Illustrations
&
various projects
Geoff Westley's 6 Nursery Rhymes and 6 More Nursery Rhymes.
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I was contacted by Geoff to put together some illustrations for his collection of nursery rhymes that he wanted to produce for sale as a double CD didgipak.
He had seen an opera poster previously, containing my art and thought I would be perfect for his nursery rhyme project.
As well as a cover design there was also a booklet containing all the rhymes lyrics with illustrations to match plus a centre page spread and disc designs.
Finally, a poster design to advertise the finished product. We also had the idea to produce a black and white fold out poster of the cover design that could be coloured in. In this particular case, a line work design, it was possible to photograph the line work before it was painted to make this possible.
All in all it turned out pretty well and a great compliment to the fab rhymes that Geoff had composed and performed with additional lyrics. Probably the best nursery rhymes musically that's out there.
A series of portraits of famous musicians created during the coronavirus lockdown with the intention to provide an escapism for both the viewers of my art and myself, if only for a moment, from the pandemic. Musicians that mean something to most of us, happy and sad memories and stories galore based around the music that they created. 36 portraits in total, one everyday for 36 days plus a total of 16 portraits in the same style of musicians of supporters of my art to say thank you for the support, much appreciated.
The Concept has been;
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LONG NECKS: to raise the unmistakable facial recognition of the subject.
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LARGE EYES: the windows of the soul that can reflect personality.
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GREY BACKGROUNDS: grey is a cool, neutral and balanced colour. Light greys are feminine in nature, dark greys are masculine. All paintings contain both grey colours.
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Old Classics
Here you will find my hand painted pieces all based on old masters paintings.
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Paying attention to old styles, techniques and compositions as a means to learning so much more from them, that can and will add to your own artistic repertoire, is and should be essential to every artist at some point.
Personally I have learnt so much from previous artists by painting rather than from reading, and it's a good indicator of where you are as an artist yourself.
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Cat In The Hat.
A classic image that is mistakenly believed to be by Rene Magritte. Original artist unknown.
Private Commission. Greece.
I've painted the surreal aspect of the original and then painted a likeness of the owners cat to suit, I've included a portrait of the owner on the identity disc of the cat.
Speaking of Rene Magritte, this one is a take on Golconda by Magritte.
Private Commission. UK.
Again, I have painted the surreal aspect of the original yet changed the house to a likeness of the owners home.
A modern take on Claude Monet Lilies.
Private Commission. Spain.
Unfortunately the photo is overexposed, only one I have, but this one is 4ft x 4ft and was a pleasure to paint, a very loose brush style and with heaps of space to paint on made this on a fun project overall.
Painted in oils with a slight more punch in colour.
In the style of Claude Monet, Haystacks.
Sold. UK.
I wanted to see if I could get a similar effect of Monet's haystacks using acrylics, painted in layers of colour where the loose brushstrokes of impressionists leaves gaps for the underlying colour to come through, creating highlights.
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In the style of Edgar Degas, Blue Dancers.
Private Commission. UK.
Blue Dancers original is in pastels but I have painted this one in oils, again I wanted to see if it was possible to paint oils to look like pastel strokes and to see what it felt and looked like.
In the style of Dorothea Tanning, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
Private Commission. UK.
I found this one challenging but fun to paint, a slow progress as in any surreal undertaking but a lot to learn from this style.
In the style of Pablo Picasso, The Dream.
Private Collection.
I painted this one in blocks of acrylic paint, quite a large piece for my bedroom, and changed the colour of her hair from the original blonde to lilac/light purple.
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A simplified take on one of my favourite artists, Bernard Buffet, Coffee Pot still life.
Private Collection.
I really like Bernard's composition on his still life's and the style really livens up a relatively simple still life. Painted in acrylics and I wanted a blue coffee pot instead of a yellow one as in one of Bernard's original.
In the style of Amadeus Modigliani, Landscape.
Private Collection.
