Latest paintings 29/12/08

These are my three latest paintings produced within the last week or so, and in order
of when I completed them

Grinning banker - Acrylic on 24cm by 18cm canvas-
Did this as a bit of fun, the reason he's grinning so widely and obscenly is because he's still getting a big bonus at the end of the year!! It's a very strange painting, I kind of just did it in the spur of the moment, and it's very different to what I do normally. The face is identifiable but very abstracted and warped so that's it's almost monsterous.














Fragments of Microcosm - Acrylic on box canvas
Painted over an old painting I had because I didn't like it very much and ended up with this. It's a bit darker in the colours I used for it than my usual paintings but I think it works still. It's called fragements of microcosm was because when I looked at it, it looked like a small weird ecosystem or something on the microlevel. The sketch which the painting was based on was called fragements/fragemented so I went with that and called it fragments of microcosm.










Swirling Mass - Acrylic on 18inch by 24inch canvas
Based on a sketch I did , this painting was quite gruelling and took me about 4 or 4 and a half hours to complete. I am quite pleased with the results. It has a much darker background than many of my other paintings (which tend to have light backgrounds) and this makes the eye concentrate a lot more on the central shapes or swirling mass in the center I think.

Some new paintings

The Priest - Acrylic on Acrylic Paper

This painting is something I just did on the spur of the moment.














Self portrait - Acrylic on 60cm by 80 cm canvas

Another attempt at a self portrait painting, but on a larger scale, came out better than the others
though still needs improvement.














Cutting the cord - Acrylic on 24cm by 18cm canvas

Abstract painting i did yesterday, very pleased with how it came out















Magic Eyes - Acrylic on 12 inch by 16 inch canvas

Abstract painting I did today, again pleased with it.

Charcoal Drawings

I have recently started drawing with Charcoal, here is some of what I have produced over the last few days. All are portraits of people, as I am trying to improve my portraiture skills and capturing human form.

1st is a drawing of Julie driscoll, not really sure who she is I just saw a picture of her in a magizine I had and decided I want to draw her cos she looked quite mysterious and strange.

2nd is a drawing of John Lennon I did based on a picture from the same magizine.

And the last is a drawing of Albert Einstein.

I am quite happy with them all as by doing them and other drawings my skills at drawing the human form is improving steadily. I also have some other drawings to show but I shall wait till I have scanned them in to post them up here.

Self portraits thus far

Recently I have been trying to get my drawings and self portraits of myself to look better,
I still have a long way to go in this task but I think i'm making slow
progress, and have been experimenting with different ways of going
about it.

These are some drawings i've done of my self over the past few months more or
less.

I was quite please with this one, it has a softness to it I like, I think because I look calm and relaxed in my expression, or at least that how i've drawn
it.




























Where as this one is more of an aggressive pose I am pulling , especially if you look in the
eyes, which look quite angry and squinted.





This one is my latest drawing self portrait (well that I've scanned anyway), I think it looks
alright , though a little too podgy around the face, it could do with more detail too I think.
















And these are the paintings , that i've attempted to do of myself. Ive done a few more than these
but they turned out really bad so im not going to show them haha




This is my first proper attempt at a self portrait (well actually my second but the first was a diasater!!)


It looks preety simple and it is, there is nothing really excting about it in the pose or the way i've
painted it, but it is ok for a first try I think.















This is a recent one I did, messed up the skin tones so it looks like I have many bruises on my face,
also my eyes are way too big. So not very pleased with it at all!!!








This is the 2nd recent one I did, preety happy with it even though it was just an experiment. This time
I painted a black outline for the face, this made it easier to define the features of the face, im preety
happy with it , it's ok for just trying out a new method.















And my most recent one, a self portrait of me in my green coat (The one I always paint in actually!!)
I did this in a similiar manner to the last , that is I used black lines as an outline, but this time they
were much thicker black lines. Im preety happy with how it came out, but again, it needs more detail and
I need to define my style further.

Organic improvisation series is complete!!

Ive done my 3rd and final painting in the planned series of three named organic improvisation -





















Did it in the same method as the 2nd one, that is I scribbled on the canvas then created the composition out of the scribbles, so that it was improvised in a sense.


Here is all of them together , in the order I think suited them best, all are acrylic on 30cm by 40cm canvas.

Do you like them?? hate them??? have suggestions for improvements??? Leave a comment.



Im quite please with how they turned out overall, though perhaps the middle one sticks out a bit.

