Sheer Joy

Sheer Joy
Oil on Canvas
Approximately 400 x 550 mm (the piece is in Barcelona in Spain and not able to be measured right now)

Time for a change in the flow of paintings on this blog! And this one sure is different ... although the image doesn't depict the colours as they truly are. It seems that there are sweeping strokes of black - no black at all in this painting - it's purple. And the reds are a darker red in the image than in reality. When the painting gets back to my studio some time in the next year, I'll try and take another digital image of it and get the colours right. Adn the texure. It's full of texture.

I love abstract - and this one is called 'Sheer Joy' because that's actually what I feel when I'm doing abstracts. I love the rebellious feeling of freedom that comes with it; the unpredictable movements, tools and media used to put the paint on; the wild choice of which colour to use next...and will it be challenging enough? Abstracts must always challenge and elicit a feeling of excitement for me, otherwise they get painted over.

So as I send the last blog for 2006 and welcome 2007 with a splash of abstract, what you can't see (luckily) is that I have paint all over my hands and on my nose and cheek. I'm having an abstract day and am in seventh heaven - a grand way to spend the last weekend of the year.

May I wish you all a Happy New Year with everything that you wish for being within easy reach in 2007! You've got to reach for it though because it sure doesn't fall into your lap!

www.lyndacookson.com

The Essence of Majesty

The Essence of Majesty
Oil on linen covered board
445 x 605 mm unframed
Framed in triple with thin gold, slightly off-white and wide gold frame
Price : 1000.00 Euro
Presently being exhibited at Lavelle Gallery in Clifden, Co Galway, Ireland (but easily accessible if necessary)

I thought this looked like a crisp and cool painting suitable for a cold Christmas weekend (which doesn't promise any snow for me sadly). I painted this after the style of Ireland's prominent 90 year old artist, Louis le Brocquy, whose work I really admire. The choice of subject, the swan, came naturally after a 10 day exhibiton at The Fisheries Tower in Galway. The tower stands right on the river as it meets the sea in Galway Bay and it's where the largest swan colony in Europe lives and paddles.
The bird life on that estuary is incredible - if I knew the names of all the sea and water birds there I would list them ... but I'm a bit of an ignoramous when it comes to remembering names of things and spend more time remembering the essence of them in shape and colour than their name.

I hope to be painting more in this style but need to find the peace of mind in which to do it - I find it more difficult to paint 'less being more' than my usual splashes of colour. When I do manage to crack it, it gives me a different kind of pleasure in achievement than the excitement I feel with more colourful pieces.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and an exciting and prosperous 2007!
Lynda

El Caballo Frison

El Caballo Frison
Oil on linen covered board
445 x 605 mm unframed
Framed in triple with thin gold, slightly off-white and wide gold frame
Price : PRESENTLY NOT FOR SALE

This is the painting which is going to give me the collywobbles until May 2007! It is the second in the horse series, less free-spirited than 'Cool Canter' but nevertheless another favourite of mine. And it's the painting which was selected for auction at the May 2007 sale of Christies of London - hence the collywobbles until then!! It's hugely possible that the piece won't sell at the auction because I'm not a known name, but you gotta start somewhere ......... so please hold thumbs for me!

There are four or five other horse paintings, some big, some even bigger, and some small, in the pipeline and half painted, but with the interruptions of the last month or so I may divert into another theme for a while before going back to the horses. It's always a mix of feelings at this point - excitement to see what's going to happen when I get into it again, and nerves that I may mess up, so let's just see what happens.

In the meantime, I'll try and keep the images coming on Paintings On Impulse.

Have a wonderful Christmas and everything that you wish for yourself and your families for 2007!

Blue Streak

Blue Streak
Acrylic on linen-covered board
Framed in triple - inner thin gold, white, and outer blue
Unframed size : 305 x 325 mm
Price : Euro295.00 (excluding postage and packaging)

The background of this painting is pure white {not evident in the photograph} with a slight texture to it. Sadly, the photograph makes it look flat.

