Palm tree painting during lockdown

Posted on 03/06/2020 by artistintheshed

Once upon a time all I painted were palm trees and we will move onto that in a moment. During lockdown initially it felt quite difficult to focus on making art. I started off painting a few large canvases that were quite emotional in their content, large doves with expressive words integrated such as hope, trust and gratitude.

Lock down and the way our world has changed has had its inevitable impact on everyone and so far I feel lucky to be here, to feel healthy and for the people I love to be well too.

Artistically like many I was feeling a huge pressure to use this time as a big opportunity to get a body of work completed or at least to embark on a new project like my desire to create an e- course, catalogue my paintings properly, redesign this web site and countless other projects on the to do list.

However with the enormity of what was going on around us, the tragedy for many and the anxiety of watching the world respond to the pandemic, making art seems pretty crass. But it isn’t, creativity is a great outlet as a coping mechanism at difficult times – it is something that can be controlled to a degree at a time when everything else seems beyond our control. So I did what most artists do and just went into my shed every day and did something, even if all that something was, was a bit of tidying up.

The aforementioned canvases were there, fortunately purchased just before everything closed, so I just poured my emotions onto them and spent time building up marks and colours to give me a tapestry to work with on something. It’s a great way of overcoming artist block. I know well the saying that inspiration catches you working and have generally found this to be true.

To begin with as mentioned I painted a couple of dove paintings. Large expressive works that are entirely imaginary. I usually start painting without a plan and let the imagery come through. Here are the Dove Paintings that were inside of me wanting to express how I was feeling.

Dove – Gratitude – Sending Love ©Mary Price 2020

These paintings were cathartic to paint, and as making art does, allowed me the opportunity to express feelings like the desire to be free again but also the love I feel for life, family and friends and the trust in and gratitude for the key workers who were and are keeping the world ticking over as we grapple with and learn to live with the coronavirus.

The third dove is where the palm trees come in. It just wasn’t working and so as I often do in these cases I turned the painting upside down and there it was the image I loved for years and had laid to rest – a palm tree. Here it is not working, at least for me. And below it the palm, working for me!

Dove – painting that for me, at the time was not working ©Mary Price 2020

This painting is still in progress. You may be able to pick out some bird shapes and I plan to enhance these. The lockdown bird chorus has been one of the resounding pluses of this experience we are all undergoing and I want these paintings to mark this time. I’m not sure yet if I will be offering these paintings for sale – at least not just yet. Sometimes you paint something that seems too close to let go but I usually find that that feeling wears off once there is an offer on the table.

The surprising reacquaintance with my old love led me on to order ten canvases. I have to say that Nick from Bristol Fine Art has been amazing during lock down. In order to keep his customers well stocked with art supplies he has been running a delivery service. So much to be said for supporting local businesses right now. I decided to keep the pressure off and paint small.

Over a period of around two weeks I painted all ten canvases with imagery to cheer me up. A holiday to Portugal had been cancelled and I wanted to be transported into a holiday mode so worked on a series of palm tree paintings. Each palm is painted from my imagination but I have made countless drawings from real palms many times in my concertina sketchbooks when I travel so the muscle memory of the shapes is ingrained into my being.

Here are a few of the palm tree series.

I posted the progress of this series on Instagram and was delighted to see the very positive interest. It seems I am not the only person wanting a bit of holiday inspired colour in their life right now.

During this time there has been a very successful hash tag called artists support pledge where artists have been posting work with a view to making £1,000 sales and then pledging to buy the work by another artist to the value of £200. The hash tag was set up to bring attention to the fact that income sources for artists such as exhibitions, gallery shows, art fairs, market stalls and workshops had all been stopped during the lock down.

I decided to sell the palm tree paintings at a very reasonable £75 plus postage and to run an Instagram event one Sunday to trial the water. The paintings sold out in 15 minutes! Yes they are originals and £75 is a low price for an original painting but I wanted to spread the joy, it did not feel to me entirely to be about making money.

When you paint the gift is in the making, as an artist you are doing what you love so why not spread that gift by making art affordable. The gift repaid itself as I’ve been working on commissions ever since.

The experience has taught me many things about art, art business and why I do this thing. It has never been for money. What it is about for me is verification and this lockdown has brought me back to what I want to do, what I love and also it would appear to what I was meant to be painting all along.

People used to look at my work and say why always palm trees – well the answer is simply that I like them. No, I love them in all their swaying beauty and how they symbolise good things in life. I have embellished the colour and many of the palms integrate arches bringing another life long theme into the mix – that of travel memory.

When the current commissions are finalised I plan on making another sale but these will be first offered to those who sign up to my news letter. I’ve been very lazy at blogging and newsletters of late but I aim to change this.

You can sign up for the monthly (well that’s the intention) newsletter here, no spam, just honest insights into my shed studio life and latest updates on new paintings and prints – oh and at some point news on an e course. It will happen.

