Paint Ideas And Inspiration to Take Forwards In To The New Year

'Lemba Sunset,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

As Christmas approaches I'm working on 9 small canvases because I know there isn't time to start my large canvases. 

The small paintings have been very positive because they allowed me to refresh some ideas. It's good practice to make a shift in your approach at times by changing the scale of your canvas or paper, to challenge your way of working. I usually work on medium to large canvases which sometimes means working slowly but with the small canvases I've been able to make changes very fast and to try out some other techniques. I've used each canvas to test some paint applications - thin acrylic layered, thick oil paint scraped and dragged, oil paint over marks of acrylic, knife painting, brush work, etc. These paintings opened up some other options.

The 2 orange paintings suggested, as I worked, the sunsets in Cyprus. At this time of day the sky can turn orange and this casts an orange glow across the land so sky and land become One! It's an unbelievable sight. As these small paintings developed I used elements from reality - dark shapes of Carob trees, small square buildings, paths - to build what turned out to be abstract compositions. They surprised me and I like to be surprised.

'Lemba Sunset,' (2) oil and acrylic on board, 21 x 31 cm

My focus is often the translation of landscape elements in to paint elements and I may take this series much larger in the new year.

'Rising Moon,' acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

I'm posting a few more of these small canvases as I reconsider my body of work for this year and think how I may go forwards in the new year.

'Fiona's Final Goodbye to Burrswood,' oil and acrylic on panel, 21 x 31 cm

Figures in landscape have been a theme since Art School and  I wanted to take some of the paint elements that emerged during working on the other small paintings in to an abstracted kind of landscape with a figure in it. There was no plan except to let the paint form suggestions and clues. The inspiration was my last visit to a place in Kent which I love and which has now closed to the public. The grounds are amazing and I've spent many happy days over the years painting there in all seasons which has created a deep connection with the land there. In this painting there's a figure but the exact colour has not replicated; it's actually more of a pink ochre and stands out more rather than appearing as an ochre coloured shape. (Unfortunately the restrictions of photography do not always allow an accurate reproduction of colour as I found when visiting a Howard Hodgkin exhibition some years ago. The paintings were quite different, and more amazing in technique, than the books and catalogues displayed.)

I added a vague chessboard in the distance (the chessboard of life) and was also seeking ways to represent nature but with paint marks. I can see this one being developed in to a large painting.

'Evening Poem,' acrylic on canvas, 22 x 30 cm

'Clearing in the Forest,' acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

I feel really positive about starting new work in January and exploring some of these ideas.

2nd Review of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019

'A New Dawn,' Freddy Coello, oil on canvas, 120 x 170 cm

The 8th Beijing International Art Biennale opened at the National Art Museum of China on 26th August 2019 and continued until September 23rd. This is the second part of my review of the Biennale, (as a participating artist), my first review was written on October 8th - please scroll down the page for this.

The theme of the Biennale was 'A Colourful World and a Shared Future.'  Much of the artwork was very large due to the minimum size of submitted work being restricted to 100 cm by 100 cm. To make an impact on the huge walls of the Museum the canvases needed to be large to very large. However, with sculptures and ceramics there was much more variety in size, some being quite small. 

As I mentioned in my previous review, there was a huge range of artwork on display, from paintings to sculptures, ceramics, prints and installations. I deeply regretted not having enough time to see everything! For this second review I have chosen a few more artists as examples to give a broad idea of this rich and diverse Biennale.

The painting above 'A New Dawn,' by Freddy Coello, an artist from Ecuador, was painted using one model in different poses. Freddy showed me photos of the model during one of our artist group chats in the foyer of the hotel. It is a very impressive and detailed painting with much attention given to the expressive poses of the model.

Yannis Koutsouradis, an artist from Greece who lives in Holland, writes about his colourful sculpture below:


My memories from the Greek islands are possibly the basis for the inspiration of this work together with reflections, recollections or angels of the Aegean Sea. They found themselves at home in Holland due to the Dutch nature or the endless water parties.
After realising that the ancient Greek sculpture had lost its colouration, I decided to research and apply "colours forever".
I was able to do that during the second period of my studies at the United kingdom. my professor Alan Gouk at the art school which is now called University of the Arts London, as well as my instructor in technique Tony Driver at the Royal College of Art has revealed to me the secrets of paint and colour enamelling on steel. Thus the materials of my work are made of these.
The work is of course realised in the Netherlands - my chosen land, in which I have celebrated recently 30 years of sharing with my native Greece.

