Saturday 29 December 2007

Perfect Present!

You've gotta love a man who gives perfect presents! I've been dipping into these fascinating books since Boxing Day. The preface to 1001 Paintings by Rolf Harris is particularly inspiring. Always a fine sketcher, Rolf wanted to paint like Sydney (Aust) artist Hayward Veal, whose colours merged beautifully straight to canvas. They eventually met in London and Rolf was able to study with him. The style of mixing turpentine with colour to make a blur, then refining and refining until it began to look like the subject, changed Rolf's life. As he says "go see as many of these awe-inspiring originals as you can.....then get up out of your chair and make something creative of your own. Good painting!"
So inspired, I pulled out an abandoned canvas and now have a reasonable looking waterfall taking form.......if I like it when I've finished, I'll post a pic; if not, I'll turn its face to the wall - and start something new!

1 comment:

Helen said...

Some great gifts here, we watched a really fascinating doco on TV last week of Rolf Harris painting the Queen's portrait. She seemed to genuinely like it at the end and he did too. Glad you had a good Chrissie, nice to spend it with little kids around I think. Have a great New Year and keep on Blogging!