I first started painting again in February this year having not picked up a brush since I was in school. This was something my girlfriend dared me to do after complaining that work was taking over my life. I quickly found that I was back in love with art and painting however wanted to try to find a style that suited me and that I was happy with. I have no formal training but have been painting as often as I can since.
I have tried watercolour, figure painting, oil painting and acrylics. At the moment I am really enjoying painting complex blended colour fields that force you to identify shapes and patterns in the work.
However my work is constantly evolving and I keep trying new and different things as well as returning back to ideas and styles that I have used before. I am still at the beginning of my art journey however and I am sure I will look back on this and cringe a little if I continue to improve and move forward.
Below are a selection of the paintings I have completed in this time. Please feel free to provide constructive comments as I am keen to know what other people think. They are ordered from earliest to most current.
Thanks for reading.
Chris
More info: Instagram
To the Moon and back my boy. The first painting I made for a dare. This still has pride of place on the wall in my flat as there is something childish about it that makes me chuckle.
Flowers for you. I then started painting more and more and reading up on different styles and techniques. I have no formal training and this was one of my first efforts at painting with a palette knife.
I continued to work using a palette knife, this one is painted using oils. I began experimenting with blending colours more and more following this piece.
A lady reclines. Having spent ages sketching the position of the lady and painting the background on this I finished the figure relatively quickly. This started me thinking that working quicker might be something I should try and see what the results are like.
A few other images where I blended colours with more and more success. In this one I tried to go for a totally abstract landscape with blended colours to reflect a changing sky.
I took a break from painting over some of the summer and returned to more abstract shapes with this image of a bunny. It actually started as just a blended background and a few golden squiggles. Again this was painted using a palette knife, however in this one the picture began to create itself as I worked. This is something I went on to explore more with other images.
With my flat beginning to fill up with canvasses I switched to painting on small off cuts of wood. This one again had no plan when I started it I just followed the mood and feel of the image as I worked. The stick man was added to the foreground as I was concerned the picture did not fully hang together when I finished. This was the first painting I painted using a roller, something I found very pleasing to use.
I then abandoned all ideas of foreground/background and attempts at making an image reflective of anything. This one is purely blended colours layered heavily over each other. Again this was painted on wood and with a roller.
I have for a while shied away from using black due to its tendency to dominate paintings. In this one I fully abandoned this thought process and went for it. I am really pleased with the texture, colours and feel of this image. Again this is using acrylics on wood and painted with a roller.