Yannis Koutsouradis with his sculpture

Yannis Koutsouradis' sculpture, Para Thin' Alos, glass enamel on metal

Figurative painting was side by side with abstract. This large colourful abstract canvas is by Alon Kedem, an artist from Israel. It impressed me with its colours, different kinds of mark making and shapes.

'Green Light,' Alon Kedem, oil on canvas, 200 x 235 cm

One of the most inspiring aspects of the Beijing Biennale was seeing the different visions of the artists and how there are infinite ways of seeing the world and translating it with all kinds of materials. The breadth of artistic imagination is breath taking at the Biennale every time. It is also interesting to see artwork from so many countries outside one's own.

Stella Mimikou with her artwork

'Colourful Hands; Chain For the Future,' Stella Mimikou, 120 x 120 cm, acrylic

Stella Mimikou, another artist from Greece, was inspired by the lyrics of the Greek poetess Zoi Karelli and her words, 'With hands in extend and balance, an ideal divine line.' 

During my 4 days invitation to Beijing, I tried to meet as many of the over 200 invited artists as possible but there was simply not enough time due to various obligations - attending the Opening ceremony, various trips to the countryside and to see Beijing, and preparing my speech for the international symposium - but mealtimes in the beautiful restaurant gave a wonderful chance to meet up with old friends from previous Biennales and to exchange artist cards with new friends. Thankfully, social media allows for connection once an event is over and we are all back home!

'The Kiss,' Irami Bulimaivale, oil and ink on canvas, 155 x 125 cm

View of the Biennale

I liked the way the sculptures and ceramics were displayed around the huge rooms because they shared equal attention with the work on the walls and there was enough space to be able to walk around each sculpture to see it from all angles. The sculptures ranged from totally abstract to highly detailed and figurative. Again, there was a wide range of materials used.

'Burst,' by Naima Karim, oil on canvas 150 x 120 cm

The 8th Beijing International Art Biennale exhibited 640 artworks from 113 countries with 446 of the artworks being from outside China.  I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to exhibit with such renowned and talented artists and to have had a glimpse in to their creative visions.

An Artist's Thoughts on the Creative Process: Returning to Oil Paint

'Dawn Poem,' acrylic and oil paint on board, 45 x 30 cm

In a week or so I will finish my review of the Beijing International Art Biennale, once I have collated all the sizes of the artwork and names of the chosen artists, but for now I'm posting a few new and reworked paintings from the past 8 days.

A recent painting, posted on October 17th, shows some of my current interests and how I'm exploring the fluid qualities of acrylic paint because it allows me to parallel the approach of working with ink on rice paper. However, this week I decided to go back to using oil paint and to rework some older paintings. It's always good to break the 'pattern' of working for an extended period of time in one medium; it allows you to see things afresh and combine the best of several mediums, if you choose. It allows for new questions.

Much of my work focuses around questions such as: can I take this risk? does it have meaning and make sense in visual terms? does it have to make sense according to pre-determined rules? can I extend the boundaries of past ideas? am I being surprised by the elements; are they expressive of my inner world? I've written quite a few blog posts about these questions which have helped me to clarify aspects of my journey and I always hope they may be helpful to readers.

I love to work on top of old paintings because there's already substance and potential to excavate. I can 'live' the worlds emerging in the paint as fresh new colour begins a relationship with older paint. The first two of these four paintings relate to my recent insomnia and seeing the first light of dawn. The Dawn paintings are a bit more abstract, bringing thick paint qualities back in to my mind. While the first Dawn painting is more structured with colour, the example below is toying with an emptier, looser kind of space.

'Dawn Rising,' oil and acrylic on board, 60 x 40 cm

I tread in circles around a form of calligraphic mark making and colour, letting my imagination inform the various elements, and a series of paintings which tend to have horizon lines and are more landscape based, such as this one.

'Fiona's Place,' oil, oil bar, and acrylic on board, 45 x 65 cm

And paintings which almost seem to excavate their shapes and rhythms....

'Windswept Landscape,' oil and acrylic on board, 40 x 60 cm

(The colours in the above painting are not quite correct - there's a delicate red shape running through the lower quarter of the painting which just doesn't show up at the correct value and which really informs the sense of space in this work.)

I worked on the 4 paintings in the same session which is quite helpful as there's no pressure on any one painting. 

