Domestic Scene....

....with the ingredients for Mary's Chocolate Brownies.

My trials with simpler compositions and flatter colours has continued. I have moved back to the stretched canvas's and oils after exploring the many and various possibilities with acrylic paint on paper.

The acrylics do have some advantages over the use of oils especially where drying time is concerned. For me they work well in smaller works on paper, but they don't appeal to me for use in larger works. 

The very feel of oil paint moving across a freshly primed canvas still seems luxurious by comparison to acrylic paint. It allows for subtleties of tone and texture that are not as evident in acrylic, as it dries too quickly to be able to work into the paint at later stages.

Impasto areas of acrylics also seem a little too plastic for my liking whereas oil paint often maintains a natural lustre and sheen that create their own stories within the surface of the medium.

Domestic Scene with the Ingredients for Mary's Chocolate Brownies is the last in a small series of domestic scenes on canvas measuring 60cmW x 50cmH.

My next plan is to take what I have been doing here and hopefully apply to some new and larger figurative works on canvas.

Mary's Chocolate Brownies:

150g butter

220g chocolate

250g sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

3 eggs

150g plain flour

90g pecan nuts

Grease 25cm square baking dish, and preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Melt chocolate and butter together over a double saucepan. Remove from stove and stir in sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour and nuts.

Stir until mixture just comes together. Pour into baking dish and level off.

Bake until the mixture is set but not dry, about 25 minutes.

DON'T OVERCOOK.......the top should be soft to touch, the brownies will firm as they cool but should remain moist and fudgy.

Cool in the pan and then cut into squares.

*Serve after school with a chocolate milkshake and a plate of fruit.

Ok, Where am I?

It is Monday the 6th of March. I'm at home.

I have had a good break from the desktop over the holidays. So here I am cleaning up 99 unread emails, paying bills and booking seats to the Richmond v Carlton game on the 23rd March.

And baking... The never fail Custard Powder Sponge Cake for afternoon Tea...here it is...

And back to painting... I am finally coming to the end of the Doggies  work. Most of it has been A4 acrylic on canvas paper. Over the last month I have added to the collection with, at this stage about five paintings; oil on canvas. (I will put them up shortly, either here, on my shop or on Instagram. Instagram is much easier to load images than it is here. It is a lot quicker as it can all be done easily from the phone. Details will follow when they are up.)

After having worked on the smaller A4 acrylic pieces it has been good to go back to using oil on canvas. The acrylics are great for speed and quick drying time. They are a great back up if I am stuck at home due to school holidays or sickness. The acrylics are bright and vibrant and work really well when diluted with a medium. Given they are on paper they frame up well in either a simple black or white frame.

The oils on the other hand are much slower to work with in terms of drying time but this can be beneficial in that compositions can be changed and altered and scraped back as required.

The oils also have a capacity that enables you to work into them and build upon layers that can become quite sculptural, and almost velvet like in texture and lustre.

For a while now I have been wanting to paint in a way that is less dependant on either what I see directly in front of me, or on a reference photograph. So, I began by going back to my domestic scenes that I began with years ago and have worked at bringing in a newer approach that incorporates memory and imagination too, and a method that is hopefully freer and less academic in style.

Domestic Scene with the new Kitchen Aid above is the very first one I did. I have taken a similar approach with my bulldog footy images too, where the reality is diminished, the colours have been heightened and flattened; and the emphasis is on both narrative and expression.

We shall see how this progresses throughout the year. It is a process, undoubtedly.

Back soon, it's time for cake.

a similar composition to the one above

acrylic on canvas paper

June 2016

Currently cleaning up this site.

Working on Footy paintings for group shows later this year and Still Life works in the studio.

Follow me on Facebook @KateBirrellPaintings for some in progress pics.

And Instagram @lookatmelbourne for sketches

April Tulips

Another busy month flying by too quickly. Painting is slotting itself in where possible, between the odd gaps that pad the school holidays, cirriculum days, sports days, parent teacher interview days, public holidays, sick days and staff reflection days !@!

 If I had a real job, I don't know when I would fit it in.

As a break from paingting people, I decided to  go back to a still life, where I can focus on colour, movement and shape. 

Humming away in the background I've been working on another idea with my small watercolors on paper. More to come later.

I'll add images to this post as the tulip painting progresses.

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The studio is clean and tidy, which means I can think. My framer has passed on to me another plaster window display/partition thingy which I picked up yesterday and popped in the window. I like it.

I have moved my shelf unit. I have some cards in stock and a small number of 2014 Footy Almanacs left. Let me know if you'd like one. They make great presents and a brilliant record for seasons past, with genuine voices and stories written by the fans. They're $35 each.

Sweet Little Things

In between commissions and other work, I've been doing these little still life paintings in the studio. Here is one.