IN OTHER NEWS

So I wanted to just finish the year with this last blog, As you know from my last blog the major thing that happened last year regarding my art was the solo sell out show that I had in November with Warwick studios Art lounge but I have had some other things happen too

Firstly I have teamed up with the Darren Baker Gallery in London and am now being represented by them and was involved in there Christmas group show, I didn't have much work to offer them with me working towards the show but they had my large Untitled boxing painting to show in there gallery and believe they had an amazing turn out on there opening night

For more information please contact them on 020 7580 5332

Or visit them at 81 Charlotte Street London

Secondly I have been fortunate enough to have been commissioned a few times this year, I was firstly commissioned by a client in January to complete two paintings for her Son and Daughter these were to be given as gifts and I am grateful that they had the patients to wait for me as I tried to squeeze them in between doing the show pieces, I managed to get them finished,framed and delivered ready for Christmas and I'm delighted to tell you when they were over the moon with there gifts. 

"Blue Label and Belvedere"

24" x 24"

Oil on panel

SOLD

"How do you eat Yours"

24" x 24"

Oil on panel

SOLD

I was also commissioned by a client from London and he wanted me to paint him something so different to what i usually do that it knocked me back for a second, but after having some thought on it I felt it would be an interesting challenge and that it would be nice to try my hand at something different. 

To just give you an insight to the client he is a young very successful business man based in London a bachelor with a house that James bond would be happy with and the Lamborghini to boot. He wanted something "Sexy" and we settled on an image he was happy with. 

Also Cloud Gallery came to me with a Commission for one of there clients and again managed to get it sent over to them before Christmas. 

"Ice Cold Cola"

30" x 18"

Oil on panel

SOLD

And I'd like to end this blog by saying, 2015 is just around the corner and its been an incredible year with the Solo show success and commissions and to top that off my wife and I expecting a baby late January it's certainly had some amazing highlight's

But the year has not been full of joy tho because in April my Granddad passed away, the news was heart breaking but what death always teaches me is that life is precious and you must live it to the full and be appreciative for what you have whilst always trying to strive to better yourself, and so I wanted to take the time to thank you all for taking the time to read my Blog,  and following me on all my social media pages your ever growing support, your encouragement and kind words inspire me daily to strive to be better and better and I hope my work inspires you. 

I hope you all have a fantastic New Year and an even more incredible 2015

Much love to you all 

Chris 

x  

SHOW TIME

Well It's been nearly a month since my collaboration and first UK showing with Warwick Studios Gallery and the first opportunity to sit down and write this well over due blog. Now if you have been reading the few posts I have been making throughout the year you will have seen some of the things I've been getting up to and a few of the early releases of some of the originals for the show but this is whats been happening.

In January David at Warwick Studios asked me if I would be interested in having a show with him at the gallery, I accepted and got to work on 12 large original oil paintings and 12 original study sketches , I knew that with each piece taking anything from 3-4 weeks to complete I would have to cram potentially 12 months comfortable work into 10 months hard slog  to hit the agreed November deadline, I knew in order to get this done I would need to be super organised and extremely dedicated and so  I worked tirelessly making sure that each piece was done with as much love and passion as the next trying never to get complaisant or let standards slip and 10 months later during the late part of October I had completed all 24 originals.

Now I usually like to go into details in my blogs about individual pieces and explain what triumphs and tests I have had during the process. But in all honesty the pieces for the show, because of the nature of doing them back to back to back without being able to post about them or share them on social media became somewhat of a complete blur, but what I can remember about a few of the pieces is this..."Fingers in the Sweetie Jar" took me the longest and towards the end of the process had lost my patience with it but was happy with the end result...."Love is on the cards" was one of my personal favourites especially as it was the first piece of mine that had double meaning...."My last Rolo" was a challenge as I had never tackled tin foil before but I think I handled it well and I always had a soft spot for this piece as it was the main feature in my promotional video for the show..."Colmans" required 3-4 layers of yellow paint to get it looking right....."Cola Crush 2" really tested me so much so that I almost didn't put in the reflections but was so pleased I talked myself into doing them as I felt it really made the piece...."Chutney and Cheese"...first time painting bread and I had to use a block of real cheese to match the right colour....."Fish Supper and Sarsons"....really liked painting this piece and enjoyed eating the composition :-)......"Chips, Cone and Ketchup"...by far my favorite piece to paint, big, bold, great lighting, and I loved the composition..."Guilty Pleasures" inspired by a UK seaside holiday I had with the family in August, I thought this piece would be easy to paint until I started to do the wafer cones and realised just how fiddly painting the little squares was.

But that i'm afraid is about all I can remember. Just know there were lots of testing times but a lot of successes, a huge amount of work and a huge weight lifted when I hit the deadline.

