New Painting - Getting Thrifty

A new cheap shop opened up near me called B&M and a few weeks ago me and my Mum went to check it. We love all those shops; Poundland, Home Bargains, Family Bargains.

#thrifty

We ended up spending almost 2 hours in B&M.

Totally the best time.

One of the things I bought was this printed canvas for £2.99.

It's 35x90cm!

It would be perfect for me to do a really decent painting on.

Except for that one issue of there already being something on it.

Which took me to another great place. The Scrap Store, of course, where I picked up this can of emulsion paint that still had a couple of inches of paint in, which was all I needed.

Using a roller to get the smoothest texture I painted over the graphic on the canvas.

It took about 4/5 coats but then it was good to go.

And here's what I've done with it.

I used one of my own photos but switched out the figure for some Google image people.

All of my own photos feature people my age so for some variety I had to look elsewhere.

Another Beach Painting

My latest painting is another that comes from the beach trip I took with my friends at the end of August.

It's also becoming a tradition to create a painting on a narrow canvas of myself at the beach. See here.

I like less traditionally shaped canvases as they allow my to play around with cropping and create a different composition to the original photo.

This is another photo from that trip which I think would make a great painting, but I don't think it would sell as well...

Beach Painting

In between working I've managed to finish this painting I showed you the start of.

It's my friend Lizzi at the beach.

The painting is based on a photo I took when we took a trip to the beach at the end of August.

Lizzi's always a good sport and doesn't mind me taking lots of photos.

So there might be a few more paintings from this occasion to be made.

This Week I...

...was out and about.

Two of my cousins were staying with us for a few days after camp so we took them to Cambridge for the day on Monday.

The weather was lovely and we enjoying watching people punting, including those who almost crashed into each other.

On Thursday me and my friends went to the beach!

I love me some beach.

It was raining on the drive there but the sun came out when we arrived.

While my friends were napping or reading magazines I set about digging a hole because that's what you're supposed to at the beach.

Then we won big on the 2p machines and finished the day with some fish and chips.

How's your summer going?

Are you a lounger or a digger at the beach?

New painting - Beach feet

Here's my latest painting. It's a big'un.

I knew all that detailed sea would be a challenge so I decided to draw out the image using the grid method (which you can kinda see in this photo).

When I was doing art at school lots of people did this with their paintings, but I preferred to free hand it.

The grid was useful for drawing out the picture, but when it came to painting I didn't really use it.

At least I know not to bother next time.

The painting is a cropped version of this photos of my friend Natalie being pushed into the sea. Nice.

New beach painting

During my last week in Norwich, back in June, I took a spontaneous trip to the beach with some friends who were visiting to see my degree show.

As with all my beach trips I take a lot of photos with the intention of turning some of them into paintings.

This is one of those paintings.

I altered the image from the photo slightly, as I found I couldn't paint the girls face very well so I just painted her hair going across it. Sorted.

Also, in reality there was no dog, but my Dad thought it might be nice to add one in and create more of a story to the painting.

So off I went to Google to find a suitable dog.

I also added a red lead in the girls hand to fit with the story.

Now, according to one of my friends - the one who appears in this painting actually - just posting a new painting isn't enough content for one blog post.

So here are some more photos from the trip to give her more to look at.

As you can see it wasn't the nicest day for the beach, but that's what happens when it's spontaneous!

We went to Cromer by the way. Standard.

We searched for crabs.

And eventually found one.

Fun times were had by all.

Return to painting

I did a painting for the first time in like a year!

Very exciting.

Based on a photo from when I went to the beach last week, and very similar to a painting I did last year after last year's beach trip.

I've only got one more of these long canvases left though.

Save it for next years beach trip? Haha.

Celebratory beach trip!

It's done!

The degree show is installed and ready for marking.

Remember how the base of the tree warped? Well in the end I had to screw it directly to the plinth. I say 'I', Steve the wood workshop guy did it for me. Thanks Steve!

