Jazz Green : Artist Journal

small change

December 15th, 2010

a small change on my art for sale page… the studio gallery or little picture shop, a humble means of generating some creative commerce in the digital age, some intended artfulness, a place for the curious to browse or perhaps buy, the small shop for art that i quietly oversee and very occasionally promote. if you can spare some change you might be interested to know that these small paintings are now listed in good ol’ british money – although you can opt to pay in whatever currency you choose; worldwide paypal will do the currency conversion automatically (which is nice)…

Abstract Painting. Mustard, Turquoise, Olive Grey Stripes

LXXIX 2009, abstract stripes painting on paper [click to view more small paintings]

etsy (my art store’s online venue) recently made it possible to sell in a range of currencies and so i opted for UK £s – it makes perfect sense… a small change but i believe quite a fundamental one in helping artists to promote and sell their art to buyers in their own countries of residence… this does mean that the alternative prices in USD $ next to the paintings might fluctuate by a few cents according to the day’s exchange rate to match the fixed GBP £ shown (etsy’s default currency is still USD), but that could turn out to be a benefit to overseas buyers if our sterling british pound is not feeling quite so sterling that day…

etsy works much like ebay as a marketplace – you sign up, create a username & account, then search or browse for things and can purchase instantly & securely with a paypal account or credit card (no anxious bidding involved!) – the main difference being etsy is a creative marketplace for artists, designers and craftspeople to connect directly with buyers of art… and a big part of the shopping experience is then waiting for the special parcel to duly arrive, wrapped up in all the anticipation & excitement of receiving a gift that you really wanted…

FJORD modern abstract canvas art
fjord 2010 [click to view details]

to celebrate the small change in my shop, there is free p&p to anywhere in the UK mainland…

Modern Art BOOKMARKS five abstracts

[a set of five art bookmarks, for books, naturally enough]

my online art shop is really an extension of my studio, where i can exhibit a selection of small abstracts on paper and even smaller works on canvas – of which, if you are one that has visited this blog before, might know a little about when and how they came about. these are all small, experimental works which are more process-oriented but they still relate to (and perhaps even influence) my other paintings…

Abstract Painting. Grey Brown Teal Blue Original Art Work

xciv, 2009 [click to view in my gallery shop]

in my art for sale shop you can view some of the original chromatids, a series of 100 small square works on paper that were completed between november 2008 and march 2009. these small works are probably the most collectively colourful series of work i have ever done and yet i never outwardly planned to do them at all – but i do have an ongoing thing about numbers, patterns and squares. i like squares for their impartiality and objectivity…

i usually work with a more subtle or reduced palette of colours on my larger canvases and panels, so it has been a good exercise to explore colour and texture on this small scale for its own playful & expressive means, and in turn the one hundred paintings later inspired the creation of these distinctive bookmarks – such a simple change in format opened up some new ideas to pursue…

Coastal Art BOOKMARKS - abstract designs prints sea shore beach
[another set of five abstract art bookmarks - in subtle browns, blues and greens, quite liminal and coastal in palette]

also in the gallery shop are some very small, mixed media canvases, from a more recent and ongoing 2010 experimental project (documented here in the blog), the diminutive travel i-cons – i have created thirty of these canvases (so far) – type in i-cons into the search to discover their own little stories…
modern canvas art. grey pink red violet abstract stripes. TRINIDAD
trinidad 2010 [click to view more]

ok, art for sale promotion over – i always feel a little uneasy doing this online thing, i don’t want to seem too pushy – these are just a few of the things that i have done, things that in their own way make a path to the other art i want to make and do… but my role as an artist is not to entertain, to pull paper flowers or bunnies out of a hat – i’m still figuring out the sawing-in-half illusion…

for now, i have some new exhibitions to focus on (which i hinted at previously) in the year ahead – but there are no pictures-in-progress because… well, it’s complicated – stuff happened, i thought a lot about it, what to do next… let’s just call this a deliberate episode of photography withdrawal, a creative interlude, a pause in the digital proceedings… purging the senses, a space to think, to write notes or sketch, to doodle and draw, to just make art – just how it used to be… i am always taking a philosophical stance on things…

My field of perception is constantly filled with a play of colours, noises and fleeting tactile sensations which I cannot relate precisely to the context of my clearly perceived world, yet which I nevertheless immediately ‘place’ in the world, without ever confusing them with my daydreams.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty in The Phenomenology of Perception

Edit: Please note, I no longer offer my small abstract paintings via the website Etsy. Please visit my Art for Sale page for small works on paper and canvas available to purchase.

