What a difference a word makes

I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago and this plaque drew my attention. It does not say "Welcome to San Francisco Suites" but "Welcome back to San Francisco Suites". And this little added word, "back", implies a lot. It tells of an hotel where clients come back; it says that long terms clients are special and more than welcomed.

We have to write artist's statements and marketing material. Do we make every word count?

Racing the cable car - oil painting

During the Swindon Big Arts Day, I did a demonstration of oil painting. I tried to take photographs at regular intervals to show you the process.



Usually, I work on tinted background, but I did not have any canvas ready for the size I wanted.



The whole surface is covered with paint thinned with Sansodor (the odourless solvent from Winsor & Newton)



Time to put in the people on the cable car and the cyclist.





I treat the houses in background are treated in an abstract way.





For the foreground, I use a palette knife.

Time to refine the details.

Painting during the Swindon Big Arts Day

This Saturday, I took part in the Swindon Big Arts Week-end in Lydiard Park, near Swindon. With fellow artists, we had a table in the art & craft tent to promote the coming Swindon Open Studios 2010.

I painted during the day to give visitors a flavour of what they will see during the open studios. I will show you the progress on the painting I started in a coming post.

The whole event was a big success, far beyond the organisers' expectations. They thought 5,000 people would come and they had 20,000 visitors throughout the day.

Rhythm

“Rhythm is a perception of time. The repetition of a pattern on a willow chair is rhythm. The hand’s tiredness when we draw is a rhythm”

Picasso (from an interview by Alexander Liberman in Vogue, New York, 1956)