Mini Painting: Patch the Cockatiel

Just last month we were devastated to lose our beautiful cockatiel, Patch. Having previously painted him in watercolours (check out my cockatiels tag) with his partners Georgie and JayJay, I wanted to do a small acrylic painting of just him. It's been a while since I had my trusty acrylics out - so long in fact that some of them had dried up! But it was good to get back in to painting, and my husband was thrilled with this small gift to remember a very handsome boy.

Inspire: Catherine Hennessey

I love portraiture. And I respect people who can creates epic portraits even more because I find them so very difficult! Catherine Hennessey uses watercolour to create stunning portraits...

[In Tune iii]

Her use of colour not only captures the person, light and dark; but also portrays such emotion.

 [Stagnant]

 These images not only make me want to try yet another style of capturing a person on paper, but also to try watercolours in a completely new way. A technique that requires control to capture details in the features, but also complete relaxation and freedom as the colours flow.

[Dizzy]

I love this use of colour and lines!

If you like what you see, you can find her gallery here.

The Younger Years II

[Self portrait, aged 3.]

 I think we all have a lot to learn from our childhood selves, and the children around us. As adults, we set ourselves a standard we must live up to when we create. We believe that a piece of art we create is not good enough, or should even be thrown away. We are dissatisfied with what we create, and the very concept of needing to create a certain standard of work can stifle us.

Children are free from these restrictions, these boundaries. They are free to just experiment and play, with no regards for the result.

Maybe each of us should take some time out to do the same? Just sit down with some pens/paints and paper, and just create. Not worrying about what we're making, and if it's good enough for our own or anyone else's standards. Just create without limitation.

Go on, try it, I dare you!

Inspire: Humanae

As I mentioned, every other weekend I am going to feature work by artists who have been inspiring me.

Design Fetish recently featured Angelica Dass' current work in progress, Humanae.

Inspired by the Pantone colour scheme, Angelica Dass is aiming to "record and catalog all possible human skin tones".

"The project development is based on a series of portraits whose background is dyed with the exact Pantone® tone extracted from a sample of 11x11 pixels of the portrayed’s face."

Portraiture has been done so much, that to see a new take on it is really exciting. I love how this project is celebrating every colour and tone of skin, and appreciating the differences between us all. However, every person is having their identity taken away, and being replaced with a Pantone colour code, instead. I love knowing that each of these people exist in this world. They each have their own lives, own stories, own families... Their own battles and achievements. And yet here? They are simply represented by a Pantone colour code. All equal.