Thank you for your continued support of my art.

it was the early morning shock of seeing a thin film of ice on the inside of the windows that prompted a couple of snowy walkabouts this week… for some exercise, some fresh air, to warm up, an excuse perhaps to think more about and reconnect with this rural landscape…

suffolk snow landscape painting - sketchbook

a hill and some snow, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″

i carried with me a sketchbook (or three!) but, for a change, i took some small tubes of acrylic and a few offcuts of card. why on earth go out sketching in this inclement weather? well, the intention was to go for a bracing walk and the opportunity to do some outdoor sketching seemed like a good idea at the time… i just needed some white, brown, blue, a little yellow ochre… (you can view last week’s before the snow winter field sketches here)…

these three small sketches are about 5″ x 16″

suffolk snow landscape field - sketchbook

suffolk snow sketches - sketchbook

suffolk snow fields horizon - sketchbook

[click to view larger]

i discovered a new footpath which i had not seen signposted before, perhaps because all the surrounding vegetation that would have concealed it had died back. some farmers, it seems, don’t like to draw attention to the public rights of way that circumnavigate their fields. this particular footpath began at the roadside – it was a quick scramble up a steepish, stepped incline through a small thicket of elder, hawthorn, briar, bramble and the like, which soon thinned out onto a small footbridge across a ditch, which opened into the corner of a large field – regimental stalks of harvested maize pricking through the blanket of snow..

suffolk field snow landscape sketch

winter field with stubble, 8′ x 22″

i walked a narrow path between the hedgerow and the broken lines of sown crops, minding the occasional black hole which indicated a rabbit burrow. in the snow i could see the pitter-patter pattern of animal footprints, probably a dog i thought but i could see no human companion footprints -  were they the trail of a hare, a fox or muntjacs perhaps? the hedgerow seemed to have shaken off most of the recent snowfall and so it exhibited an interesting patchwork of textures and colours when viewed against the snow – from the sepia hues of damp, dead wood to the musty grey-black of dead nettles, small patches of fading green to grey, the auburn brown of tall docks, shades of bronze and tarnished copper on the edges of leaves, the prickly hawthorn branches dotted with red berries…

suffolk snow field hedgerow - sketchbook

field and hedgerow, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″

the line of the hedgerow led slowly uphill, then turned an abrupt corner at an oak tree – and hereabouts, sheltered from the chilled midday air with a scattered carpet of acorn husks underfoot, it afforded a clear view of valley ahead. smooth white fields, lightly traced out by their boundary hedgerows, sloped gently to the south and east, a distant cluster of trees merged into a mist of many layered greys. to the north the field’s straight crop lines seemed to converge at a point near the flat horizon, with only the faintest delineation of trees to suggest where the land ended and the sky began…

snow winter field sketch painting - sketchbook

winter field, acrylic on paper, 8″ x 12″

some people assume that suffolk is, in the main, quite a flat county, but this is because the most travelled routes follow more even ground. walk a little off the beaten track and the vistas become much more undulating and expansive – made even more appealing to the senses when there is snow on the ground. all seems for a short while quite serene, quite still. snow softens the sounds and disguises the blemishes, it sculpts, smoothes and redefines, drawing out the best features of a seemingly natural geography…

perhaps on reflection it was not such a good idea to use acrylics as they did not dry properly in the ice cold air. to stop the sketchbook pages from sticking together i sandwiched them with maize leaves, powdery bark and even clumps of snowy soil, all of which had added some interesting textural effects by the time i had headed back. something of real substance to work with, so i applied more white acrylic here and there, the remains of soil and the blurry smears of paint became the tangible traces of walking. i rather like that they turned out this way, incomplete and unrefined, within each rough gesture or mark is a brief thought or memory that relates to the experience – exhibiting the very spirit of a brisk walk in the wintry, white landscape…

these two sketches are 8′ x 22″, on black card – it is (or was) a photograph album…

field snow landscape sketch

suffolk fields snow - sketchbook

[click to view larger]

so, these small studies have really become remembered landscapes, they no longer exist, the snow has now vanished, but we have been warned that the snow will return…

i often remind myself that i have become something of a cave painter – i see things (discarded, redundant or dead things, mostly!) and then i retreat to the studio cave to make art out of the experience. sketching in the landscape seems to be a means to re-engage but also to step back a little, to take in the wider view…

Powered by WordPress. Copyright © Jazz Green : Artist Journal. All rights reserved.
The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.