'Blue Streak' was painted for the Art Ireland exhibition in Dublin a month ago. There are hundreds of artists who participate in this exhibition, each one having a different success rate than everyone else, and I was given the opportunity to submit two paintings to the 'Nine Moons' group stand (thank you Deborah!).

It's not a big painting, just the right size to either be included with a group of paintings on a large wall, or to have a corner or smallish wall of it's own. I think you'll enjoy the unexpected colours which make up this little horse and the sense of movement and pent-up energy which 'Blue Streak' emits.

If not sold, he will be joining others on exhibition at Anton's Cafe in Galway in March 2007. My stocks of paintings are rather low at the moment, so I'm almost tempted to hide him (a la 'Cool Canter') until then.

I started fiddling with my paints today, so hopefully tomorrow is a turps 'n paint day .....

Cool Canter

Cool Canter
Oil on Linen Board
Framed in triple with thin gold, slightly off-white and wide gold frame
Size : 445 x 605 mm (unframed)
Price : 1000.00 Euro SOLD through Bold Art Gallery in Galway

I'm both happy and sad to say that 'Cool Canter' has sold. Always happy to sell but not always so happy to say goodbye to a painting I really relate to! 'Cool Canter' was the first in the Horse Series and just rolled off the brushes. I hid it at home for a month or two before deciding it had better get out there to join the Christmas exhibitions, and now it's gone.

Life has been so busy these past few weeks with a visit to the UK and various writing and interviewing deadlines to be met. Hopefully in the week before Christmas I can light the fire, set out the paints and pick up the brushes again. It always takes me a few hours to get back into it - I fiddle with paints, prepare a few canvases and generally look at and feel the work already done, so that I can get in touch with it all again and put the brain power on hold and the heart power in gear.

Next painting coming soon .... probably this coming weekend, so watch this space .....

Break Dancer

Break Dancer
Oil on Linen Board
Framed in triple with thin gold, slightly off-white and wide gold frame
Size : 445 x 605 mm (unframed)
Price : 1000.00 Euro
Presently on show at Bold Art Gallery in Galway

Oh dear. I see it's almost a full month since I had a moment to put posterior and knees on chiropractic chair and upload a new blog! Apologies. Life has been very full indeed with a trip down to the south west corner of Ireland, to Skibbereen in Co. Cork, to deliver a couple of paintings to an auction house there; another trip to Dublin to deliver a painting to Adams auction salesrooms; complete two small paintings for the Art Ireland exhibition in Dublin; two more for the Christmas exhibition at Bold Gallery in Galway; six small ones for Lahinch Gallery (not too far from the Cliffs of Moher); and yet another four for possible (so far only possible!) inclusion of at least two of them in a prestigious auction house I haven't yet worked with. And then there have been article deadlines and a part-time merchandising job I have taken on to feed the hungry bank account.......

I'm thoroughly enjoying the merchandising job - for two days a month I get to travel to outlying towns and clean and restock their mixed sweets counter. Of course I use the time to stop and take photos and generally refresh my mind for more creative use (hopefully!). And then a couple of other days I promote the Brita water systems in supermarkets - so, sweets and filtered water ..... rather more virtuous than my husband, Alan's, Guinness promotions! (Got to keep my halo employed.)

Today's painting is one of the large ones which is on exhibition in the Bold Art Gallery in Galway until the first week of January. With some of the paintings in this series I've wanted to depict a strong sense of the power horses have in their movement while keeping a slight remoteness - which is what most people who don't ride or keep horses see and feel when they come into contact with them. The background is pure white with a grainy texture and sweeps around the image of the horse.

If you're interested in purchasing, please email me and we will complete the sale through Bold Art Gallery - the price remains the same either through myself or the gallery.

Have a good weekend! (We have the most beautiful day here - chilly but not too cold, cloudy with the sun barging through quite a lot and catching the landscape in the most gorgeous yellows and golds and greens. We've also had two days of powdered snow on our mountains this past week - this really is the best time of year.)

