The first step was to stain a 30 X 30cm canvas ready for painting. The practice of staining a canvas is called, imprimatura. This is an initial stain of color painted on as a ground. It provides a painter with a transparent, toned ground, which will allow light falling onto the painting to reflect through the paint…
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.
Grey Tonal Study of a Lily
A brief very quick “painting sketch”of a lily in various shades of grey, black and white. Titanium White N8 Neutral Gray 8 N6 Neutral Gray 6 N4 Neutral Gray 4 Carbon Black
Sunny sunflowers
Sunflowers always make me smile! They are these beautiful, cheerful heads of bright yellow nodding their heads in the breeze. I used only a palette knife for this painting. I am in the process of teaching myself to use a palette knife with some particular subject matter in mind that lends itself to this style…
Red Nguni – “the stones of the Ngoye forest”
Nguni cattle form a vital part of the Zulu heritage. The uniqueness of each cow’s skin has been catalogued and forms part of the Zulu oral poetry and storytelling. The interaction between the tribe’s natural surroundings and the patterns on the Nguni hides led to the formation of over 300 illustrative words in the Zulu…
Portrait of a Zebra
Portrait of a Zebra is the beginnings of a wildlife series I will be doing inspired by where I live. St Lucia is a small village with a population of about 1000 permanent residents. It is the gateway to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa’s first World Heritage Site. It is located on Zululand’s Elephant…
Donki ko lo football jersey
Donki ko lo football jersey is the fanagalo name for a Zebra. I have always found it aptly descriptive. Fanagalo is the linga franca language used in the South African mines, composed of frequently corrupted elements of the Nguni, English and Afrikaans languages. Zebra’s have always had a very specific significance for me. When I…
Nguni cow
The Nguni (a type of breed of cattle) is unique to southern Africa. A hybrid of a number of Indian and later European cattle breeds, they were introduced by Bantu-speaking tribes to southern Africa during their migration from the north of the continent. They are characterised by their multicoloured skin, which can present in many…
A lemon, an onion & a pear…
A set of three quick still-life studies with a limited palette. LEMON Stretched canvas – 30cm X 30cm Paint Colours: Titanium white, raw umber, burnt umber, cadmium yellow light, raw sienna ONION Stretched canvas 30cm X 30cm Paint colours: Titanium white raw umber burnt sienna burnt umber cadmium yellow light raw sienna permanent Alizarin crimson…
Painting with a palette knife
Reference photo – A little village on the Scottish coast I have zero experience with painting with a palette knife other than wielding it with gusto when applying the mixed media textures for all those camel paintings. I always felt a bit like I was icing a large cake with butter icing, which is all…
Building my art studio….
Five countries and 12 moves later my first priority after settling the family into our new home is my work space. Taking over an already functioning guest house didn’t allow me the luxury of making a work space for myself inside the home so Phil had something custom built for me. That too had to…
Quick study – lemon tree
I used a 7 x 5 inch canvas board that had been pre-prepared with a colour ground of Yellow Ochre Acrylic paint. For the sketch, I used a Burnt Umber watercolour marker, as it’s water-soluble and allows me to blend sections using just a water brush pen to softly indicate the shadows. Acrylic paint colours…
4 Seasons
Winter, my absolute favourite of all the 4 seasons! Summer, as bright and beautiful as it is, it is probably the least favourite of my seasons because of the heat in the tropics! That said, the flowers and colours summer produces are magnificent in their brilliance! Spring has an almost fluorescent brilliance to it which…
artbyeileen 