Switch of blog!

SerenArts and such has moved! Thank you to everyone who has taken time out to read, comment or both on this blog! Your input has been gratefully received and we have happily learned a lot along the way. We have switched over to

serenapugh.wordpress.com

although there is the link on the SerenArts website as well. Hope to see you soon :)))

Tithe Barn, Bradford on Avon

I had a birthday recently. A horrible one. I don't mean horrible nasty I hasten to add... just one of those forty-plus-not-worthy-of-a-special-number-badge ones, that make you realise you're no spring chicken anymore no matter how juvenile you act. I also had to fill an online form in that asked for my year of birth. Do you know.... it took a whole 12 seconds for the list to scroll down to get to my birth year. Honestly, I aged another year waiting for it to come in to view.

What's this got to do with art, I hear you cry?

Well, my wonderful husband bought me a complete set of new permanent coloured pencils, to celebrate my youth disappearing. There were as many in the huge box as one for every day I have been alive, it seems! As some people may know I use watercolour pencils in the main as you can get precise, applied media, with the added bonus of being to add water and squooshing it all about 'artistically'. These new pencils are permanent and hard wax based. Radically different in as much as when you make a line/mark etc.... it stays there (only turpentine will thin it out and give that painterly feel.) Where they do come into their own , is the depth of colour you can get from them. They literally shine. The wax gives a lustre the watercolours cannot match, and you can use them on wood, photographs etc which should make for some interesting experimentation soon. As it turns out the only thing that has let them down is me! Presented with every shade of vibrant beauty, what did I draw- but a mainly dark interior of monochromes!

It must be my age.....

(pictured is the interior of The Tithe Barn- roof detail)

The Three Gables....

Hot of the press and very topical at the moment, the latest offering as regards to the series of local watercolours I have been doing. This place has been the nub of many conversations over the years in town, as having prime location but no luck with planning permission etc. As with most buildings in our historic town the beauty of age and character comes at a heavy price- grade two listed being the first and foremost. That on top of being at the bottom of a valley during rainy periods and a woeful economic climate has never really let investors see past the obstacles. All has changed! New people are in and there is now a new place on the trail. I recently showed a painting of the building next to this on the blog ( The Georgian Wine Lodge) so this row in the town is certainly doing it's best to bring in tourists and locals alike. No mean feat, I say.

(To be fair, I may be very favourable to the 3 Gables as they have a new 'chef de plongeur!' we have a vested interest in..... I wonder if his new found skills translate at home?!)

Abbey Mill watercolour

Another watercolour of a building in Bradford on Avon. I think I am in danger of cultivating a style. That will never do. That is tantamount to being almost respectable in art terms!

Also shown are a brace of commissioned lamps. A lady came in with her wallpaper and asked if I could do something similar to match her decor... well I could and I did! So there is another service on offer at Serenarts ( and if I can get enough wallpaper swatches I can redecorate!)

The Georgian Wine Lodge...

This one didn't last very long.... it was only up on the gallery wall for a week. It is now winging it's way across the pond to it's new home in America. That's another continent I can cross off!

Pictured is a watercolour and pencil painting of the Georgian Wine Lodge here in the town. It didn't occur to me to paint this because people stay there and would want a keepsake of their holiday... I painted it purely for it's aesthetics. It is a magnificent building nestled between older ones, shouting 'look at me' as you come over the crest of the bridge.... a big gold tooth among smaller crooked ones.....

Bridge jigsaw.....

Feeling slow and sluggish? Brain not working properly? Fed up with not thinking straight? Irritated at how easily stuff is escaping you? Look no further... help is at hand! Look as clever as Isambard Kingdom Brunel in seconds! Build a bridge in three easy steps and amaze your friends! There arn't even any fiddly interlocking pieces to confuse you. Hurry while stocks last.....

Had a bit of fun with this. I have been experimenting with more unusual ways of showing photographs recently, and here is one of the results. It is a triptych of Bradford on Avon bridge which got a good going over in photoshop, and then the image transferred onto lazertran and applied to canvasses. I like the quirkiness of the different sizes.... even if it is a little emulative of the 'three flying ducks.'

Enjoy..

Be careful what you wish for....

A while back I was out gallivanting with my camera and stopped at a high, prime spot over the town. I found an unusual view of a higgled-piggled, windy street, but for love or money could not get an angle from where I was stood that didn't include a very stark, white van parked there. I wished it away to no avail, then thought 'well maybe I could erase it in photoshop.'

Once home I had a brief look at it and decided it would take too much faffing about to clone, heal and smooth it away so I left it in in all it's glory, printed it off as a photo and reached for the oil paints instead. I used the photo as reference and made the painting into a diptych... sans van.

To cut a long story short... guess who came into the gallery and bought both the photo and oil painting? ......

Yes, Mr and Mrs White Van!!