Dear all I hadn't been up to the Painswick Beacon in some time and by the flick of a coin decided to venture up there with a friend on a sunny July afternoon. I was really taken aback by the amount of flora and fauna.. |
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The greatest find was a large rock, which housed a family of lizards, two of which were quite happy for me to take close-up photos while they sunned themselves. |
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Whilst at the top of the Beacon, I was surprised to see a group of Shire horses and their riders also heading toward the summit. |
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Rita and I walking the Cotswold Way... |
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Thrilled that Rita & I were featured in this promotional video of walking the Cotswold Way. After taking part in this over a year ago, we literally found out today that this has been released! |
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The Late Summer Artist Look - grey t shirt (indicating rain) and blue shorts (indicating your last chance for a quick dip in the sea before it gets too cold) outer design by Nick Pike using random, excess oil and acrylic paint, accumulated over ten years. The mood board to the left shows which colours are in for the tail end of the season. The brown drawing board indicates nature (trees, etc). |
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Art Blog of 'Van Gogh & Gauguin - Lads Night Out' |
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I've now completed and published the art blog for 'Van Gogh - Lads Night Out' - a new artwork which is currently on display at Michelin Star Wilks Restaurant in Bristol. The painting is a closely researched reinterpretation of ‘Café Terrace at Night’ and depicts the characters present around Vincent's home of Arles at this time; the artists, art dealers, poets, muses, absinthe drinkers, a brother, a doctor and the oldest person to have ever lived... I've added just a couple of excerpts below; read the full art blog in this link. |
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Van Gogh & The Red Vineyard |
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Vincent Van Gogh in the leading role, clutches one of his paintings, whilst having a heated debate. This very important artwork 'The Red Vineyard' was unbelievably the only painting that Vincent actually sold during his life. |
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Theo van Gogh & Pere Tanguy |
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Van Gogh had introduced Toulouse-Lautrec to his brother, Theo, who was an art dealer and the first to represent Henri. In my painting, I have added these figures along with Pere Tanguy - also an art dealer. I created this meeting to show the huge interest in Toulouse-Lautrec's artwork at this point. Henri was a successful artist and well known for his poster work - particularly of The Moulin Rouge. I wonder whether Vincent was envious of Henri's success, considering the similarity of some of their artwork. |
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The framing of 'Van Gogh & Gauguin- Lads Night Out'... |
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Framing this artwork was no walk in the park! As with the previous painting ('Van Gogh & Gauguin - Lads Night In'), I chose sawn timber because of the wood's simplicity and slightly raw finish - the knots added to the old authentic look I was after. |
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After sawing each corner, I used two tripods, an easel and a workbench to keep the structure completely flat. After applying glue, I used clamps to squeeze the wood together, then stapled them underneath. |
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I found that areas of the wood had bowed in the middle and I needed to stretch it in four places with string for a day before using screws in the backboard to affix the canvas - 47 to be exact! |
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