Beneath The Bud

Beneath The Bud
Acrylic on board
5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.8 mm)

A different view of a rosebud .... from beneath looking up so that the full, rounded base of the bud is revealed in all its plumpness! The bunch of rosebuds from which this one was chosen, lasted two weeks from bud to full bloom, and richly deserved the description: 'Delicious'. They were gorgeous.

As I am going to be uploading paintings of different sizes and different mediums to this blog, I won't put a price to them and instead ask that you email me to discuss their value if you are interested in purchasing. This has so far been a good experiment for me in that I've discovered that although small paintings can be satisfying and definitely have their place, I find producing larger paintings far more exciting and worth talking about!

Lily In Lilac and Purple

Lily In Lilac and Purple
Acrylic on board
5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.8 mm)
Price : Euro100
(includes postage and packaging worldwide)

It's been nearly two weeks since my last post and heavens knows where the time has gone! For some of it, the blogger website was down but for the rest I have been on trains to Dublin and back (delivering paintings to the fine art auctioneer), moving my studio out of our main living room, and painting like crazy to have something to offer the galleries who want smallish pieces for their Christmas exhibitions. Oh, and collecting kindling for winter fires, from the field next door. All things that just had to be done.

Today's painting is of a lily I bought from the flower sellers in Grafton Street in Dublin during the time my paintings were on exhibition at Airfield Trust in one of the southern areas of Dublin. The flower sellers are the one and only reason I walk down Grafton Street - it's always so full of people that sometimes I feel a little bruised when I emerge from either end of it! The flower sellers have banks of colour with the freshest blooms, the most expensive of them stylishly wrapped, and all just as tempting as the shelves in a chocolate shop. I veer off Grafton Street at the flower sellers knowing that another treat is just down a side road - the Apollo Art Gallery, which only seems to exhibit the work of already well-known artists and people like the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood who sold a self-portrait of himself for Euro55 000.00!!

The day is slipping by too quickly again so now I must continue with some support preparation - gesso-ing boards which I have covered in linen, and get back to the horses I am painting for this year's Art Ireland exhibition in mid-November.

Have a good one!

Heavens What a Garden!

Heavens What a Garden!
Acrylic on paper
11" x 7.5" (28 x 19 cms)
Price : $100

And now for something completely different!
An abstract. Filled with colour, texture and excitement. While working on the 'Deep Water Wonder' collection I used tons of paint, freely and generously, to create abstracts which, when each one was finished - and sometimes in the middle of the process, before it was complete - gave me such a lovely sense of butterflies in my tummy. Even now when I look at this particular abstract I am tempted to say 'Oh wow!' out loud.

The way the paint was applied has left textural marks simulating branches and twigs. In this particular painting the regular pathways made by the palette knife I used give a strong sense of a formal garden - but a rebellious formal garden exploding with colour and life. Definitely an exciting painting.

Click the image to see a larger, more detailed version.

I joined the fitness centre last week. If there's one thing that I miss about everyday life in South Africa it's a swimming pool. Not so long ago I read, or heard on the radio, that Ireland has only about 300 swimming pools, including private and public pools, in the whole country. Amazing. Just fly over any South African city or town and the swimming pools are more visible and seem more numerous than the houses! So it's great to spend 30 minutes on the walking machine followed by a lovely relaxing swim - thank heavens my swimming costume is still in one piece after not being used for about 5 or 6 years!

We have a lovely sunny and partly cloudy day here in Connemara - everything has that washed and sparkly look about it.

'Til next time ...

Delicate Lives

Delicate Lives
Acrylic on board
5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.8 cms)
Price : $100
(includes postage and packaging)

I have a lovely big yellow silk Poppy which, together with its scarlet red mate, they stand on long stalks in an attractive long-necked frosted German wine bottle. (The wine was excellent too - enjoyed at the opening night of my 'Walkin' On Sunshine' exhibition in Dublin this last August). The Poppies were bought to brighten a dull corner in my gallery (which is in the large and well-lit hallway of my home) and to enhance the colours of nearby paintings - but they begged to be painted as well.

