Can do better

I have spent the past few days working on a small'ish painting of mock orange blossom. This is one of four small paintings I want to paint, in time for an Art Festival next Month. The idea being, to offer people a range of sizes. What I wanted to acheive was a beautifully composed and painted picture, with stunning colours, in a dreamy, twighlight, mysterious atmosphere, filled with the scent of orange blossom. Hmmm! What I ended up with was a very ordinary and boring painting. Not nearly good enough.

As I paint quite freely on larger canvas's, this change in scale means I need to compose a much simpler picture, if I am going to retain the same sense of freedom and spontaneity. The mistake I made was putting too much into a small area, focusing on painting details, and losing sight of the overal design, the bigger picture. When the composition is right, and you have that balance, everything else falls into place. So back to the drawing board for me, to put what I have learnt to good use.

I will post the paintings once they are right. Perhaps I should follow Husbands advice which was to make small prints from large paintings. Et voila!

The Amazing Olive

Amazing what can inspire you, so often it is the very things that have been there all along. My family own an Olive grove in Cyprus. They have had it in the family for hundreds of years. Every year towards the end of September, they harvest the olives. The olives that are 'ripe' are marinated and prepared for eating. The olives that are not ripe, are prepared in two different ways. One way is to sun dry them for a week, then take then to the village olive oil press, to produce dark olive oil. The other way is to take the unripened olives directly to the olive oil press to produce green olive oil. Either way it tastes wonderful.
All of this is done naturally and organically, without any chemicals.

My mind kept going back to those olive groves, I thought about all the beneficial properties of the olive, the wonderful food you can create using it, the environment it grows in, the colours, light and sun. There are so many things you can use olives and olive oil for, which I will share with you as I find out more. I will also post some authentic recipes.

Thinking about this wonderful subject has inspired many ideas for paintings. I have a
large project in mind. To start with, I will be doing a lot of research, I want to find out as much as possible, to make it authentic. This will mean a trip to Cyprus, where I was born, with note books, sketch books and camera. I see it as an exciting journey, and I will share it with you along the way.

First though,I have some drawings and and some paintings to finish off. Some of these will be exhibited at the Worcester Arts Fair, August 22nd. I will be here with some of my colleagues from the Blue Ginger Small Business Breakfast Club. If you are in the area, please come along and say hello, it will be lovely to meet you. I will post more about this nearer the time, as well as some of my paintings.

Please feel free to post your comments, it is always good to get some feedback and I will be sure to answer any questions or querries you may have.