Organic Improvisation 2

2nd in the planned series of three organic improvisation
paintings.

This one was actually more improvised than the first as I created it without any sketches, so in a sense this is more trully improvised than the first painting.

I actually like this one quite a lot, it is preety simple in composition but I think its preety effective.

To me It looks very fluid and flowing, like shapes floating around somekind of metaphysical soup!

Three stripes on Red - New Painting

Did another painting two days ago, called three stripes on red. Kind of an attempt at doing a more moody minimal style of painting.

I can admit that this is much influenced by Rothko
as you may be able to tell, though I tried to give it my own touch and make it original as much as possible. Im preety happy with how it turned out overall.

New Painting - Organic Improvisation 1

First of a planned series of three, this is called organic improvisation, calling them improvisation because I wanted to create a harmonius composition with each . This is so far the only one iv'e done , going to do two others some time in the near future.



< Heres the sketch













< And the final painting, changed a few things, intially was only going to have black and white as the colors but I changed my mind and decided to add some grey, yellow and red, to make it stand out a bit. Preety pleased with it overall.

A few artists who have inspired me / who I admire

Picasso


I admire Picasso’s varying styles and his mastery of many different
forms of art, from his blue period to his cubist works and beyond.

I recently went to a exhibition of his work in Rome, which partly inspired me to create
the painting 'unfolding'.


Piet Mondrian

Mondrian is an artist with whom I have only recently become interested in after
having a few people online compare some of my paintings to his works, probably because
of the line and square which are present in many of my paintings. I like
how he creates interesting composition in a seemingly simple way.

Kandinsky

Kandinsky was one of the artists with whom their work instantly appealed, I loved the way his
paintings seem to be alive and brimming with life and activity. His main influence on me
has been on how I try to use colour and how I compose some of my paintings.

Mark Rothko

Rothko's work is an inspiration to me in the sense of how he uses colour and simple forms
to convey mood.

Jackson Pollock

I admire Pollock’s earlier work as well as his drip paintings. He has influenced me to strive
to think outside the box and explore new terrain when painting, as he did when producing
his drip paintings.

Michelangelo

I am in awe of the skill of Michelangelo and his grasp of the human form and expressing that.
I visited the Cistene chapel recently and that was an amazing experience. I am inspired by his
sheer artistic skill.


Paul Klee

I like Klee's visual poetry and the use of colour in his work.

Joan Miro

I admire Miro's relentless imagination and his forms which seem to dance. I aim
to one day be able to create the same energy he did in his compositions, in my own.

New painting - Geometric moons

I did a new painting today called geometric moons, based on a sketch I did about 2 weeks ago. Preety pleased with how it turned out in terms of composition and colour.

Sketch for geometric moons
Final Painting

As you can see I reduced the complexity of the original sketch a bit, but I think it looks better
compositionally as the painting, because I think the orginal sketch is a bit too cluttered and clastrophobic.

The painting was done in acrylics on a box canvas. Any thoughts / Critique is welcomed

An introduction..........

Hello, I am Chris Godber, a 22 year old self taught artist from the north
west of England. This is going to be my art blog, so I’ll write a bit about my art and
what it means to me, as well as what to expect from future posts.

Much of my work consists of abstract images and forms , and is usually in the form of acrylic
paintings on canvas. I make images that arise from my mind which are non-objective
and non-representative , at least not representative of anything in tangible reality.

Every painting is different of course though and this is not
the only kind of art I make, but it is my primary output. I like the freedom
that abstract art permits, in that an image or idea can be expressed in
any way the artist chooses, rather than having to conform to certain
principles and techniques to gain a look of realism , or to capture an image of the
outside world in a realistic manner. It is freedom for the mind and the imagination.

There is no esoteric philosophy behind any of my images, they are
what they are, a visual transcendent wordless poetry of sorts is how I like to think of them,
at least this is what I aim for (wherever this aim is achieved is another matter entirely)

I will elaborate further on my art and what it means to me, as well as maybe blab a bit
about some other art related stuff on this blog in the future, but for now I think this
will do for an introduction blog.

Here are some of my paintings, I will probably blog a bit about individual paintings later
on as well , explain what they mean to me, but for now I'll just show a few of them.

Unfolding - Acrylic on 60cm by 80cm canvas



















Winter Dreams - Oil on canvas














Incremental squares - Acrylic on 35.5cm by 35.5cm canvas














Ambient red Rectangle - Acrylic on 60 cm by 80 cm canvas