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Cars and Automobiles

Published July 14th, 2008 in Uncategorized and Oil Paintings. 0 Comments

I sought something different for my office board room, I knew I preferred modern art and I liked strong colors, I wanted art that would strike a conversation with visitors and customers.

I found www.carsart.com an online gallery selling portraits of classic cars and sports cars, they looked really good so I contacted them to see if they could paint my two cars, I have a 1955 TR3 sports car and my 2006 Bentley Continental.

They specialize in oils on canvas and each painting is done to order by one of their artists, they were very helpful I gave them the model and colors and they suggested the compositions and sizes and even used my own license registration plates.

The result was fantastic the Bentley is speeding down a Scottish highway, while the TR3 is parked outside a family home. I’ve had them framed in black wood and they’re hanging in my company’s board room, they sure do attract attention. I’m considering getting my Ford GT40 done as well; sadly it had to go when I got divorced.

Moving from old cottage to new apartment

Published April 5th, 2008 in Oil Paintings. 0 Comments

Well it finally has happened - I had been working from home for years and managed to stay away from the big city for all but one or at worst two nights a week, but now with downsizings and everyone having to work longer hours just to stay afloat, I have decided to sell up in the country and buy a loft in the city.

The problem is that a lot of the furniture and all of my artwork from the country wont go in a modern loft apartment. I need to find big paintings at an affordable price, and go with the gallery wrap idea, so I dont pay extra for ornate frames.

I eventually have decided to go with a series of works by Mark Rothko, which are really attractive, and I have a kind of industrial theme from Fernand Leger. I’ve gone for a series of Rothko’s, in really large size, just to get the main loft walls covered, Light Earth and Blue, Blue and Gray, and I’ve put Light Red over Black in the middle. I hope the effect will be striking, with complimentary primary colors together.
For the Leger’s I have ordered 2 that reflect his industrial theme, The Constructors, and The Stairway. Even though the paintings were painted over 35 years apart, the colors are surprisingly similar and complement the Rothko’s too.

From Russia with love

Published April 2nd, 2008 in Exhibitions. 0 Comments

Well not exactly, but in the end, the Exhibition went ahead.

The Royal Academy of Art in London had been negotiating for months with various Russian State museums and galleries - the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the State Hermitage Museum, and the State Russian Museum, in St Petersburg, for a loan of their superb collections of both Russian and French artists, working between 1870 and 1925. This would be the first time ever that these 120 paintings had been seen in the same place for a single exhibition.

The Russian Government was anxious that the paintings might be confiscated as many had been appropriated - some would say stolen - during the Russian Revolution, and the present owners, the Russian State Museums and Galleries insisted that the UK Government pass legislation giving immunity to the Russian State against anyone claiming ownership. This was important in 2 ways, first to cover these 120 paintings, but also as a precedent for the estimated $15 billion of masterpieces that were taken back to Russia from European countries at the end of World War II.

If the relatives of the Bloch-Bauer family could get back some of Gustav Klimt’s most famous and valuable works from the Austrian Government, Birkenwald/Buchenwald, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Adele Bloch-Bauer II , Apfelbaum, and Häuser in Unterach am Attersee, why not a relative of a Russian family. After all, 2 of these 5 paintings sold in 2006 in New York at Christies for a total of $223 million.
However, the UK Government finally agreed the immunity, so the show was on.

The exhibition explores the main directions of modern art, including Realism, Impressionism, and Non-Objective painting. Works on show include those by Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, as well as from Russian artists Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevitch.

The exhibition highlights the exchange in ideas between French and Russian art in this important period in history at the time of the Russian revolution, and also shows the best works from the great Russian collectors Shchukin and Morozov. Rich Moscow based textile merchants, they both travelled to Paris extensively to search for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

What they accumulated was staggering - works by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso. Shchukin became Matisse’s biggest patron and urged the painter to paint The Dance for him, to be hung in his Moscow mansion.

The exhibition started on the 26th January and runs till the 18th April. If you happen to be in London, its well worth a visit.

Gallery wrap

Published April 2nd, 2008 in Oil Paintings. 0 Comments

I was looking into buying a painting, and also thinking about how to have it framed for hanging. One option that I discovered is this idea of a gallery wrap.

What this means, quite simply, is that you dont need to buy an ornamental frame to put on after the canvas is stretched. This makes the whole process cheaper, and when you order the painting you just ask for a gallery wrap finish.

This means that the painting is prepared with an extra 10 cms or so of painted border, with the colors of the oil painting reproduction extended out round the sides. When the framer stretches the canvas on to the wooden stretcher, there is no unpainted white canvas to see on the edges, next to the wall that the painting is hung on.

This makes the painting look better when its hanging, and its a good idea. Of course, you dont need this if you plan to put on a decorative frame, because the frame covers the blank canvas on the sides of the stretcher, but its a neat idea if you have a more contemporary painting, like a Leger or a Kandinsky that look better hung like this.

An affordable oil painting reproduction to brighten up your home

Published April 1st, 2008 in Artists. 0 Comments

With Spring around the corner, a good way to give your home a bit of a makeover is to put some new artwork up on the walls, and oil painting reproductions are a great way to go. Its surprisingly inexpensive as well, especially when compared to the price of the original. (Like I can shell out millions of dollars for an original - NOT!!)

For an authentic feel of the old west, I went for Frederic Remington. Buffalo RunnersWhat I hadnt realized is that Remington was born and raised in the East, in New York State, but got his taste for the old west after  going to Montana as a young man.  I chose two of his works that I think really compliment each other - Buffalo Runners - Big Horn Basin, and Among the Led Horses.

They were both painted originally in 1909, and the colors go great together on the same wall. I wanted a more European look in my dining room and so went for a Cezanne, Still Life with Onions. I figured that an oil painting with food as part of the subject matter made sense! The original would be worth millions of dollars but I’m happy with my reproduction for a few hundred. I had thought about getting a Renoir instead, the Luncheon of the Boating Party, but I stayed with the Cezanne. Maybe I’ll get the Renoir as well, and switch them over sometime. The thing about these is that the copy artists are all trained to paint in the same style as the original artists, so the reproduction oil that you buy is made in very much the same way as the original painting, and all by hand. On mine,the canvas is a good quality linen fabric, and the oil paints used are the best around.

I hear there’s a lot of cheap oil painting reproductions coming out of China these days where a machine does a lot of the work and then an artist finishes it off with a few brush strokes. Sure they are cheap, but you get what you pay for.

I put plain varnished wooden frames on the 2 Remingtons, but went with what they call a gallery wrap on the Cezanne. That means that the canvas is stretched, as usual, on a wooden stretcher, but you dont have an ornamental outside frame put on after that. I really like the effect, and its a cheaper way of doing it as well.

Now I need to think about bedrooms. I really enjoy browsing the website, its interesting, its educational because they tell you a little bit about the artists, and its a lot of fun too.

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