Art and Football (Again)

‘Slavia Praha shirt’  pencil and watercolour/36 x 25cm

The challenge of the representation of drapery is, of course, as old as painting itself, and a recently-acquired football shirt suggested itself as being a suitable subject-object of study one afternoon last week, so out came the pencils and watercolours. Whilst the particular qualities of the contemporary somewhat shiny-surfaced sportswear fabric were perhaps the main motivating factor in getting to work in the active observation of, the allure of a jersey bearing a red star, particularly in the context of such a pleasing design, cannot be denied a certain significance too.

Pin badges representing the famous name of Slavia Praha, from the treasured collection as previously featured in forensic detail, may be found here and here (x2).

Three Pears

‘Three Pears with Geometric Shape’  oil on canvas/20″ x 16″

On a recent grocery shop, Anna picked up this trio of pears and then, once home, deposited them on a shelf in the conservatory/studio. A quick reorganisation and they were in place and ready to be actively contemplated and the findings represented on canvas. A brief ray of sunlight observed one morning before the day’s painting process began suggested the geometrical shape thus projected might be incorporated into the composition and thus it came to pass, as an additional element to the familiar and habitual.

As ever, one’s mind turns to the various pears painted by Euan Uglow, particularly with these objects displaying a combination of yellow and red skins as did examples studied by the master.

Yellow Submarine

‘Yellow Submarine #2’ oil on canvas/20″ x 16″

Whatever it is about the back end of August, but last year I was minded to make a small oil study of the household’s ‘yellow submarine’ tea infuser at that particular time and this year I’ve been similarly tempted, so here it is, this time amidst a blue ground.

Bowling Along...

Recently, Mrs Rowley introduced me to the practice of making objects with homemade ‘cold porcelain’ air-drying clay, with the resulting pair of small bowls, modelled within a couple of measuring cups, pictured below.

Given the history of my monochrome ‘white pears’ paintings, and the continuing fascination of looking at such objects, it seemed appropriate to represent the creamy-coloured cold porcelain bowls against the familiar white ground also, taking on the challenge of trying to capture the subtleties of colour and hue as they appeared in the context of the fluctuating natural light, the painting marks analogous to the finger-and-thumb-formed bowls.

‘Cold Porcelain Bowls’  oil on canvas/16″ x 12″/August 2017