I'm going to leave these paintings as 'finished' because I feel that they have stopped 'speaking' to me of the need for further work, and I'm sitting today hoping my new stretchers may arrive so I can start new work.

Inspired by my Flight to China for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019

'Flight to China,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 110 x 70 cm

While I collate the set of photos for the second review of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, I'm posting a photo of a work in progress which was inspired by my recent long flight to Beijing.

I actually hate flying! But when I've had a few glasses of wine I'm able to marvel at the changing landscape below and often draw. This painting is a composite of my 4 flights to China since 2015 and it intertwines so many aspects of landscape and my love of landscape. Since I was a child I've felt the underlying energies of the land and this painting explores a sense of those energies, a feeling of movement, the movement from West to East, and approaches mark making and variations of colour in reference to my many ink paintings on rice paper,

The quality of mark making and the quick spread of ink, as you work on the highly absorbent rice paper, creates all kinds of unexpected effects and beautiful transitions. I wanted to see if I could take aspects of these qualities on to canvas using thin washes of colour. The photo does not really show the transitions of tonal values in the colours or the textures and thick versus thin paint. There are light veils of colour (coastal areas) and ink brush strokes made with a calligraphy brush. It is a painting which, as it is largish, needs to be seen in reality to experience all the detail and contrasts. I still see this as 'In Progress' because there are a few tiny areas I may still tweak, but I see it as a highly personal painting and the shapes and colours emerged from the painting as it developed; there was no planning or sketching in of areas.

I like my work to be a parallel for journeys and as I painted this I relived certain parts of that journey, remembering both the actual landscapes and also the intense feelings they created and my imaginings about what lay below. Most important for me is to be able to travel through my imagination as the paint sets cues on the canvas.

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of my reviews of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale.

Review of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, 2019, Part One

Elmar Peintner, 'Children's Feet and Ladders,' oil and pencil on canvas

As a painter I always love to write about other artist's work and being a participant in the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale at the National Art Museum of China gave me the chance to see a diverse array of artwork that simply called to be written about!

The 8th Beijing International Art Biennale this year had the largest number of participating countries (113) and the theme was 'A Colourful World and a Shared Future.' There is a size requirement of a minimum of 120 cm by 120 cm for paintings, though sculptures were many sizes, and this may be because the walls of the National Art Museum are so large and high that they call for large paintings. Many of the Chinese artists' work is very large indeed! 

In these articles I will be selecting a few artists to write about and also posting general photos of the exhibition. Unfortunately I did not have time to see it all as the large rooms across 3 floors needed a few days to fully explore.

I met the Austrian artist Elmar Peintner in 2015, (painting above) at the 6th Biennale, and since that time I have been a big admirer of his paintings. His large compositions always give an unusual viewpoint and an unexpected interpretation of the Biennale themes. 

The painting above combines powerful empty space (bare canvas), patterns and figuration in a masterly way with great subtlety and sensitivity. It is a painting which invites you to go closer to examine the flow of textures and colours and to marvel at the concept. Elmar's paintings all display such a creative and emotional use of composition and sensitive transitions between colours and shapes. Many times I thought that the medium of his paintings was watercolour because the lightness of touch and quality of the brushwork has the delicateness of watercolour.

He writes about this painting: 'The children's feet in a variety of skin colours represent childhood in a cross-cultural context..'

Elmar Peintner with his painting 'Children's Feet and Ladders.'

A view of the exhibition

Shefali Ranthe, 'My Life is in Your Hands,' oil on canvas

Shefali Ranthe lives in Copenhagen. I first met her at the 7th Beijing International Art Biennale in 2017 when I was impressed by the beautiful colours she uses and her rich imagination.  Her work defies any category being entirely her unique vision of life. It combines inventive figuration and abstraction with vibrant colours and shapes. I love her boldness and the way she pulls abstract shapes of colour through elements of figuration, using both large areas and tiny accents of detail to create movement, and I admire the richness of her paint textures. I feel that she is completely at ease with who she is as an artist and her paintings exude happiness.

Shefali Ranthe with her painting

The Opening Ceremony

Soraya Sikander with her painting 'A Winter Night.'

Soraya Sikander is an artist from Pakistan who currently lives and works in Dubai. She paints large abstracts which have an interest in calligraphic brush work and colour and are often layered with fluid paint. They allow the viewer to make all kinds of associations and to enter their imaginary world. She says:

'At the point of action, at the point of painting, all sorts of other elements come in to play. It is not totally cerebral, it is not planned on a piece of paper and replicated on canvas. My work has the ability to surprise me. It captures the complexity of development.....It is the whole meaning that interests me not just surface development.'