I had all pieces picked up by a great fine arts delivery man called Andrew Shrives who always looks after my work and had them sent for framing. Once framed, David had them returned to the gallery ready for the hanging, but picture this for me if you will. Its Friday night the next day is the show. Im feeling a little rough with a cold and David is trying to hang 24 pieces in the gallery. I get a message from David at 7pm telling me that the pieces had bent his rail as they were to heavy (I paint on wooden panel and once framed especially if there large can be quite heavy) his fridge in the gallery had broken and water had run everywhere, one of the posters had been accidentally thrown out with the trash and he had hurt his back!! As you can imagine I was pretty panicked 10 months hard work was now in the balance and was looking like it might not even happen, but David pulled it off and we were back in action.

It was now Saturday morning and as you can imagine I was feeling the nerves of excitement and also the feelings of worry and doubt. Now anyone that has ever produced anything personal that has been created and put out for the public to judge, whether it be a Poem, a book, a song or in my case art work  they will all know that thought that pops into your head....will people like what I'm doing?

My appearance at the gallery was between 1 and 4 and so I decided to get there a little earlier to have some lunch before hand...12:30 arrived and I'm just enjoying my lunch when David calls me and asked if I'm nearly at the gallery, I explained that I was just having my lunch and was only minutes away, he then told me that people had come early to see the show and that it might be a good idea to get to the gallery as soon as I could and so I stuffed my face as quickly as I could and got myself to the gallery. I arrived and was blown away by the way that David had hung the work, on a lovely slick black wall all framed and looking beautiful together and people already admiring the works. I got chatting to a lovely bloke who had taken a liking to Cola Crush 2 and after a brief conversation with me decided that he must have that piece and brought it there and then, I felt chuffed and remember thinking to myself "Brilliant at least one had sold"....then it went manic. as collectors from all over the country from London to Manchester  and everywhere in between came to view my work, I literally would be speaking to one person discussing the work then I would  turn to find someone else who wanted to talk It was amazing to say the least. One and a half hours went by and I looked up from talking to see a sea of red stickers....in 1.5 hours I had sold 23 of my works and I was blown away!!!

I met some lovely collectors from the old to the new that day and I just wanted to say a Huge thank you to all who came on the day to support me in my work,, you all know it really does mean a lot to me and without your support it would make it very difficult for me to carry on. I want to say a big thank you to David Sands for doing an incredible job, my family for there every growing support and lastly to my wife and kids who have always stood by me throughout all the late nights early hours and long weekends without me being there, I'm just so pleased its been worth all the hard work.

My family, and the reason I work as hard as I do

Fish Supper and Sarsons

30" x 30" 

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

"Chips, Cone and Ketchup"

45" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Chutney and Cheese

30" x 30"

Oil on panel

SOLD

Cold and Crisp 2

30" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Colmas

30" x 30" 

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Fingers in the sweetie jar

48" x 32"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Guilty Pleasures 

30" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Love is on the cards

48" x 24"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Mighty Marmite

30" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

My Last Rolo

30" x 25"

Oil on wooden panel 

SOLD

Cola Crush 2

30" x 30" 

Oil on wooden Panel

SOLD

Billiard Balls

30" x 18"

Oil on wooden panel

Available - at Warwick Studios 

Contact David Sands on 07807 540 498

Promotional Video - My Last

Well here it is the NEW promo video for my exhibition in November. I have been in close talks with film maker Sam Hudson and with this video we wanted to show my collectors and followers more of me as a family man as well as some of my artistic process.

The story behind this video is the romantic notion that people give there "Last Rolo" but only to people they really like or love, I really enjoyed making this short video/film and myself and Sam will certainly be working together in the future on more video's for you all. 

"My Last"

30" x 25"

Oil on wooden panel.

Available at the STILL LIFE exhibition in November

Cola Crush 2 and 2014 Show.

So here is the latest original "Cola Crush 2" it was quite a challenging painting to take on with the reflections and the fact that the entire painting was filled with no less than four crushed cola cans.

A few weeks past with a lot of patience and it was finally finished, I had originally thought about not including the reflections and instead filling in the ground work with shadows, but I decided against it and i'm so happy that I did as I feel it came out great.

"Cola Crush"

Oil on panel 

30" x 30"

Available for pre-sale at Warwick Studios

Call - 07807 540498

Now I do have a little announcement to make, In January whilst delivering my painting "Billiard Balls" to Warwick studios I got talking with the gallery owner David and he kindly offered me a show for late this year. Now at my speed of painting I know I'm going to be limited to the amount of pieces i'll be able to create but have suggested around the 12 piece mark but the smallest size of the show will be 30" x 30" so there all going to be big ones and fill up the space nicely, but obviously this also puts the pressure on even more to be as organized as possible, so when i'm not painting i'll be priming/sketching/photographing etc.

