Hilltop or the ocean

I find that the process of photographing pieces is always a useful one. In it's deceptive objectification the photo allows me to step a foot away from the piece - as if time has passed between painting and a new looking at it.

So, with the ACEOs something struck me. And it was again the line that kept me looking at it - the horizon line. And I wondered what the difference was between a hilltop against the sky or the line where the sea meets the horizon. And I remembered how Twombly's Poems to the Sea all have a ruler-drawn horizon line - the only straight line, the same throughout all 24 poems.

Where the sky meets the sea - the line - where it all happens - the Wild.

Then I played some more with the wild line in the distance: masked off the lower part of the board and painted in the sky. Played with the way the pigments come up, close to the line, touch it, or not quite.

Hilltops, oceanlines or fields of colour. Here are three more (seeing that I already sold two... thank you, P.!) for the Etsy shop:

See Study ACEO #6
Soft pastel on board, 8.9x6.4cm


See Study ACEO #7
Soft pastel on board, 8.9x6.4cm


See Study ACEO #8
Soft pastel on board, 8.9x6.4cm

Smaller still

Ok... some more studying. Using smoother paper for the smaller scale, I tried to see how much I can simplify/strengthen the composition on the small ACEO scale - 8.9x6.4cm. A bit of a challenge for the large Townsend Terrage stick that is my cobalt blue. But very good fun. I also played with the titling - rather than sea studies, they are now see studies (as in look/see, but also the German for sea).

Have a look at the see studies:

See Studies #1
ACEO, pastel on board
8.9x6.4cm



See Studies #2
ACEO, pastel on board
8.9x6.4cm


See Studies #3
ACEO, pastel on board
8.9x6.4cm

And seeing that I'm determined (or at least intent) to cross-fund my end of year present-buying habit with some sales in turn, these are now available in my Etsy shop [www.gesah.etsy.com] :)

Treasures of summer

... the fruits of my hours in front of the computer today has been a Treasury at Etsy.

These treasuries are curated lists of handpicked items on any one theme - but timing is crucial as it is only for a few seconds, when the number of treasuries drop below a certain threshold, that you are able to create one.

I've called mine 'Let summer linger a little longer' - I think I'm not quite in the mood yet for autumn and here's my etsied attempt of staving it off for a little while. Go and have a look as it will expire on Tuesday lunchtime:

Screen shot of my Etsy treasury

[the treasury expired on Tue 18/09,
but see current treasuries here]

[By the way, I've figured out how to do screen shots :)]

Team blogging adventures

... my favourite way to spend the evenings seems to be getting thoroughly lost in cyberspace art worlds these days. I somehow feel similar to when I first discovered the internet 10 years ago: where have all the hours gone???

I've been spending more time with my Etsy shop and trying to find some way around the vastness that makes up Etsy. Etsy seller organise themselves in various street team - to promote their work (e.g. beadwork, or by locality) and to provide a more friendly and personal face to the thousands of shops and their artworks.

One team where I liked many of the members artworks calls itself VAST (see the pun ;)) - the Visual Artists Street Team. After joining them, my blogger dashboard - the interface software with which all these informative blog entries are written and posted - has doubled in size as I can now decide to which blog I will contribute. - Just need to remember to keep checking for which blog I'm creating posts now.

I am excited in the sense that some of the web 2.0 technology just opens up so many possibilities of communication, and a group communication via a team blog seems just like one of the good ones. - And one which makes you easily forget some of the more tedious asides of all this internetting.