I have been so busy painting and sketching other things, I forget how much I love painting flowers. This Golden Hibiscus was for a commission. I used 2 really fat brushes to paint this, which is a change for me considering I usually work with very small brushes and lots of layering and glazes. This…
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.
Icons
I have tried to summarise the historical development of the Icon because I find the history of these beautiful art works fascinating. Its a long blog, but considering the history behind the icon it’s a brief summary! Not quite the venerated monastery for painting icons, but it’s my creative space and I love it, especially…
Random Commissions
Sometimes I get rather unusual commissions from people where they want something very specific. They come to me with examples of other works, or a technique they want me to emulate of very specific subject matter they want to display on their walls. Usually in the case of these types of commissions it is more often…
Playing with Icons
Icons remain something I love painting. Much to my excitement I received a commission some time back to do two rather unusual Icons. I needed to get some of my other commissions out of the way that had been piling up before I could start any icon work though. What remained a challenge for me was…
Brothers Portraits – the oldest
And the other (older) brother for a proud Grandma to hang on her wall…. Mapping out the shape of the face and the areas of light and dark, and of course those checks that just keep on coming back to haunt me….. I always start my drawings from left to right. As a right handed…
Brothers Portraits – the youngest
Portraiture remains one of my favourite forms of drawing. My latest efforts are of two young brothers drawn for Grandma to hang on her wall… Below are illustrations of my progress on the youngest of the two little tykes. Always well supervised… Plotting out the drawing The checks that keep coming back to haunt me….
RAK Fine Art Festival 2016
For the last 4 years this has been an institution in Ras Al Khaimah and has become the event of the year. I have watched it grow since it’s inception and the quality of work submitted has grown as has their numbers. Returning to the northern emirates for a fourth year, the Annual Ras Al…
Portrait of a woman
Portrait of a woman Acrylic on MDF board 30 x 23cm (12 x 9 inch) Developing from the limited palette exploring painting darker skin tones was the next step. For this exercise I moved away from the Zorn palette and looked at the hues within the photograph I was working from. This will make a huge…
The results of a Zorn palette…..
The Swedish artist Anders Zorn (18 February 1860 – 22 August 1920) was one of Sweden’s foremost artists and famous for his limited palette. It is reported that he used only three colours for most of his works — yellow ochre, vermillion and ivory black, plus white. The result of this combination were some beautifully…
Skulls and gold bling
Every now and again I explore sketching different subject matter. This last week it has been animal skulls and as an experiment I added a little gold leaf.
A Cornish harbour
I am trying to paint more seascapes and landscapes. I get very overwhelmed when there is this magnificent scene in front of me that demands painting – even when it is a photograph. It takes lots of practice to select a good composition, and then do it justice on a canvas. A friend posted a beautiful photo on Facebook a…
Exercises in light and shade
The following exercises explore how to create the illusion of form by understanding the principals of light and shade. In these quick studies I have used fine black pen, permanent marker pen, 2B and 6B pencil, charcoal and chalk. The two life studies are based on paintings by John Singer Sargent. Apple 2B & 6B pencil…