The painting is delicate yet well-defined - and was jolly difficult to edit after scanning, to get it to as close to the real colours as possible! The flower was painted dry but the background has water added to it to give it a feeling of fluid blue sky.

Blue sky is probably something we will only glimpse on lovely autumn and winter days for the next few months. We've had lovely, heavy, soaking rain (and a bit of wind) for the past couple of days - waterfalls on the mountains are just everywhere. When the sun pushes through banks of clouds it picks out the rusts and yellow-greens on the hillsides - but is gone very quickly with fast moving clouds at the moment. Still, it's very beautiful ... this, and winter, is my time of year!

Green Apple Red Apple

Green Apple Red Apple
6.5" x 4.5" (17 x 12 cmx)
Watercolour pencil on watercolour paper
Double mounted/matted with a navy blue surround to the painting and an outer off-white mount board
The painting also has a frame included in the price - but you can choose whether or not you would like the frame
Price : $100

No fruit or flowers which pass our front door go unphotographed (as you will see from the photo library on my website)! And these apples and grapes were no exception. We live an hour's drive from our nearest city, Galway, and usually only arrive home on town days after 7 pm in the evening, tired from a day packed with chores, and laden with packages .... too late, and usually too dark, for me to fit in a painting as well as cook and pack everything away. So the photographs become gold to me.

The trick with watercolour pencils is to know how much water and how much not to use to give the painting just the right amount of texture and bonding. Every artist will choose a different amount according to the pleasure they find in texutre. The same applies to how heavily you use the pencil in different areas, giving a different kind of texture when lots of pencil markings leave little islands of medium once the water has dried.

After meeting my last article writing deadline for the magazines yesterday, I am free to start playing with my paints again today. Jolly good thing too because the stocks in my gallery are very low indeed at the moment - I've had a good run this summer!

A Step Up
Watercolour pencils on watercolour paper
4.5" x 6.5"(11.2 x 16.5 cms) approx.
Price : $100

SOLD / SWAPPED : 1 Oct 2006 : Thank you Andrew Henderson

Being a 'colourist' means my paintings are usually of the cheerful variety. Some time ago I found a photograph in a gardening book with flowers bursting out of an old boot - I thought it was great and thoroughly enjoyed doing this loose pencil drawing in its honour. I chose to position the boot at a bit of a jaunty angle to give it a sense of movement - something which is very important to me in painting. Movement gives it life.

I added a bit of water to the watercolour pencil marks but not enough to entirely wash away the textured feel - I like it grainy.

It's a lovely, rainy, nippy day here in Connemara in Ireland - I love autumn for more than its rusty colours ..... for me it means that winter is just around the corner, and I live for winter! Cosy turf fires, hot scones (made by my husband, Alan), hot chocolate and the promise of snow. (Being South African-born I am pretty snow-deprived). So far in my life I've only ever had one white Christmas.

Anyway, if you would like to purchase 'A Step Up' (which could also arrive on your doorstep already double-matted {double-mounted} in white if you like) please email me and we can discuss either PayPal or WorldPay.

Lilac Buds

'Lilac Buds' : Acrylic on Board : 5" x 7" (12.7 x17.8 cm)
Price : $100

SOLD / SWAPPED : 1 Oct 2006 : Thank you Andrew Henderson

After one art exhibition after another for a few months this summer, I was totally exhausted. While in town one day I treated myself to some cut flowers to take home as a pick-me-up. Hmmm, not only did I buy this bunch of purple flowers (the name of which I do not know) but I arrived home laden with a huge bunch of sunflowers and one of the usual mix of carnations and chrysanthemum. I took hundreds of digital images of them all for a couple of days running, as they opened their blooms further each day.

These delicate little buds, on slim stems, were so beautiful as they began to turn from purple to a rusty brown. None of the buds actually opened as a full, fresh flower (perhaps they'd been languishing in the supermarket for far too long) - but anyway I bought them for their rusty brown, red and yellow marks more than for their purple glory. And I kept them long after they had all drooped, just to enjoy their colours of old age. I'm pretty sure this won't be the last painting I'll do in their memory.