At the foot of the mountain...Abstract realism

'At the foot of the mountain' - impasto acrylic on canvas 5x5 inch

A couple of weeks ago, I showed a 'sneaky peek' of my large landscape painting 'Wild Mountain Time' on my Facebook page. Someone asked about buying the painting because they loved the colours in the sneaky peek I'd shown but they weren't expecting the painting to be quite as big as it was and said they wished they could buy just that little section.   

Close up of  edges of box canvas

Which, of course, gave me an idea. I decided to re-create that small part of the larger landscape on one of my mini 5x5 box canvasses. I used the same colour palette but obviously it isn't exactly like the original as the difference in size meant the application of paint in itself would create a different effect. So this is an original painting inspired by another original painting!

You can just about make out my initials
in amongst the riot of colour!

This is probably the most down the abstract realism route I've travelled so far but I think I quite like the result. It's incredibly textured - like a little sculpture on canvas even around the edges.

Just to put the size into perspective - bijou and compact!

This is one of the pieces in the Committed to Art Exhibition at Caithness Horizons. The exhibition had its preview night last night and it wasn't too bad a turn out considering the horrible wintry night that was in it. It's on now until 28 March and if your are interested in this wee painting it will be available to purchase from my website for £30 plus p&p at the conclusion of the exhibition (unless it sells at the exhibition of course!)

Me in front of one of my paintings - this one isn't for sale as I did it for above our fireplace!

In other news this week, I spent Sunday in a lovely (but rather cold despite the woodburning stove) log cabin in the woods way out west taking part in a pastel workshop run by my friend Angela.

Angela works in various mediums but her favourite is pastels and this really came across when she was demonstrating her techniques to us and explaining the different types of pastel and paper. I had a really good day and although I don't think it will ever be my medium of choice (I really can't get past the mess it makes and chalky feeling on my fingers) it was fun to experiment with it and try something new. After all, as someone one said 'a comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows there'. 

These are the two pieces I did during the workshop (they aren't very good but I had fun making them and, in fairness, I didn't spend very long on either one!)
  

Sheep in pastel

Sunflower field in pastel 

                                   
Something else exciting happened this week. I happened to tweet a photo of Cora the Coo to the Highland Cow Society on Twitter who in turn retweeted it to their followers and as a result an interested party contacted me wanting to buy the painting and she is now on her way to her new home in Belgium - there really is a lot to be said for social media when it comes to helping artists get their work out to folk who would never otherwise know of its existence!

I'll be linking with the folk at Paint Party Friday this weekend as always - it's a great way to keep up with what everyone is up to in the world of arty blogging.