Category Archives: painting

NOTES FROM THE ABSTRACTED

Posted by joanblease on

I haven’t picked up my camera since February and to be honest I haven’t missed it.

Instead I have picked up my paint brushes and have started on a personal journey taking me into the world of abstract art. Sitting and painting has really helped me this year with the loss of my beloved Mum (it doesn’t get any easier), my lovely Mother In Law and my cat of 16 years.

Loosing myself in my paintings has brought me much pleasure at this time and it has given me a greater understanding about abstract art. The colours, the energy and the freedom of applying the paint to paper makes me want to get up in the morning with something to look forward to.

I feel that there is something very powerful and special as art being a therapy and I can honestly say personally, that it has helped me enormously.

My Mum would have been proud

Here is one of my efforts (inspired by one of my early creative photographic images) not totally abstract … more semi abstract

NOTES FROM THE BEGINNING – MOVING ON

Posted by joanblease on

NOTES FROM THE BEGINNING (MOVING ON – PART 2)

After I had done lots of happy little clouds and mountains covered with snow in the Bob Ross style I decided it was time to have a go at a subject matter that was closer to home (No snow covered mountains here in Cheshire).

So I branched out and started to try and capture a more familiar landscape. I was still enjoying painting but was still struggling to achieve a standard that I was happy with – I was still a very frustrated “artist”

This was my first country side landscape

 

NOTES FROM THE BEGINNING

Posted by joanblease on

NOTES FROM THE BEGINNING
 
I get asked a lot of times how did I get into photography well……… it all started with a TV programme that is currently having a revival.
 
I have to confess that I was (and still am) a frustrated artist. I knew what I wanted to paint but could never manage to get my paint brushes to produce what has in my minds eye. I could always draw, but totally made a horlicks of the drawing when I applied the paint. No matter what medium I used it would ultimately become a muddy mess….. I was soooooo frustrated .
 
Then one day I happened upon a TV programme featuring the charismatic Bob Ross and I was hooked….. it looked so simple. Lots of paintings of happy little clouds, wonderful landscapes using a palette knife, lots of carefree sploshes on the canvas using a “big brush” – I thought “even I could manage that !!!. Bob Ross was a painting evangelist who preached that there were “no mistakes just happy accidents” and he was right.
 
I bought all the stuff, Bob Ross brushes, Bob Ross palette knives, Bob Ross artist palette and the very special Bob Ross paint – “you could only achieve the best results by using this paint”. I eventually plucked up the courage to go on a Bob Ross weekend course in Scarborough and really got into his style of painting.
 
However, I quickly realised that Bob Ross (and his style of painting) was sneered at by “real artists” – but he brought joy to lots of people and helped them, and me with our first faltering steps in producing a painting to be proud of.
 
This was 2006 and I realised that art was my “thing” and decided that I was going to do a degree in Art via distance learning …………. this turned out to be a total disaster but it did introduce me to the wonderful world of photography……… but that will be my next story.
 
This is one of the first paintings I did in the Bob Ross style – I found it in my Mum’s house when we were clearing out her belongings. She was so proud of everything I did – even the happy little accidentsNOT