Paintings Acrylic IV

My daughter loves the beach. She runs, she plays, she digs in the sand, and she swims in the water. Perhaps because she is a Piscean she seems to gain a certain boundless energy when near the sea.

As a consequence, while Waikato based, most weekends in summer are spent on the North Shore of Auckland, normally centred around Browns Bay. This also gives plenty of inspiration for subject matter for new works.

As an artist it is important to keep pushing yourself and exploring new boundaries. In this case I set myself a time limit of 90 minutes to complete the painting. This was aimed to loosen up my style, and to shift my focus to larger elements of shape and pattern, rather than fine detail. The consequence of this is that the body tends to be more dynamic (and suits the pose) than if it was blended smoothly.

The background was actually the most challenging. Typically this would have been thrown out of focus as a blurred blue and white resulting from scumbling and glazing. However I did not like the result - it conflicted harshly with the energy portrayed in the subject. Accordingly I tried the background you see now - the linear effect, the sharpness and jaggedness of the lines all add more energy to the portrait. Since I had a time limit I left it at that, though am pleased with how it portrays the energy of an eight year old on the beach in summer.