The inspirations & techniques of ADO artist Pam Morton

I started my art career at Newcastle Art College, then I went into display and sign writing for a few years.  After 3 children, I changed direction, and began a career within sales and business development which spanned over 20 years and my art was put on the back burner.

It was only 2 years ago that I gave up the stressful life of business and decided to take up painting again, mainly spurred on by my mother who was a fabulous artist, and she, like me, gave up painting to work in a different direction to support her family and really regretted not pursuing her art.

I absolutely love this way of life and within just a few months of taking up art again, my work was exhibited in a couple of galleries and I began to sell my paintings.  In fact, my first painting "Madly Deeply" sold to a famous couple in Beverly Hills.  

"Madly Deeply" in Beverly Hills

My style is big, bold, and emotive.  I like to be as realistic as I feel it needs, with an illustrative slant.  I'm not too keen on backgrounds that a depict a scene or tell a story, as I feel it distracts from the subject.  I like a good composition with a modern approach.

 

"The Final Rehearsal"

I am often browsing through fine art photography and sometimes a photograph will inspire me.  I love ballet pictures - this one was from a German photographer.  I asked her if it was okay to adapt her picture and paint it, and she agreed.  

In the "Final Rehearsal" I wanted to capture the discipline of the dancers and their strength and beauty, but also add character.  The painting is quite bold and shows the tension and characters of the dancers before going on stage.

"Brief Encounter"

I absolutely love painting horses and capturing their strength and beauty, particularly their bone structure, and I wanted to portray these elements in this painting.  Using acrylic paint, I feel I can add texture and reflect light and also build up layers to illustrate the physical form of these creatures.

 

I still feel I have a lot to learn and would love to develop my style further.  I am always looking at other artists' work for inspiration and techniques.

My dream is to become noticed by my style and hopefully be in a position to sell my work in other countries.

Recently I was contacted by American Art Awards Online to enter their completion which is open to artists across the world.  The paintings were voted for by the top 25 Art Galleries in America.  I am delighted to say that I won 3rd and 6th place in Human Form and 6th place in Animal Impressionism.  

Written by Pam Morton

To see all of my work for sale on ADO please visit my artist's page

http://artdiscoveredonline.co.uk/artist-page/?artist=Pam_Morton

 

Here's a selection of the amazing artwork currently for sale on Art Discovered Online http://artdiscoveredonline.co.uk/

The inspirations & techniques of ADO artist Sarah Stokes

 My inspirations

  

Occasionally I will start a piece off with an idea, and sometimes I will gently let go a mark or colour on the canvas or board and simply see where the next line mark or colour will lead me.

 

 

'climbing through'

 

With 'climbing through', it was very intuitive, so the piece revealed itself, and will often explain what I may be going through, beyond words, in the depth of my life.

'sketch of a pleasant afternoon on the beach'

With 'sketch of a pleasant afternoon on the beach', this was layered.  It was another piece completely- I wasn't happy how it was - so I playfully, and quite swiftly, revived it to give back the painting its life and energy.

 

Written by Sarah Stokes

To see all of my work for sale on ADO please visit my artist's page

http://artdiscoveredonline.co.uk/artist-page/?artist=Sarah_Stokes

The inspirations & techniques of ADO artist Peter Valentine

'Cornish Fantasy'

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

http://artdiscoveredonline.co.uk/artist-page/?artist=Peter_Valentine