Cola Crush 2 is the first painting for the show and is available for pre-sale at Warwick Studios. Another thing to mention is that as I produce work for the show I'll not be posting every single image but just a select few this is to  purely to create that desire to want to visit the show. But I promise that once its happened i'll be posting each of the unseen pieces.

So I have a lot f work to do......Wish me luck :-)

Cola Crush

I can only apologise for the lateness of this blog but as the saying goes better late than ever. I've just been very busy using every spare hour I have to paint and sketch to meet a deadline for the replacement commissions and I'm happy to say I'm way ahead of my self.

Now I finished the piece "Cola Crush" a few weeks ago and boy did i have some problems with it,  usually I put a few coats of primer on the side to be painted and one coat on the back and sides, once dry I sign the back of the board, but for some reason with this board I signed the front not the back, I then sketched the cola cans without to much issue but when it came to painting I noticed that something wasn't right the paint wasn't taking to the board and it was sinking into the wood, I realised what I had done and had to go about fixing it, after sanding the paint away re-priming the whole board and re-sketching I was good to go.

I painted in the silver cola can that took alot longer than I had thought but I don't know why I was surprised with all the change in colour and tone in the reflective can and the sheer size of it I knew it was going to be challenging, I then hit problem number two.....the red paint.

My Cadmium red had ran out and I needed some more, not a problem I just ordered some more from my online art suppliers, but when it arrived I started to use it and realised it was VERY opaque some thing that's usually an option with paint,  but when I checked the website there was no option and basically you just got what you got. I called the company to ask why this was and was told that the type of paint id had previously had was no longer available!! I didn't have time to mess about sourcing a new supplier and setting up a new account and so I worked with a mix of the Cadmium medium, Cadmium deep and Alizarin crimson to make the paint work, and thankfully it worked.

"Cola Crush"

30" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

I'm really pleased with how it turned out despite all the problems, and I've now moved on to the next commission, the grolsch bottle & after thinking about what composition I wanted I decided that I really liked the original and so I'll be changing very little to it & the only thing I'm toying with is a change in the background as I've always been a little unsure of the green in the first piece.

I've also completed the first two boxing figurative pieces, & I'm now contemplating what to do with them, a gallery, competitions, a private buyer........I'm still undecided.

Cola cans and exhibitions

Here are the latest two painting to come out of the studio, I have wanted to do the crushed can composition for a while and i decided originally to do three single paintings and sell them all together but a sale of this first can the day after it had been completed put a spanner in the works for this idea

 

 

"Squeeze me gently"

18" x 18"

Oil on wooden panel

 

SOLD

 

I had already started the second piece to go along side the first so i carried on until it had finished, it was more complicated than the first due to its reflective nature but i had a blast painting it

 

 

"Dent in the diet"

18" x 18"

Oil on wooden panel

 

SOLD

 

THE FANNY GOGH EXHIBITION AT GENERATION GALLERY

I have a really busy month ahead with new paintings commissions and charity events but couldn't miss out on the Fanny Gogh exhibition being held at the Gallery That represent my work Generation Gallery in Manchester

 

Fanny Gogh AKA Sian uses underwear that has been donated by celebrities like Sara Cox and Ricky Hatton to name a few

 

 

 

Me and actor Ciaran Griffiths AKA Micky from channel 4's Shameless

 

Both left and right some great underwear artworks from the exhibition

 by artist Fanny Gogh

 

 

Fanny and Ciaran

 

 

Bez from the band Happy Mondays

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Rock 'N' Roll Cola"

The Latest painting has finally been finished!! I have to admit this painting has really pushed me in terms of difficulty and time.

The Idea to do the coke painting came a few months ago but I really didn't want to do the modern plastic coke bottle and when I came upon some old style glass Coke bottles I was thrilled and thought the painting could be started, but after taking some reference photos with my typical dark background It soon became apparent that the reference lacked the vibrant colour I like to get to contrast the black background, After talking to the gallery a few ideas were thrown around and the suggestion of  adding bright straws was made, I tried it but it still didn't look right, then the suggestion of a Jukebox and I loved the idea.

I searched far and wide for an old style jukebox with no luck and was about to give up when my Uncle mentioned that the place he works had them, I asked permission from the company to take pictures and thankfully they agreed and I got some great colourful references.

I started the painting full of excitement but admit at week two I was loosing my patience as the background had only just been started, A huge push and three weekend painting sessions I did it in just over three weeks, and I am pleased with the results. But Its has been a hard painting to do and pushed me in many ways which Is always a good thing.

"Rock 'N' Roll Cola"

30" x 30"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

Works Available at Warwick Studios

Call -  01926 423529