The photo does not give the full beauty of the complex surface and marks or the richness of the colours. In reference to the theme she writes that it is:

'...a  universal common thread shared by men.'

This was a painting which kept inviting me to go back and look and find new meanings and places each time.

'A Winter Night,' and its caption

The Official photo of all the invited artists outside the National Art Museum of China, Beiijing

Aleksandra Suspitsina, 230 x 500 cm, oil on canvas

Liao Qin (China) 'Sharing Wind and Woe in the Same Boat.'

The painting above by one of the Chinese artists was truly amazing. The photo does not do it justice because the colours and details really need to be seen in reality. This artist also spoke at the symposium and I was moved by his humble request for people to critique his work and make further suggestions. It looks perfect to me!

Further works by these artists can be found on their websites.

To be continued with more paintings and also sculptures.

My Participation in the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019 , Part Three: Landscape Painting

View of the distant lake, ink on paper

As part of my series of articles on the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, I'm posting some ink paintings I made in the Chinese landscape on September 1st. 

To my delight I was invited to go on a painting trip to a village called Shuiyucun not far from the mountains with about 30 other artists, a mix of Chinese participants and others from around the world. As I'd found out about this trip before I went to China I packed my ink (bought in Beijing in 2017) and calligraphy brushes and bought paper while in Beijing.

Mountain View, ink on paper

Mountain View, ink on paper

View from the tower I painted from

The journey out of Beijing and into the verdant landscape took about an hour and then we were divided in to groups when we reached Shuiyucun. Some of us were taken down to a small river to paint but I think that possibly artists had specific ideas they wanted to work from because no one wanted to work from the river. (If I had had longer time I would have been happy to paint there as it was quite interesting.) Consequently we split up to seek out other places of inspiration.

Since my first glimpse of distant mountains I knew I wanted to paint them.  Two of the guides took me up a hill to a wooden tower where I was able to paint alone for about 90 minutes. The view was incredible; a panorama that stretched on two sides (north and west) to mountains, and then the land fell away in to undulating pastures and areas of trees to the east, and to the south I could see a lake and far beyond the hazy outline of Beijing. It was very hot and once my eyes acclimatised to the bright sunlight, an array of many greens spilled out from the land. 

I had deliberately taken only ink as my aim was to catch some shapes and lines I might extend back in the UK.

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I painted mostly North, West and South, and made 12 ink paintings. One of the guides had her small daughter with her and I was quite surprised when she looked at a small ink - quite abstract with few marks - and exclaimed 'It's a whole picture yet with so little brush work!'

View of the Lake,, ink on paper

View of the Lake, ink on paper

Though I initially concentrated on the mountains, I soon became quite intrigued by the distant lake because I knew we would be painting there in a few hours. The sun being in front of me cast deep shadows in some areas while other elements faded in to a shimmery haze.

The guides took me back to the village where I met up with the other artists and we had a huge lunch which consisted of many different dishes brought to us freshly cooked from the kitchen. 

Tables being set for us in the village

The table I shared with friends

The amazing dining area

Not long after our meal, we were taken to lake Quilong where everyone set up next to the rippling expanse of water dotted with islands of lotus leaves. There were floating water lilies with small yellow flowers and I became mesmerised by the swaying water as I sat on large rocks to paint.

Ripples on the lake, ink on paper

Artists painting by the lake, ink on paper

I was also intrigued by the distant mountains which seemed to echo the shapes of the tangled lotus leaves....

Lotus Leaves and Mountains

Lake Quilong

Artists at work

The lake and nearby houses

Some of the artists (I am the 3rd from the right)

Finally, we all went back to Shuiyucun to have a discussion with the leaders of the village and the Chinese artists. It was wonderful to have this exchange and to share our ideas. There were several photographers and we were filmed as well. I was invited to say something because they had seen my speech the previous day and I mentioned how much I had loved the experience of being able to paint in the landscape and that I would love to stay for several weeks! I felt really lucky to have been offered this chance and to have had a glimpse in to aspects of village life. 

Everyone was so friendly and wanted to know how we felt about the trip and what ideas we had to extend or improve it for the future.

The leaders of Shuiyucun starting the discussion

Some of the artists