Beginnings

[ColinS]

I haven't ever uploaded anything to this site - and so I am flying a bit 'blind' as it were and this is an experiment to see if I have figured this out. I did follow a very helpful video tutorial, but of course ran into issues that weren't covered in the video.

The first image is one of the first paintings I did - it is on the computer because my wife very kindly took a photo. I don't have photos of my later paintings (yet) but anyway you can all see where I started 3 years or so ago.

I was quite pleased with it at the time and still rather like a lot about it. But I think I have moved forward somewhat since those early days. Still lots and lots to learn and a lot of practice is still necessary to get me to where I want to go.

This is somewhat intimidating since this forum is home to so many talented folks, but still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The second image is a copy of a still life by the Spanish painter Zurbaran.

[ColinS]

Well that seems to have worked without crashing the website.

Here are 2 additional paintings:

The first is a scene from the Horn Head peninsula, Donegal, Ireland where my parents were born. The mountain in the background is 'Muckish' a well known landmark.



The second is my homage to Spanish painting, done a couple of years ago for a Spanish themed Christmas Eve (as was the earlier copy of the Zurbaran). It is obviously a cheeky fiesta in Velazquez' studio as a take off of Las Meninas, which I think is one of the most extraordinary paintings I have ever seen.



I got messages as I was uploading these that they had been resized by the WetCanvas website - so I will need to figure out how to compress them or minimize them in future.

[CassandraJ]

Colin, very nice! I also started painting 3 or so years ago with acrylic. Keep up the good work.

[Dcam]

Keep it up Colin: You are doing great. I enjoyed these very much.
Derek

[chammi kaiser]

Thanks so much for sharing Colin. You are doing well. I also like your first one - nice 'holiday' feel about it. Glad to have you on board. Keep them coming.

[Charlie's Mum]

Hi Colin and a warm welcome to our 'home'

It seems to me you started pretty well so have a good base to progress - look forward to seeing more recent work

In another forum I put a step-by-step explanation for uploading, so please go here, scroll down a little (past the foral blurb!) and you'll see it.

When preparing uploads, can you scan any of the images? I usually prefere to do that rather than a photo (although your wife's photos are good!).
With a largish work I usually need a few scans and crop and 'stitch' them together.

Can you please add the size of your works when posting - so we know how big to imagine them? ...... also whether it's on canvas, paper, card or anything else!

Happy painting and uploading!

[ColinS]

Cassandra, thank you. I will look forward to seeing your work as well.

DCam and Chammi - thank you for the kind words and encouragement.

Charlie's Mum: the advice and info is appreciated. We do have a scanner but I suspect it is for 8 1/2 x 11" sized images and that there will be lots of 'stitching' involved. 3 of the paintings above are (32" x 40" I think) on canvasboard. The smaller still life study is on canvas but not sure of the dimensions.

[Charlie's Mum]

My scanner is A4 size too - I've done as many as 6 scans to crop and stitch but the biggest canvas was probably 20" x16"

[solonite]

Keep up the great work. I think the first one is my favorit...love sunflowers and the perspective you used here. Acrylics can be challenging but practice and you will conquer!

[ColinS]

Thanks Solonite. The first one is from a photo taken on a holiday in Umbria, Italy.

[AprilJoy]

Aha!
As soon as I saw the first one, it reminded me of Italy! Love it! My fav though must be 'Muckish' looks so peaceful (um, what's with the name of the mountain?).

[ColinS]

Thanks AprilJoy. 'Muckish' is the English rendering of the original Gaelic "an Mhucais" which means 'the pig's back'.

It is visible over a good chunk of northwest Donegal County, making it a real local landmark.

As for Italy, it is a beautiful addiction.

[bhavani.krishnan]

Great work. All of them are good but I especially like the perspective of the first one .

[Alex Wisniewski]

Picasso, Goya, Dali and Velazquez all in one painting !! Good fun. I'm hoping the image in the upper left that I can't recognize is a Miro.

All Artist's are thieves. We steal imagery from the past, we pick and choose from popular contemporary culture, we rob from each other, from nature, from science, from religion, from indigenous cultures, ... from everywhere.
We stash the loot in our twisted minds and blend it all with a dash of personal history, a splash of zeit geist and variable amounts of time. Only then, through our chosen discipline, do we present an artifact for scrutiny.

Thanks, very refreshing.

[ColinS]

Thanks for the encouragement bhavani.

That was I think my 2nd painting - 'Beginner's Luck' I should have called it.

Alex, Miro is in there, represented by the odd looking character from his painting 'Woman in Front of the Sun' standing in for the Court Dwarf

The 'painting' in the upper left with the vegetables is supposed to be a Cotàn.

Researching and putting the painting together was a crash course in Spanish art - and I learned a lot from sitting looking at the old Spanish masters and the modernists and trying to recapture what they had done with my rudimentary skillset. I especially renewed my love for Murillo and his ability to seize the fleeting moments of the human spirit in his paintings. The woman suppressing a giggle behind her shawl is from Murillo's painting 'A Girl and Her Duenna'.

As I was doing this, I also discovered that Picasso had done his own take on Las Meninas.

That is what is so enriching about art is the voyage of discovery that it takes you on.