PROCESS
Learning the techniques from the software to get the best imagery.
Learning the order to do which sort of brush-strokes, what marks to make.
Start at the top and work your way down. Wide and wet. Mid-width and damp. Dry and slender. Some variation especially with thin watery washes on top to bond it together. Semi-translucent Layers works well. That’s easier to achieve with oils than with acrylic.
At some stage the plan is to transfer this sort of imagery out of digital and onto real canvas, quality calico, the larger the better.
Meanwhile here are study sketches done on a phone app.
The 20th century was a renaissance as photography enabled painters to get away from photo-realism toward abstract-expressionism. Acrylic paints for a range of colours mass produced ended the tradition of grinding dangerous chemicals into powder and alchemically processing them into paint by hand as part of the artists lifestyle.
Then we had a second Renaissance on top of that at the millennium into the 21st century with digital technologies now available free on on your phone.
There’s no excuse not to be playing with it.
LOCATION
This batch are from a beach next to Burry Port harbour on the westward side of Llanelli Bay with Gower peninsula across the water.
It’s the site of the old fossil fuel electric power station the tektite-like slag of which is still polluting the bay along with an illegal amount of sewerage outlets.
Sand from Pembrey further along the coast is washing in and filling the bay up, in two decades it will be a bird sanctuary as the sand covers the pollution and the high tide no longer covers the area with sea. Signs of this transition are already there.
By monitoring the behaviour of plants, the ecology planted on the site of the old powerstation, for signs of climate change we are able to observe and learn what is happening.
I spoke with the coastal ranger along here who explained with these words: “The easiest way to explain it, is the gap between spring and summer is getting longer.”
Spring plants are extending into summer. Summer plants are starting during spring.
