Tree stump Children (part 5)

Looking at my "Tree Stump Children" painting when the sun shine finally made it beyond the cloud I decided that I was not satisfied with things. I felt that the faces of the children were too pale. I have addressed that and tweaked their features a little too:

Some new features...

Now I need to wait for the sun to return again.

End of Hope and Glory (part 3)

The lower gel has cleared a lot now so time to add some colour to it.

The lower gel is now very clear.

My colour scheme at this point is simple and it may remain so. I will simply colour the higher surface of the gel that makes the letter with the correct colour of the flag. Now because the gel is very uneven this should result in a bit of a wobbly appearance. Here we go.

Lettering stage one.

Very simple you see. Now we still have the upper letters to go and I am not certain that this is the end for the lower letters. I am tempted to colour in more of the interesting texture but want to have a ponder before I decide.

With a simple photo you do not really get the best impression of what this is like. Remember that the gel on which each letter sits undulates from a few mm up to perhaps more than 5 mm thick. In addition there are small spikes and bumps in the painted area. I also still have unpainted (so clear) grooves radiating out from the letters that bend the light a little as you pass. See if you can imagine that!

Mourning Joy (Part 2 - complete)

My "Mourning Joy" painting was done as part of the process to produce a CD single cover design for consideration in a "Florence + the Machine" fund raiser for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Here is the final painting (the CD single cover design is a processed digital work). The painting continue a little beyond this and then around the box canvas sides.

Mourning Joy by Kevin Bramhill

In this challenge, Florence + The Machine have selected the track 'Only If For A Night' and are inviting creatives to interpret the song, however they please...

 

To understand this painting it helps to see the song lyrics. The painting is inspired by MY interpretation of those works. Here are some of them:

And I had a dream
About my old school
And she was there all pink and gold and glittering
I threw my arms around her legs
Came to weeping, Came to weeping

Then I heard your voice as clear as day,
And you told me I should concentrate,
It was all so strange,
And so surreal,
That a ghost should be so practical.

Only if for a night
And the only solution was to stand and fight,
And my body was bruised and
I was set alight,
But you came over me like some holy rite,
And although I was burning,
You're the only light
Only if for a night

The grass was so green against my new clothes,
And I did cartwheels in your honor, dancing on tiptoes
My own secret ceremonials before the service began,
In the graveyard, doing handstands.
...

---

My understanding of this is the feeling of joy that can come after the sorrow from loss. In the case that we hear about this comes about in a dream.

 

In my case it came some time after revisiting a grave. A while later I felt a return of the sadness but shortly after I felt touched and the mourning was swept away to be replaced by a feeling of calm, peace, joy. It felt like the spirit ushering me on in my life (which was a very powerful feeling for me, not known for being in touch with such things). 

 

It is by drawing on this experience and working it into the picture in my mind from the song that this image was formed.

Mourning Joy (Part 1)

I am not going to delve into the story behind this painting just yet. That will come.

Today I went to St. Nicholas' Church just up from the Clock Tower in the middle of Brighton. I wanted to get some photos for an idea. The painting will be surreal with elements from both "sides" of the life & death divide.

After picking up some art supplies and walking home I loaded the photos to see which would assist in my composition the most. In addition to today's pile of photos I also had to dig out the statue of an angel I'd shot in Spain and I had to find a model for the other body located in my imagination. I fiddled about with these 3 items in some computer software (after a bit of trial and error with several shots). To be honest I was a little alarmed at how moving the "sprite" bodies about over my church yard scene looked like a bad Monty Python animation. The end result is, as you can see below probably even worse but remember, the image I have resides in my head and this picture is a prop to help bring focus to it:

Monty Python turns on his grave.

Ordinarily the above "montage" would not make it beyond the small round filing cabinet on the floor.

Now I need to use this to help me get the picture in my mind on to a canvas so here we go:

The essence of the idea is now there.

I like most of what I have here. You can probably see that I've modified my angel. This will not be the last of my modifications. I do not feel that the tree, brought in from the photo, is what I want but I will hold off culling it for now.

The tree gets the chop.

 At this point you can clearly see the surreal elements taking over. I already like what I see although I've painted over my models leg but that will soon be cleaned up.

My model still has a mucky leg.

 You can see that my angel has taken form. Now it's probably time to sort that leg out on the model.

Leg cleaned up a bit but no clothes.

 Time for supper. I hope to finish this of tomorrow. I've said that before.

Tree Stump Children (part 4, complete?)

I have continued with my painting, "Tree Stump Children" today with more progress than I'd anticipated.

A lighter tree stump.

Above: Firstly I made the tree stump lighter. I also softened the face details a little and added the shirt decorations.

More foliage added.

 Above: I have added a lot more of the distant (higher up) foliage now.

Shrub type plants added closer to us.

Above: I have now added the shrubs to the foreground to complete my picture.

All that is left is to have a check over it when the sunshine comes out and then, assuming I'm happy with everything I will complete it with a signature etc.

"Tree Stump Children", unless you hear otherwise, this painting is complete. I hope that you like it.

Tree Stump Children (part 3)

I think that I was going to colour the skin first thing today but it seemed to make more sense to sort the clothes out so that is what I started with. After that I coloured in those arms, hands and legs...

"Tree Stump Children", faces coloured.

"Tree Stump Children", faces need colour next.

OK, you can't see a lot of difference from the blog photos.

It's taken me most of today to get the point on the left and I then coloured in the faces (on the right hand photo). The colours via my mobile camera look a bit dark on the faces (in the blog preview on my PC anyway) but they seem good when looking at my actual artwork.

There is still a lot to do. I want to put more details on the T-shirts. I will probably tweak the skin here & there. There is loads of detail in the background to go in too.

My wife thinks that the tree stump is a tad dark and I agree so that is a candidate for adjusting. I would like it to contrast more with the background although as I don't have much of the other (final) background in place yet it is still early days.



You may think that it is odd to still have a lot of background to go after all that effort with the foreground people. True. I may be making work for myself, however, a few bits of background may be destined for overlapping anyway. A few leaves or fronds that have grown up around the stump. After all, who says that the tree was cut so recently that nothing has had time to grow in the vacant space?

I hope to do more over the weekend.

End of Hope and Glory (part 2 continued more)

I have been busy just about all day with my "Tree Stump Children" painting but I did take a photo yesterday, this morning and this evening to see how "Hope & Glory" is doing.

"End of Hope & Glory" 5th Jan 2012

So, above, we can see that the gel is still clearing...

"End of Hope & Glory" this morning, 6th Jan 2012

"End of Hope & Glory" this evening, 6th Jan 2012

Now it does look like the gel has cleared quite a lot just over today but I think that is because I was out of sun light so the flash went off.

I think that the lower gel is clear enough to paint now but it will be even clearer by tomorrow etc. I will see if I get enough time over the weekend but if not I think the next layer will be on early next week.