Modigliani is mostly know for his portraits and nudes but he was also a sculptor and landscape artist.
My initial sketch felt confusing until I laid down the colour then it came alive and less confusing.
Margaret Beauchamp Portrait.
Original artist, William Larkin.
Currently in my collection. UK.
A portrait that I enjoyed whilst helping on a conservation project.
There are only a couple of portraits of this important lady, with connections to Swindon, with one of the portraits being part of a heraldic collective. A small medieval portrait that I thought was so well painted it inspired me to paint a reproduction for public viewing.
A portrait of Vlad Tepes, Romanian Vlad Draculea.
Currently in my own collection
Otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler. My take on the classic portrait of Vlad. I wanted to add a touch more perspective and colouring to this reproduction and to include Vlad's castle in the background. The castle represents the castle as it is today but back in Vlad's time there would have been less towers.
Elizabeth Bathory, including her castle Cachtice as it is today.
Private Collection.
Mostly known for allegedly being the first recorded female serial killer, which I never believed, the accusations were just too far fetched. Now thanks to a team of historians, they have found the past evidence of her alleged convictions to be very flaky indeed. I knew it! Bless her.
Queen Elizabeth 1st, including Richmond Palace, which has long since been demolished. A favourite place for Elizabeth.
Private Collection.
A large portrait painting that was painted and completed online live during the pandemic. Her facial likeness was taken from a reconstruction of her face and the whole painting is loosely based on a medieval painting that already exists today. One of the viewers online had mentioned that Elizabeth was on lockdown very close to me during the last plague of which I thought was a spooky coincidence and that she had visited Lydiard House too which is very close to where I live.
Another Cat In The Hat, Althimus Preece, the Norwegian forest cat.
I have painted a few of these now, mainly in oil paints, as a gesture of love for our pets or in memorial of our cherished and missed pets.
A Clockworks Orange, painted in oils on canvas.
A surreal take of both a classic British cult movie and the works of Rene Magritte.
One of my favourite outfits for any fancy dress occasion mixed with clock workings from my love of cuckoo clocks, pieced together in the style of Rene Magritte.
Untitled. Hand painted in oils on canvas.
The original concept and title for this painting was, 'An Emperor Was Born', but it remains untitled. I intended to have the guitar neck and purple emperor butterfly rising from a chrysalis but the image became too phallic, so I redesigned the bottom half to disperse the phallic imagery.
In A Snail's Ear, hand painted in oils on canvas.
Inspired from an art students mis-quoted phrase, 'In a pig's eye', to which created an image in mind of a snail with ears which then developed into Van Gogh's ear on the back of a snail with Van Gogh's sunflowers growing from the ear.
Past, Present and Future, hand painted in oils on canvas.
Inspired from Jackdaws living on my roof, mischievous little tykes. Initially I was concerned about the Jackdaws deciding to move into my roof and after a visit to the local standing stones at Avebury I found out that they too were having issues with jackdaws in one of their barn roofs. I was informed that they are a protected bird and have had difficulty in removing them from the barn. It was suggested to persuade them to leave. I decided to do the opposite, nothing new there, and I let the jackdaws be. Needless to say they have raised several youngsters in their time on my roof and have been relatively quiet and well behaved.
Lord and Lady Wakefield, hand painted in oils on canvas, framed.
Initially an Idea inspired by Stephanie of having an old classic Lord style painting of her husband Mark as a fun surprise of which he wasn't too pleased about looking at once it was in place in their home, their children informed me. All turned out well when Mark commissioned one in a similar vein of his wife Stephanie to return the thought. Now in situ in their home they both have a painting of themselves that they dislike equally which have now become endearing.
Coronica. Hand painted in oils and acrylics.
A storyboard style painting, quite large, of how I perceived the corona virus pandemic through the presentation of media. Let's admit that the whole affair has not been a pleasant one all round, so this painting leans towards Picasso's Guernica in concept.