 |
'Cornish Fantasy' |
One
of a series of distorted Wibbly Wobbly worlds. All art contains a
degree of distortion (otherwise it may as well be a photograph). The
difficulty with this type of picture is to ensure that you tread a fine
line between distortion and the image becoming too much like a cartoon.
I wanted to distil all
the qualities that appeal to me (and hopefully others) in an average
Cornish fishing village. The quirky higgledy piggledy houses, cobbled
streets, ochre coloured roofs and the bumpy whitewashed walls.
The
attention to detail and realistic painting technique saves this work
from being a cartoon, however, hopefully it still contains some of the
more positive qualities of a cartoon such as being child (and adult)
friendly, evoking childhood memories, pleasant and inclusive.
While
painting the sea I was thinking of flying fish and I decided the way to
catch them would be with a flying boat, hence the flying boats. These
flying boats also add a dream like feel to the picture giving it a
surreal as well as a fantasy dimension.
 |
'Strangeville'
Strangeville
Although
I grew up in Liverpool I was born and spent my early years in Chester.
Very early memories and perceptions have a profound and life long
effect. All of the buildings in this painting are in Chester but not
next to their actual neighbours, liberties have been taken with
placement to enable me to capture the juxtaposed perceptions of a young
child.
As a child I was
fascinated with marbles, but not the game, rather the actual marbles
themselves. I saw them as worlds and I would look into their swirling
centres and let my imagination run riot, like gazing in to a crystal
ball or a 3D ink blot.
The
cars identify a rough time line as I was in Chester in the late forties
and very early fifties and cars at the time looked a bit like these.
The horses probably came to mind because of the Chester races. The
jester is, I suspect, me in a different time line juggling with life’s
problems.
Technique
My
painting technique is a traditional oil painting method. Composition
and subject drawn loosely in paint, followed by an underpainting in
slightly darker than mid tone, then the darks, then the lights, and
finally the highlights. From the general to the particular and the
large to the small.
Written by Peter Valentine
To see all of my work for sale on ADO please visit my artist's page
|
No comments:
Post a Comment