The last few weeks have been madly busy and I have several things I want to blog about, but I just haven’t had the time. I’ve been painting nearly every day, mostly in alla prima oils. I’m taking part in an exhibition at the very wonderful Howard Doris Centre, here in my village and I wanted to have some new work ready for it. The exhibition’s on Monday and will be for three days, I probably going to put in ten or so pieces of work. A mixture of landscapes, interiors and maybe a still life or two.
It’s still a new medium for me, but I’ve really fallen in love with oils, I love the richness of colour that oils give the artist, but it is still a different way of working and has it’s own challenges.
Oils take a long time to dry so I can’t just stack them against the wall, which is what I’ve always done with my acrylic paintings, so my easel and the photo shelves that I use were full of wet paintings for a week or two.
Then everything needs to be varnished. I don’t usually varnish my acrylics because I don’t like way it looks, but varnish seems to really enhance the colours when used with oils.
Luckily, it was a glorious day today and I varnished all my recent (dry) work, then brought it in to dry indoors.
When the varnish was dry I had to frame everything. I have a selection of DIY frames that I buy from various outlets. Sometimes they might sit in my studio for a while, but eventually, just the right painting will come along.
This seascape really works well with this black frame which has been in my frame cupboard for a long time, but they seem made for eachother. This is one of the larger of the paintings that I’m submitting to the exhibition. The other is in a plain light wood frame.
I managed to frame eight paintings today and have a few more left to do tomorrow
I’m so delighted to have been asked to take part in this exhibition as the The Howard Doris Centre is a very special place. It provides services for adults include supported accommodation, medical, nursing, social facilities and day care. The staff are wonderful, kind and caring and passionate about what they do. So as well as my usual landscapes and some still-lifes, I wanted to do something especially for the centre, so I’ve done three interiors. Each of these paintings have a story, which I hope is suggested by the title of each painting
The Howard Doris Centre has a lovely lounge area, with bright, comfy chairs, which encourage people to sit and chat, make new friendships and strengthen others. There are large bright windows which overlook the loch outside, the views are beautiful, but people are often far more interested in what’s happening in the lounge than the view outside.
There is a welcoming lobby at the centre comfy chairs flank tables with white tablecloths and fresh flowers, somewhere to sit and read the paper, wait for a lift or watch the world go by.
This one speaks for itself I hope, all of the visitors and residents at the centre are made welcome, some people spend most of their days here and they are truly missed when they are gone.
As this last painting has featured in several of the photos above, you can probably guess that it’s one of my favourites
Cindie Reiter Fine Art 