So that was annoying, but not as annoying as when I found that the driveway of house had warped. After trying to fix the problem with wishful thinking I had to glue it to the plinth.

Oh wells.

To celebrate our final assessment hand-in I went to the beach with some of my friends like we did last year.

The weather was much better this year.

You have not seen excited until you've seen me at the beach. Especially if I've just drunk Fanta.

I ran all over that beach!

I also get far too excited at the 2p machines. 

Natalie and I successfully shifted two Disney notebooks on one machine but they got stuck coming out. So we got the man who opened up the machine to get them out, and he gave us a third one as well! Boom!

Then we moved to a different machine and got a keyring.

2p machines are the bomb-diggity. Anyone agree?

The boys decided to brave the sea, regardless of whether they had suitable swimwear.

Crazy fools.

Trip to Brighton

Yesterday I went to Brighton with my parents and my sister because that's what I wanted to do with them for my birthday.

Unfortunately it rained quite a lot whle we were there, but we still found lots of indoor things to do.

We went to the Toy and Models Museum which was just a little place where my parents went around pointing and saying, 'I had one of those'.

But there was also an old machine for making this stamped metal plate. You put in 20p, then turned a cog to each letter and pressed down on a lever, and then when you were done out popped this little keepsake.

I'm thinking of punching a hole in one end and making it into a keyring.

We also went to a couple of flea markets and found wonderful things like a sombrero (modelled by my sister)...

... a fencing mask and boxing gloves...

...and a small photo frame containing a photo of Ben Fogel.

As difficult as it is to believe we didn't purchase this treasure.

(Excuse the blurry photo, it was a sneaky shot)

Fun times!

Two new paintings

New paintings at last.

These are painted with oils on 13x18cm canvas board.

This is taken from a shot of Cromer when I went there a couple of months ago. 

This painting is a combination of a couple of photos taken at Wells-next-to-the-sea, with a little bit of imagination thrown in for good measure.

Being so small means that I got these paintings done in a few hours, which made a nice change compared to my guitar project which was in the works for like a month. 

Beach trip

A few weeks ago while I was still in Norwich my friends and I took a trip to the beach!

Cromer to be precise.

It was a really fun day and the above painting that I just finished is from one of the photos taken.

I've never painted waves like that before but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Although it was sunny it was pretty windy which made it a tad chilly, hence all the layers. 

But some of the boys still went in the sea. Because they are insane.

We buried someone in the sand, cos it's tradition.

I'm loving it even if he wasn't.

And my friends made a stone heart.

We also had fish and chips, spent a long time on the 2p machines, and had those hot donuts where they give you four but you really only need one because they're so sugary.

Delightful.

I do prefer sandy beaches...

This past weekend I went to see my sister perform in a musical in Budleigh Salterton. While we were there we hung out on the beach.

We made a face out of the pebbles.

And some more faces.

Then I tried some stone balancing.

Still feeling beachy, I painted this when we got home on a small canvas that I bought in Budleigh from a little art shop where everything was reduced. Awesome.

I'm taking a blog break for the next week so I'll see y'all when I get back!

New paintings

Here are two new oil paintings

Sherringham beach, Norfolk

Manley beach, Sydney.

I do love the beach!

And if y'all haven't already noticed, I've added a new page to my blog showcasing some more of my paintings.

Beach

This is my go-to beach image which I like to paint. A lot. It's Manley Beach in Sydney, Australia from when I was there in the summer of 2008.

I paint it on finger nails...

...on sunglasses (this piece is from my Make 20 Paintings project)...

...on milk bottle tops...

...and on toy cars. I think I've gone too far with the car. It looks okay in the photo, but it's usually viewed from above so it looks a bit strange having a ring of sea around the sky, and I didn't know which direction to paint the clouds. I think an image which is a birds eye view might look better.

Except for the fingernails, I painted all the scenes with acrylic paint so that it would stick to the surface and dry. Which is a bit annoying because I prefer to work in oils but they would never work with the plastic surfaces.

Hmm, what should I try painting on next...