decided to get the bus home. I've used buses far more than the tube since I moved, but Seven Sisters from Camden was a mystery. So I looked at the map in the bus stop, and decided that the 29 to Wood Green was my best bet - it went from Finsbury Park to Turnpike Lane, and I figured I could get off at some point between the two and walk across. Except Green Lanes is much shorter than I thought it was, and I ended up not getting off until Turnpike Lane. At first I thought I knew where I was, and struck out confidently towards home across a beautiful triangle of green covered in crisp orange leaves. I don't know why I have this nostalgic love for Victorian terraced suburbia, for the grey and red stone of it, the doctors' surgeries and the buses, the schoolchildren, the over-enthusiastic borough councils putting up big signs encouraging local spirit, the slightly dreary play-parks rescued by ever-beautiful, vast swathes of horse chestnut trees. I love it, and I was almost skipping across the green, kicking at the leaves and loving the autumnal smell in the air, and wanting to bring Chris here soon and show him how lovely it all is round where I live. Except then I realised I didn't know where I was after all, and had to spend another ten minutes studying maps in bus stops and waiting for a 67. But in the end it turned out that I was only 5 minutes away from where I'd been trying to get to. So that was all alright.

And now I'm home, with a pot of strong Ceylon tea and an inquisitive cat sniffing my ankles. I spent a long time yesterday sorting my room out - emptying boxes, reboxing books and folders for long-term storage and carrying them one by one down the precarious steps into the cellar; tidying and rearranging. My bed's been in the middle of the room since I moved in, facing the windows. I've now pushed it up against the fireplace, which means you can't walk round it on both sides and you have to kneel on the edge of the bed and reach down to get at the bottom shelf of my clothes storage unit, but there's much more space on the other side, enough to paint in, and since that's the side the door opens onto the room immediately feels much bigger. I've hung pictures, and while the room isn't finished yet, it feels so much more spacious and liveable in and me.

Today has been productive. I've bought new canvases, I've paid my rent despite the many financial disasters of this month, and set up an ongoing standing order; I've sent emails, including a couple of really rather exciting ones; I've finally fixed the final irritating bugs in the last few websites for Online Galleries, which is a HUGE weight off my mind. I'm now going to make more tea and eat mozzarella and tomato salad, and then I am going to spend the rest of today painting. Painting! For the first time since the exhibition, really, apart from a brief attempt at gouache with Kristen the other week. I have missed it SO MUCH. Yay.

Speaking of which, these two paintings were the most popular in the exhibition - they were the first to sell, and the ones most asked after:


Bird of Paradise

     
Dragonflower (we don't have a full image of the finished painting yet; the first of these is a work-in-progress photo, the second is from the launch party, and cropped from this photo by arachne)

synthclarion very kindly took lots of high-quality photos of all the finished paintings a couple of weeks ago, and I'm waiting to get those back from him before I do things like updating the website and organising print orders. But in the meantime, I want to do more brightly-coloured tropical paintings like these two. My parents have said they'd be interested in buying one if I do a series, but not in commissioning one especially. It occurs to me that the people who would have bought Bird of Paradise or Dragonflower if they'd got there first might well be interested in something similar. If this is you, feel free to let me know; it would be useful to know in advance what sort of interest there is :)

Comments

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Just out of interest, what medium are those two pics in? They look too vibrant for acrylic, so my guess is proper oils.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Both, actually. Bird of Paradise is more in acrylic; Dragonflower is more in oils, and painted on primed wood, which probably adds to the brightness. I can't wait until the official photos come back, the colour balance on these is all messed up.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Huh! I may have to revise my opinion of acrylics, because both of those paintings are stunning!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Acrylics are awesome! They're so bright and opaque. My favourite method at the moment for this sort of style is doing the blocking and background in acrylic, and then, once it's dry, going over the foreground and doing all the fine detail in oil. Doing the foreground in acrylic isn't actually any less bright, I just find it harder to do detail because it dries so quickly and messes up my blending. I suppose it come down to what you're used to though!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Apologies, I should've picked up my purchases weeks ago!

Nevertheless, I am more than happy to wait while you sort out photographs for your records, and any print runs you are planning.

I suspected that they'd be difficult to photograph, and I'd be interested to know what film stock the 'official' photographer is using.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about it, things were delayed by moving and taking photos for prints. However, that's all done now, so shall we arrange a time for you to collect them? What's the best email address to contact you on?

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Follow my contact post (http://hairyears.livejournal.com/51371.html), or take a closer look at your email notifications from LiveJournal.

There are no free HairyEvenings. Weekends are best (although I'm at the National Dojo this coming Saturday and Sunday), Tuesdays will do at a pinch.

What manner of boxes/casing/packaging is advisable? I have no car and would be very uneasy moving anything I value on a train.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Does "there are no free HairyEvenings" mean ever, at all, or this week, or what? There's no real urgency as long as you don't feel cheated of your rightful possessions. At the moment they're in our cellar, because that's the only place we have room to store them. I'm a little worried about how safe they are down there long-term down there - I don't think we have mice or damp or anything scary, but ideally I want to get all the art either on the walls or out of the house asap (and we don't have space to hang all the paintings that already have buyers). So the sooner you can arrange to pick them up, the happier I - and the paintings - will be ;) If you can't collect them for at least a few weeks, let me know and I'll put them on walls in the meantime.

They're both quite small, so bubblewrap and a bag should be fine. Pillowcases are useful for transporting paintings. It might be worth bearing in mind that Dragonflower is painted on wood, and therefore quire heavy; I also wouldn't want to risk knocking it against anything without a lot of padding in the way.

I'll email you with my address and things.

A social caterpillar writes...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yes - none, ever: I have standing engagements for every evening of the week, with double-bookings for stuff that I'm specifically invited to on nearly half the weekdays and weekends in my diary for the next six weeks.

I can't tell you how pleasing it is to tell you that, having once been the stereotypical workaholic 80-hour-week geek with no life. Yes, they really do exist.

The reality is that, whatever I want to do, I have to make time. I could come tomorrow (Tuesday) but the weekend 13^th/14^th October is best.

Thanks for the tips on shifting paintings: you've had more practice than I.

Re: A social caterpillar writes...

[libellum.livejournal.com]

whatever I want to do, I have to make time

I'm fairly certain that's true of most of us ;) The 13th or 14th should be fine - I'm in Maidenhead tomorrow in any case.

[cokephreak.livejournal.com]

At first, I thought I knew where I was, and struck out confidently ...

Welcome to my world.
Fairly typical of me as well : You ended up some-where you didn't intend to go but felt like it was the right place for you to be.

D. Adams calls this zen navigation

[libellum.livejournal.com]

My zen enthusiasm for being lost is very short-lived, usually. At first I'm all "oh it's FINE, it's an ADVENTURE!" Until I realise I'm tired and hungry and wasting lots of time I don't have to waste, and then it all gets much less fun. I was very glad I wasn't as far off as I'd thought this morning - and actually it was nice to I explore the area a bit. I had a good look on google maps afterwards and I reckon I've more or less got the lay of the land now. I made the right decision in waiting for the bus as well - the road I was about to head down was in fact the right road, but it was a long one and I was carrying heavy canvasses.

I wanna go out and play on the playground and roll around in the leaves! I think I might have to have an autumn picnic this weekend with mandatory mittens, and mental age of no more than 8.

[numberland.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I would be very interested in buying one of this type if you made a series. I was very sad to miss the exhibition but it was during a couple of madly busy weeks. What sort of price/size are they likely to be?