Oils and inks

I have been doing some paintings lately using inks as an initial grounding on the canvas and then overglazing with oil colours. I had done quite a few experiments with the ink on paper first, trying to find a dispersing agent for the ink. Some success with water and detergent but when transferred the process to canvas, it no longer works. I think the absorbent quality of paper renders the results quite different to the smooth canvas surface.

Ink and oil on canvas..90 x 90cm

 The paintings below are destined for a decorator market..florals were requested.
 Inspiration came from photos I had taken, as well as from the repetition of motifs in fabric and wall paper patterning. I particularly love the wall papers of Florence Broadhurst..haven't utilized any direct motifs from her but have maintained a very deliberate 2d look on the canvases.
These have been lots of fun to paint, and quite a holiday from the more cerebral engagement with oils. Now the sun is out again, I am on a quest to photo beautiful flowers, bugs and birds.

Magnolias..ink and oil on canvas..90 x 90cm

Ink and oils..90 x 90cm

Ink an oils..1m x 70cm

Holiday snaps

I haven't been blogging latey as we have had a month in Europe..a wonderful time but I am not going to bore you with all my holiday photos (I went a bit serserk with my i phone)  so am going to list a few  that for one reason or another, I still find appealing. Here goes...

Spices, dried flowers, scent, indigo etc in a Dubai souk. 

Armani and other "designer"bags in the delapidated tenement windows of Indian Dubai.

Roses trailing in Chieti..a very pretty little walled town in Abruzzo Italy..one of the oldest towns in Italy.

Love the window boxes and buttenut paint...Chieti.

     Italian fruit stalls sell direct from the farmer, and I really have to admit
that the taste is phenomenal...and the colours...wonderful

Whilst dining at a sidewalk cafe in Ravenna, there was a bit of a commotion in the piazza opposite..a demonstration against the mafia.
(I am  presently reading the book Gomorrah, an indictment against the present day Camorra in Naples. The author Roberto Saviano subsequently had to go into hiding in his own country, and is under constant police protection...he never sleeps more than two nights in the same place...he is a wanted man by the mafia. This has been his life since the book was published in 2007 when he was only 28...high price to pay for his journalism.)

One of the trabocchi along the Pescara coastline..these are very antiquated fishing houses that
 are found no where else.

Pretty poppies on the way to Venice.

We are all so familiar with the images of Venice, but I caught the bleaker side of this city with
this shot taken a bit down from San Marco's plaza...shades of my local creek.

The walled city of Dubrovnik and the wonderful waters
 of the Adriatic.

The red roofs of Dubrovnik taken through one of the gun openings
 in the rampart walls.

Corfu..my feet in a tank of bacteria eating fish..supposed
 to destroy odours and other unwanted matter from feet.
Tickled!

Katakolon colours..gorgeous.

A Katakolon fishing boat up on land having a new coat of colours.

Parthenon

Acropolis...Lots of dogs, big ones..supposedly to protect the ancient site.

Very lazy and well fed Parthenon pooches!

Mykonos..I love the Cycladic architecture..all white
 washed including patterning on the concrete floors and
footpaths.

This was a prayer wall in Mary's resting place (?) in Ephesus, where the passerby can write their prayer on a piece of paper, tie it to the wall, and after one month, the priest comes along  and blesses them. The papers are then destroyed and the wall made bare for more pleas. My daughter read one prayer which said "I want an ipad"..consumerism collides with spirituality.
Thought this wall would make a great interactive art installation.

Sublime texture on an Ephesus pediment.

Temple wall at Ephesus.

What can I say here..the sign says it all!! Outside Ephesus in Turkey.

Doorway to heaven..Santorini..what an
amazing green..and who said "blue and green
should never be seen"....
Oh yes..an old nun in one of my primary school art classes.

Picture postcard Santorini.

Pompeii...hard to imagine that the intensity of these colours
 have lasted nearly 2,000 years.

These three dogs had great fun lolloping up and down
 the streets of Pompeii..then stopped here for refreshments.

The grandeur of Naples.

Legacy of an illustrious Neopolitan past

Photo taken around the corner from the two above
 photos..rubbish caught between a couple of
 traffic barricades.Naples really does have a garbage problem.

Singapore on the other hand is so pristine and immaculate.

Well what then? Chinatown in Singapore.

And what were these..I think dried grubs of some
 sort..didn't have time to ask the store
 owner inside as our bus was coming.

Ending on a final "pretty" note..a delicate
 orchid in at Raffles Hotel.