I love the glorious tangles of multicoloured flowers that fill a fuchsia bush. Another one of my favourite flowers, (and I have many) that unfortunately does not like to grow in our sub-tropical climate. Their buds form in pairs, and their flowers, once opened, have interesting and unusual shapes. This particular variety – Ballerina Blau,…
Author: artbyeileen
I am a South African born artist, who has lived in 5 different countries in the last 20 years. I returned to South Africa in 2016 and I am now living in St Lucia, a small tropical village on the shores of the Indian Ocean. My rather unusual life experiences and travels have influenced my style and choice of subject matter. The rich desert colours, the vibrancy of the tropical flowers, all my paintings communicate my connection to the land and nature. Flowers are my main subject and I am inspired by layerings of colour, be it bright and ebullient, or understated and muted. Colour can evoke so many different responses in someone and my paintings speak to their viewer through their movement, colour and texture. Painting is my way of sharing the pleasure I derive from the beauty that surrounds me in nature and especially the flowers I so loves to paint. An ability to communicate all of this through granular sculptural textures, three dimensional application of paint and striking use of colour makes my art work bold and engaging.
Moth orchid
Most of us know the Phalaenopsis orchid as the moth orchid because they look like moths in flight. What I find incredible is there is fossil evidence that these orchids were around when the dinosaurs roamed the planet, and we now happily buy them from the local Woolies or garden nursery as houseplants that are…
A bowl of lemons
When making a whistle stop tour to visit our son in Cape Town I of course had to go and visit some art shops. Sadly nothing quite compares to that huge craft store in Dubai called Creative Minds… I am going to have to make peace with more modest art stores here in SA. Finding…
2 Spanish Dancers
While waiting for the canvas to be custom made I squeezed in some more Spanish dancers. These 2 are commissions inspired by my prep work, but at the same time very good preparation for the original commission i am waiting on the canvas for. One thing I am going to have to get my head…
Spanish Dancer prototype
I have a very large commission approaching for which I have been doing a fair amount of preparation work. I find often, while I am busy working on one project, people see the work in progress, or the finished product, and want something similar for there own home. That is exactly what happened in the…
Quick “sketches”
Ive been doing some quick painting “sketches” in between some large commission work. I find doing something quick and unrelated without the pressure of “delivering the goods”a bit of a palette cleanser. This break between meals so to speak allows me to go onto the next project refreshed, and not still dwelling on a recently…
Yummy fun…
I’ve drawn cupcakes for my daughters bedroom, but never painted a cupcake. One of my art students asked me to help them paint a cupcake for a birthday gift. I wasn’t sure where to begin – acrylic paint and pencil crayon are after all, vastly different mediums. Before helping her with her project I decided…
The Hockney Hack
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is a large acrylic-on-canvas pop art painting by British artist David Hockney, completed in May 1972. It measures 2.1 m × 3.0 m, and depicts two figures: one swimming underwater and one clothed male figure (the artist) looking down at the swimmer. In November 2018, it sold for US$90.3 million, which was the highest price ever paid at…
A very precious oversized commodity
These amazingly majestic creatures are among my favourite of all the animals and living where we do we are fortunate enough to be able to see them on a daily basis. These gentle giants can be a little intimidating, especially when threatened and charge at what is frightening them. Phil and I experienced this first…
An attempt at a monochromatic colour scheme
I think a monochromatic colour scheme has to be one of my more challenging exercises. As much as I try to tone down my penchant for colour, it somehow finds itself back onto my palette. I just cannot help myself. With these paintings I was forced to adhere to very limited variations of white. Monochromatic colour…
4 Fruit and a palette knife
A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for mixing paint colours, paste, etc. The palette knife is a very versatile instrument and is not just a tool for mixing paint on your palette. A palette knife can be used to create some pretty stunning effects, which are…
artbyeileen 