face with flowers
Just a random doodle today… trying a bit of contrast between soft and hard edges.
Have a great rest of the week!
UPDATE: New haiku from Tom!
meditating mind
empty open free
where are my car keys?
(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe
image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
more flowers
Check out this photography blog with some lovely detail shots of flowers, architecture and more.
UPDATE: Original poem from Tom in the comments! Captures the image very well – thanks Tom!
Floral embers smoulder, bursting fire
beneath the gusting winds of warming Spring
raising up the Year King on his pyre
to burn within the sacred garden’s ring
where arms of leafy green are raised up high
to welcome back the Eastern-rising sun
rebirth is in the air across the shire;
Winter’s reign at last is finally done!
So brightly burn the floral fires today
that only for a moment will they last
yet toward the Summer they will light our way
melting Winter’s grip so cold and fast.
So the Year King burns, for he is slain,
Yet all that dies will one day live again.
(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe
image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
Soft flowers
I have recently started experimenting with a new app called Procreate. So far it is behaving both more intuitively and flexibly than others I’ve tried. Thanks to the art blog of Nicholas Herbert for bringing my attention to this app. Check out his traditional and digital artwork – pretty cool!
Hopefully, I will start posting more regularly again – spring is inspiring!
UPDATE: Thanks to Tom for commenting with this new poem for my doodle!
When April with her showers sweet
brings to an end the cold March drought
and birds through tangled bushes tweet
then do the flowers rise and shout:
“Now Spring’s upon us! Winter’s done!
Let all rejoice for we have won
Another year of life and love
beneath the Sun so bright above!”
(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe
image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
about to…
This is a really quick doodle (maybe under a minute) I tweeted the other day. Tom tweeted back this great haiku:
lo! arising loon
just to speak on weighty things
then light on water!
I really like the idea that the loon got distracted from his important speech by the beauty of the scene. ummm… what was I going to say again??
I’ve been painting more than doodling lately so it takes longer to get something blog-worthy but I should have something new soon… and I have worked some more on the paintings in progress in the previous post so I may post them again for the comparison. I feel like I am starting to get somewhere – while recognizing the length of the road… enjoying the journey though!
Take a minute and check out this lovely sketch – but then I am very fond of cats – and this blog is from a cat’s perspective – very cute!
image: Hilary Farmer (cc) 2013
haiku: Tom Radcliffe (c) 2013
elegant terns dancing
elegant terns in repose
I have recently started what will likely be a series of paintings of birds – especially shore birds. I love the way they tie sky and water together – and I want to spend some time experimenting with painting water. It is a challenge so far but will improve I trust.
Why the yellow sky? I was inspired by some traditional Japanese screen paintings which use a lot of gold leaf and also the interesting use of colour by more recent artists such as the Fauvists. It is a way of giving myself freedom to play by not being too realistic from the start.
Elegant terns make a great subject because they appear to have so much personality and are particularly dynamic in their movements.
The two above paintings are in different states of completion. The top one has been worked on for three sessions and should be finished the next time I can work on it. The lower one has just been worked on for one session so far. I quite like the soft feeling but at the same time, want to increase the contrast by strengthening the black and white. I will post them again when they are finished if I like how they turn out.
My four year blogiversary was two days ago – it’s been an interesting process to track my own progress – and I am still enjoying it!
oil paintings 12″x 12″ (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
surreal umbrellas
This is the third and last in the series of paintings I started during a course last fall with Melanie Matthews and finished recently. Once again I have struggled with taking a reasonable photograph of the piece. This one has a fair amount of texture making it especially difficult. There are also some reflective metallics – so it changes a lot depending on the light and angle.
The under water feeling I was trying to create was wonderfully captured by Tom’s haiku.
surreal umbrellas
shelter depths from raining light
currents blowing wind
(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe
underwater detail
painting mixed media on board 12″x12″ (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
Here’s a fun art blog and check out this lovely watercolour with a wonderful piece of fortune cookie advice – and it doesn’t just work for artists!
year of the snake
Finally posting an image for Chinese New Year! We were busy last weekend with celebrating – eating Chinese dumplings with friends – mmmm!
I was having a difficult time thinking of a way to make a snake cute. So when I saw a really cute snake in the style of a traditional Chinese paper-cut on a billboard in the metro last week, I let myself be inspired… yes, that’s where idea of the flowers came from!
Here’s Tom’s haiku from when I posted this image on twitter.
a lisping forked tongue
funky flower-petal skin
year of the cute snake!
(c) TJ Radcliffe 2013
image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer (with credit to billboard artist!)
