Winter Paintings, 3.

right,

summer has arrived - well, in theory - and we're still posting work from winter and spring (which if you live in scotland pretty much amount to the same season) and so, let's get down to some serious posting again.

first up, a composition that will look familiar to anyone who remembers these and their progression from the chaos of dark old october, to earlier this year:





















































































. . . yes?

three drawings of essentially one composition that was sticking, but not. . . quite working out. i added the single 'emma in profile' image there because it was key in getting me from A to B, and to this *deep breath* here:











































. . . granted, not in one GO. again, as with the other paintings i've posted recently, the figures here are lifesized. which is hard worker for starters.

this is one of those pieces that was started, abandoned, started again, reworked. . . emma's hair went from full length and curling around her shoulders to the short - barely a - bob in the final image in about three stages, and my clothing was changed at least that many times. from plaid shirt and t-shirt, to coat and superman t-shirt, to closed coat and red t-shirt.

this was clearly an image that wasn't simply fulfilling an old compositional idea and i lost. . . SO much sleep over getting it as far as it got. the faces were repainted, and repainted, the hands - sweet JESUS, don't get me started on those! is emma's right hand tucking itself under my coat because that was my original intention for it? let's just say 'yes' shall we . . . ?

the background too went from plain, to a detailed backdrop which didn't really work, another backdrop, and back to plain again - which was fine except that i then obsessed about getting the colour and tone JUST right. . .

this painting DIDN'T paint itself, then, no, it's not my 'moby dick' - that painting i've YET to try and tackle, but let's just say i HAVE a composition for a painting in my head that will never leave me alone until i paint it - no, but it was harder work than anything i'd painted in a long time. and i will. . AM hard pressed not to go and rework it STILL. i only refrain from doing so because i've been threatened with a kick in the testicles from emma if i DO. . .

. . . i love this, though. i'm proud of it. again, as with the otehr pieces i've done recently, the likenesses are really strong. practise, i guess. i think i did things with colour through trial and error that ended up taking me somewhere new, and somewhere i liked. and there are little details here that i'm incredibly fond of, such as that lovely butterscotch coloured freckle on emma's ear, the ear itself (remember that whole page of ear drawings? came in handy, huh?) the slightly more subtle freckle on her cheekbone, the colouring around her eye, her hair. . . and just the feeling OF the painting.

detailed areas. flat, undetailed areas. emma's hair shorter than it's been since she was about one year old, but it WORKS in the image more than painting her hair longer would have. and i know that because i bloody DID :P

emma pointed out to me early on that we're not quite touching in this. like the drawings i posted where the figures are in that moment before a kiss, this is similar, but it's an embrace ABOUT to happen. she's ABOUT to turn. . . if you see what i mean.

emma also provided a tile, 'shelter' to an otherwise umpteenth untitled piece. anyone who can tell me WHERE she got the title from gets a gold star. . .

anyway. details:






























































and that, for now, is your lot :)

-iain

Winter Paintings, 2.

. . . and let's have another one.

this one's 'gestation' - thanks, emma - wasn't quite AS long as that of the last painting, but was another of those pieces that was semi-abandoned for weeks and months at a time, called 'finished' around september but then heavily worked on in december to a point it changed completely - note the length of emma's hair. slight artistic license, but as of right now, not by much - and again, it benefited from being left alone, worked on and left alone again.

i'm really fond of this one, again. i think the colours came out great, especially. . .

Winter Paintings, 1.

alright,

correspondence from migraineville - it's been an age.

first off - thanks, guys. one and all for. . . well, for making me feel more okay about posting all this stuff than i expected to, or otherwise would do. after a decade out of art school, a huge chunk of which i was creatively inactive, i feel pretty self-conscious about my work and posting it's sort of a big deal. putting it out there rather than keeping it hidden away being seen by just myself. and emm. who pretty much remains both muse, and boot up my ass when i'm procrastinating or stuck in a rut.

i have a fair bit of work to post still before we're up to date and i'm posting 'current' pieces, but fortunately the 'current' pieces are taking so long that it'll be some time before those are posted anyway. which allows me to spread this stuff out. i could post stuff everyday, but that would be kind of like being bombarded with imagery rather than given time to look at it in bite-sized pieces.

so. posting these was something i didn't want to do in the middle of all those drawings, although i'll be posting my painted stuff from the latter half of last year (not much, given events) one at a time, and posting more drawings between. an entry of a painting, then some drawings, then another painting - capisce?