Art studio is finalist in Cuprinol Shed of the Year 2019

Posted on 11/08/2019 by artistintheshed

My she shed studio reached the Cuprinol Shed of the Year shortlist of 21 during the summer of 2019.

The shed was entered into the competition just a week before the deadline almost on an impulse so to get through to the final shortlist was amazing. Following selection for the shortlist the shed has featured in national media and I was interviewed on local TV. More media coverage can been viewed on the Shed in the Media page.

image courtesy of South West News and Media

The summer of 2018 was the best in the UK over 40 years so I took the opportunity to transform my art studio shed by tackling my biggest canvas to date.

The studio had originally been painted in a very practical but rather boring garden white shade and although it looked tasteful I decided I wanted a change. I wanted bright, bold, in your face and to create a bit of garden magic that was totally unique and reflected my love of colour.

painting the details onto the shed walls

When I began to doodle a few flowers onto the doors I had not immediately decided just how big the project would become. I think I had run out of large surfaces to paint on and it was such a glorious day that before I knew it the doodling had progressed to the window surrounds and then the entire front elevation.

As I already had some large bottles of studio acrylics from Jacksons Art I decided to use these and they actually went onto the surface very smoothly. I used foam decorating brushes to apply the back drop colours mixing the shades as I progressed brushing the paint onto the shed directly from the paint bottles. The colour scheme that started to emerge is reminiscent of the beautiful blue that Jacques Majorelle used for his phenomenal Majorelle gardens in Morocco, somewhere I hope to visit in the not too distant future.

Once the back drop colours had been applied I set about introducing little symbols, marks and flowers in contrasting warm colours – cadmium red, fluorescent pink and highlighted with titanium white. It was at some point in this doodling stage that I decided that the shed was not just going to be decorated but that it would become an actual painting.

side elevation with tree painting in progress

the tree on the side panel begins to take shape

I began to realise that this approach mirrors entirely the way that I paint. There is rarely a defined plan about what my paintings will be because I like to work from the gut using my instinct and intuition as my guide rather than trying to represent what I see accurately. I always paint in layers and allow each layer to determine the next direction as the artwork progresses.

This is how the imagery and the colours started to work on the shed. And the ferocious heat last summer meant that the layers quickly dried so that I could cover up bits I was unhappy with and add details working swiftly between creating undercoat and applying decorations.

There were a few practical glitches with the paint application, the heat meant that as the paint dried little bubbles appeared in some places. Acrylic paint is not really designed to be used as a outdoor paint but I have decided that this will be a work in progress that morphs over time. We will have to see how the paint lives up to successive winters and the ravages of rain, cold and possible snow but so far so good.

In a way this does not especially matter to me as the smooth surface is not important. I can always get the sander out and see what effect that might have on the imagery and colour.

Shed details

I purchased my shed from Dunster House Ltd in 2014. It is a Lantera 12ft by 8ft off the peg log cabin. The design complies with planning height regulations. The roof is customised. The shed is not insulated but I just wrap up warm in winter!

Decoration

The external walls are painted with Jacksons Art student acrylic paints, Arteza outdoor acrylic paints, Liquitex acrylics and a little Golden acrylic paint. The external walls have not been sealed. I am going to allow the weather to do its thing and repair and update the designs every year. The paint was applied with decorators foam brushes and fine art brushes and a variety of mark making tools. I have not sealed the paint with varnish as I know this will yellow the colours.

Global Attention

As I used the hashtag #tinyhomes in my initial posts on Instagram about the shed decoration the shed was noticed by a magazine in Japan called Koya Life who featured a double page spread with images.

Where from here

Once the outside is completed I plan to tackle the inside space. I have some plans but they need to take in to account that the interior needs to be flooded with light. I’m thinking of including inspirational quotes from famous and not so famous.

The shed studio is an ongoing project and it’s likely that it will morph continually.

shed in 2019 with wild flowers and sweet peas

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Inspired by travel exhibition – Bristol Tobacco Factory

Posted on 09/08/2016 by artistintheshed

I have a forthcoming solo exhibition entitled ‘Inspired by travel – Paintings by Mary Price’ at the Tobacco Factory cafe and bar starting on Monday 5 September and running for the entire month. I will be sharing and selling work painted during the past year inspired by my travels to Spain and Portugal. Full details see the Tobacco Factory website here

The exhibition will feature a number of larger works on canvas as the space at the Tobacco Factory lends itself well to big paintings which is great for me as I love to paint big.

The show includes a series that reflects my love of wandering aimlessly around narrow side streets in the cities of Porto, Lisbon, Cadiz, Malaga and Seville as well as some of the pretty towns on the Algarve.

Cadiz Casa ©Mary Price 2016

The work in the show reflects my fascination with old windows and doors and a series of imaginary buildings that are a mixup of essence of place and memory. I always draw and take lots of photographs when I travel but my paintings are far from representational. Anyone who reads these blog posts will know that I favour an intuitive way of expression.

For me this means building up layers of marks and tonality before imposing imagery that inspires in the moment. I like to begin from a space that is free and easy and to hone detail and subject later in my working process. Sometimes happy accidents on the page where imagery starts to emerge will set me off in one direction, at other times I have a sense of what I am trying to achieve and a notion of the vague direction the painting is heading in.

I tend to go through phases of obsession with different inspirations and the current focus is on fabulous imaginary homes imbued with various symbols that represent place in memory.

if you would like to read more about how travel inspires my work please go to this post on travel memory paintings

If you would like to find out more please feel free to contact me via the form below.

Paintings for sale in gallery

Posted on 11/06/2016 by artistintheshed

Later this month 14 paintings and 4 prints will be available for sale at Tinca Gallery in Portishead near Bristol. This lovely spacious gallery sells paintings by several local artists I admire so it’s great to be in good company.

I can’t say how fantastic it feels to get some validation from a gallery. This is the first time I have shown work in this way. It’s scary but also really affirming. I will be featured as artist of the week when the paintings are on display on the gallery Facebook page very soon.

These are the limited edition giclee prints that will be included for sale.

I will also be offering these in my Etsy shop eventually. Each step takes time and this one has been taking forever but I don’t want to spend too much time glued to the computer. It will be up and running as soon as I can manage and announced here and on social media when ready.

It’s quite a steep learning curve getting work prepared for a gallery – painting the edges of large canvases, mounting little paintings onto MDF boards that need to be primed, emulsioned and sanded and finding out how unsuited IKEA Ribba frames are for showing in galleries. They look nice and are lovely for home but galleries cannot fix screws into the frame without them disintegrating. But it’s all a learning process so I know this for next time!

Here are three tiny paintings that I finished recently that are a new departure that will be on display.

The gallery has also taken on one of my very large paintings inspired by my recent trip to Cadiz. I’m fascinated by the ornate doorways and weathered textures of Southern European buildings, it’s amazing how you can stumble on really magnificently decorated homes that are often hidden down narrow streets. The fact that these buildings are hidden has not stopped the builders and artisans from festooning them with beautiful tiles, wrought iron work and sculptured facades. This one is called Casa or An Imaginary Home. Like much of my work it draws on travel memory for inspiration interspersed with my own license to explode the colour onto the canvas

Casa or An Imaginary Home 100 x 100 cms acrylic on canvas

Earlier this month I had another lovely moment – my first Instagram sale that came about as a result of a 100 day project challenge that I’m currently doing to try to hone watercolour painting skills. Watercolour is a medium that I love the look of but find difficult so I’ve been trying to get better at it.

Instagram is where I post progress images and finished work very regularly so do feel free to follow – I’m @artistintheshed surprise, surprise!

Here is the little painting. Just a bit of fun really.

I will keep you updated with the date that the work goes up in the gallery. Thank you for reading.

Process, inspiration and another painting of a window

Posted on 25/03/2016 by artistintheshed

Colour, brushstrokes, imagery from travel memories, trinkets, and symbols, childlike simplicity, thick paint and movement.

Magical things happen when these things collide and bring into being something new that wasn’t there before. This place doesn’t exist anywhere other than on this canvas. It is purely imaginary and it grew and emerged gradually, I had no preconception. I had not planned the little fishy or the bird or the two sunshine orbs. They turned up because they were meant to be there.

Window on another world 90 x 90 cms – acrylic on canvas

Escaping from realism into a fantasy of colour. Painting is a physical and an emotional pursuit and it’s all about the process. Yes that phrase. All about the process. Well it’s true, it has to be about the doing. The little decisions. What pot of paint to open next? Why put this colour against that one? Why cover up that mark or choose that tool? It’s the randomness and the miracle that appeals – the continually evolving little surprises. This could have been so different. It could have become anything.

The process allows letting go before even the tiniest drip has splotted – does that word even exist?

There was no plan. I’ve continued with an obsession – old windows. But these windows don’t look like the windows that I photograph. They are different and vibrant rather than old peeling paint. So why paint big colourful windows when the photos – the inspiration source is so different? What is this reality?

The answer I feel is that it’s all in the mess up of memory and the edges of the windows give the painting a measure of controlled form. And this allows the bursts, the reactions to bright summer fauvist colour to work.

There is no reality here, simply expressive responses to a cacophony of experiences.

Symbolic simplifications, remembered motor movement from previous drawings and a love and enjoyment of the physicality of splatting and placing and dripping and smudging. Oh yes and splotting paint with wild abandon. I checked – it’s not in the dictionary – it should be!

artistintheshed

Paintings by Bristol artist Mary Price

Tag Archives: intuitive art