Brother and Sister. New Painting

For my open studio event this weekend I have been rushing to complete several new paintings.
I'm hoping they will be dry by the time Saturday comes around!
They may have to come up to the house as it's a bit chilly in the studio!

Mary Kemp
Brother and Sister.
Oil on canvas panel.
30 x 30 cm

Christmas Open Studio

I must be mad! No I must be really mad.
To give myself a rest this year I thought I would swerve the annual open studio, spend time enjoying the sunshine and perhaps take in a few fellow artists' venues. And very enjoyable and relaxing it was too.
So why have I decided to host an open studio event next week?

See my facebook page for more details.

Well to be honest I missed it, all the boring bits, the planning, framing , labeling, printing. I missed all that, but most of all I missed the buzz of sharing my work and showing people round my studio.
So there you have it. I am a lost cause.
And it just so happens tonight there is the AGM of the Peterborough Artists Open Studios with plans for 2016. So off I will go to plunge into it all once again.

Monday Painting. A Watercolour!

At the moment I'm having a phase of watercolour activity, and quite enjoying it, even though I'm throwing away more than I save. The problem with watercolour is that you can't correct your mistakes. Oils are much more forgiving.

Mary Kemp. Watercolour. 11.5" x 8.5"
Sunset

I was very patient with this evening scene, and let the paint dry between layers and in the end was not displeased with the result. I wanted the effect of night settling over the harbour.

What is a Giclee Print?

I sell my art through several online sites, some of which accept prints and some who don't.
Through Etsy I market cheap and cheerful prints , using photographs I have taken myself and my own printer, albeit a super duper Epson, using archival inks and paper. These are a bit more expensive than the run of the mill, but again I am pleased with the results.

My prints as seen
on Etsy

I have paid for my work to be professionally photographed and printed and I am pretty pleased with the results of that too. The big advantage of having this done is that the paintings can be reproduced to a much larger size.

But it got me thinking. My printer Steve calls his reproductions giclee prints. What is the difference between his prints and mine, apart from the size.

I looked on Wikipedia and this is what I found :

"Giclee: The name was originally coined in 1991 by print maker Jack Duganne for fine art digital prints made on inkjet printers. the name originally applied to fine art prints created on IRIS printers in a process invented in the late 1980s, but since has come to mean any inkjet print. It is often used by artists, galleries and print shops to suggest high quality printing but since it is an unregulated word it has no associated warrant of quality"

So what this tells me is
1. A giclee print is one made on an inkjet printer.
2. Quality depends on these things:
a, How well the photo or scan of the image was taken
b, The specifications of the inkjet printer
c, The quality of the paper
d, The specifications of the ink

And while we're on the subject the prints that I produce are reproduction prints , because they are reproductions of my paintings.
Lino cuts, digital art and screen prints, to name just a few, are completely different art forms and as such are each unique pieces of art which is reflected in the price.

Thank you for reading this. It's clarified things in my mind if nothing else!
Leave me a comment below in the box . I'd love to hear from you.

Monday Painting. "We Cannot Tell You."

Sometimes a painting takes a long time to get to where it should be. I painted it one way and then another, and now I'm fairly content with this one. (Not that I'm ever totally satisfied)

Mary Kemp. "We Cannot Tell You"
Oil on canvas board 40 x 40 cm.

I had the idea of painting these two girls deep in conversation for quite a while. They were excluding everybody else and obviously didn't want to share their thoughts with the younger girl.
I have found that if you sit on the beach you can observe so many interesting little scenarios because people think it doesn't matter because no one knows you at the seaside. But of course everything that we do does matter.

Sky Landscape Artist of the Year and the Great British Throw Down. Television Heaven!

Sometimes the television serves up some wonderful programmes, and this week we've had a double helping of arts related delight.

I had only just got into Sky's Landscape Artist of the Year 2015 when along came The Great British Pottery Throwdown.

What I'm thinking of Sky's Landscape Artist of the Year. I'm loosely a landscape artist myself so this has been of great interest to me. I like the format, stick the artists out in the cold and wet and let them get on with it. I thought it might favour the plein air brigade but a printer and a delicate watercolourist have both done well so far. Whilst it's called landscape artist of the year it seems more  a case of stately home artist of the year, which I suppose is fair as the National Trust is providing the venues. 

I find it interesting to see how other people work, and particularly discovering that they're not afraid to use all the tools available in this digital age. A few were overwhelmed by the tasks and others attacked it with vim and vigour and an awful lot of colour. 

In each episode the organisers invited someone with a strong link to the venue to choose one of the paintings to keep. It's been noticeable that they've chosen the most representational of the pieces. The judges on the other hand had no such concerns!

I'm not sure I will agree with the judges when they get to their winners, but it's an entertaining and mildly instructive programme and I like it.

The Great British Pottery Throw Down is a delight of entertainment in the same way as the Bake Off is. It's produced by the same production team and  follows a very similar format, but with a time span of days, not hours. 

I love pots, I buy pots, so it was an enjoyable bonus to see them being made. My potter friends were particularly pleased to having light shone onto their skills. And if there's one thing I took away from this programme it's how strong your hands have to be. All that kneading and manipulating large chunks of clay. 

It's been the first episode this week, but we're settled in for a nice run and I shall be watching and cheering to the end.

In Praise of Instagram

I really enjoy Instagram.
I consume more than I post, but when I come to look at it I do post a lot too.
I love looking through all the beautiful images that come up on my phone, an antedote to the desperate calls to action that comes with facebook and other social media. All I have to do is look and enjoy and more and more images come up for my delight.
Everything is packaged in a square self contained unit. People usually keep commentary to a minimum if at all and the filters make the pictures seem of another world, foreign, not quite real.
If you haven't used instagram do give it a go. All you have to do is type in a word e.g. roses and a wondrous array of images pops up before your very eyes. Or you can look at the instagam feed of one of your favourite people. Here's a screen shot of my gallery.