okay. shall we start then?:

this first piece is, as most of my work is, untitled but has the subtitle 'visible forms'. it's another of those anomalies, a painting that was FIRST started last MAY in it's original very linear form. it was along the lines of those 'ode' paintings. black and white, and i think you can visualise it like that even now. . . but - it just was NOT coming together.

it lay abandoned for some months until the fall when i approached it again, sanded it down a fair bit and began working over the original image in colour, initially planning to paint BOTH figures in the same more realistic palette. and then i got stuck again. weeks later when i went back to it with the idea to carry on, the events of october happened, and with it the spontaneous decision to essentially paint over the birdman character and have him suggested rather than defined.

paint was allowed to dribble, and smear.

from that point on, the painting more or less formed. areas were left incredibly rough and unformed - a patch of canvas where i was mixing fleshtones can be seen on the left side LEFT as it was rather than hidden, and the result is again - maybe - the sense of figure standing in front of something two dimensional. she's standing in front of a very abstract, textural painting of the birdman rather than the birdman himself. . .

oh, and again, these figures are life-sized. i do like working big.

it's not perfect, and there are areas i will correct at a later date, but there's far more i like about what is essentially a painting that was abandoned not once but twice. for now it's set aside to rest, and is posted here as a start.

Emma That Was.

Righto,

This one's a bit different and is one of the oil pieces I've been working on. It depicts - as the title suggests - Emma, circa 2002 when I first met her - long, thick hair, nose stud, eyeliner and a little rounder in the face.

I've given her the same blue cardigan and turquoise shirt because I think they look great with the slightly stylised fleshtones i tend to use, and the brushwork in this is a bit more my usual fare rather than very smooth like in 'Emma #3'

Is it finished? Probably not. Am I done with it for now? Yes. I really liek it in this state, to be honest. Sometimes I have this awful habit of overworking things - I get to a point where a painting looks great, and I keep on going with it and absolutely ruin it and there is definitely a point where you should say 'this looks good' and put your brushes down. . .

This looks good.

*puts brushes down*

Two Colour 'Studies'

I'm not sure how to classify this pair - they were both done in much the same vein as the black and white pieces - scrap pieces of cardboard, A4-ish, acrylic over initial pencil sketches and quite stylised, but rather than work over the usual white gesso base, i used a flat block of colour, one orange one a pale blue colour and THEN drew, THEN painted. . .

The results are maybe a little more finished looking to some degree than the other small pieces I've been doing, particularly the rather warm looking orange piece which features the return of Emm's oversized wool cardigan complete with 'Watchmen' badge. the original orange basecoat can be seen in the 'halo' and behind much of the other details.

The blue piece, which looks by comparison rather cold is completely different. It's less stylised and probably the closest to realism I've come in any of these Emma pieces so far - So the two combined kind of showcase both sides of my work I guess. The stylised Expressionist side, and the lesser showy side which is all about being precise and which I dip into much less. . .

Anyway. Enjoy.

Coming soon, an all singing, all dancing, all Puffin blog. Okay, there may not be singing and dancing, but there will be puffins. . .

emma, #3

oil on canvas, framed

. . . and i never frame anything. this was the third large-ish painting - basically life-sized, the first close-up below is the EXACT size - i did of the lovely emma after two colour pieces specifically FOR her to choose from, before giving her both.

this one i did for myself, and though the three are very similar i like this one best partly because there's a little more feeling in it somehow and i think i'd fnally gotten a grasp of the pale fleshtones and blonde hair which i'd initially found slightly awkward after years of painting the reliable contrast of dark hair and light skin.

granted a little artyistic license means both are a little darker in the painting than the subjects own hair and skin, but. . .

i love this piece, i'm proud of it and happy with it enough that i put it in a frame. granted it's a bastard to photograph and the close-ups are a better representation of the colours than the first image, however. . .

it paved the way for everything that's been coming lately. the drawings, the 'ode' series and other stuff in the works that you'll see. soon enough. . .

'Ode', #1

sort of the beginnings of a completely unplanned series, but sometimes you start something and you can see avenues and directions it could go in beyond a single image. . .

black and white - and a little blue - acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24", detailed in areas and left intentionally unfinished and sketchy in others which used to be kind of my schtick.

a few other noteable iain-esque inclusions which should speak for themselves. . .

some details: