chris morgan - the art of realism: oil painting

Showing posts with label oil painting. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 July 2016

New Direction

Busy..busy...busy but loving it, can be the only sentence that could describe the last couple of months since my last blog......so what's been happening.

I'm hoping by now you may have noticed that I work in series of work, sometimes the series are long sometimes they're short, some are obviously different & some more subtle. So why do I do this.....simply put, I don't want to be forced into a certain type of work that I feel obliged to do over and over and over again until inevitably boredom kicks in and I end up going insane due to the number of overlooked ideas simply because I sold a few of a certain type of painting. So what I do is different types of work in series, when I'm toying with an idea I decide if I can make at least 5 paintings from this idea and if I can then a "Series" of work is created until I want to move onto the next but I never close any series completely, they are always there in case I feel an idea would suit that particular series and I can simply add to it.

So why am I telling you this??

Because I have recently started a new series of work. It came to me when I was watching a classic James Bond Film and I thought it would be cool to create a still life that was typically traditional whilst using items that only hinted at what the film might be and so I go started and this is what I created.

"Shaken not Stirred"

30" x 20"

Oil on Canvas

SOLD

Varnishing Shaken not Stirred

The painting was completed and sold on the same day which was amazing and I'm always so humbled when people support me and enjoy what I do.

This of course boosted my confidence with this new direction and so I threw myself into the next. I wanted another nostalgic classic film that I could put my own twist on and wanted something that would appeal more to the ladies and so I decided my next would be an Alice in wonderland inspired piece and this is what I created

Mad Hatters Tea Party

30" x 20"

Oil on Canvas

SOLD

Varnishing "Mad Hatters Tea Party"

This again sold super fast at only 30 minutes after I painted it....And so I'm onto the yellow brick road to do the next of this series.

Between these pieces I have to wait for props etc to be delivered and so I have created some fun oil sketches that are available through Room with a view fine art gallery or Jamie Leigh fine arts

Lego Marvel Super hero oil sketches

Thunderbirds Oil sketches
Collection SOLD

I also had the privilege to be invited and teach at my son Lewis' school. It was a brilliant fun day that wasn't all about the technical aspects (mainly due to the majority of the children being very young) but instead about having a go and being creative and I even got to do my own assembly, the fact Lewis walked around the entire day with a smile that beamed at how proud he was that his Daddy was at school made me incredibly proud to have done it also. and best of all I got to have a school dinner with him....plastic trays and all.

And Finally I would like to give a big thank you to Jane and Gary at Room with a view fine art gallery, after becoming one of my main stockists through my dealer Clive Ashmore they have gone above and beyond to represent myself and my work and sold several of my pieces in the last month alone included originals and study sketches. Be sure to pop in and visit if you're in the area.

Thursday, 5 November 2015

NEW WORKS

Please see below a selection of new paintings

Sweet Rock - Original Study - Oil on canvas Paper

SOLD

Trick Shot - Original Study - Oil on Canvas Paper

SOLD

War Study - Original Study - Oil on Canvas Paper

SOLD

Sweet Bowl - Original Study - Oil on Canvas Paper

SOLD

Love - Original Study - Oil on Canvas Paper

SOLD

Sweet Bowl - Original Painting

24" x 24"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

Sweet Rock - Original Painting

40"x 30"

Oil on Canvas

SOLD

Make Love not War - Original Painting

30" x 20"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

Trick Shot - Original Painting

24" x 24"

Oil on panel

SOLD

Black Gold - Original Painting

24" x 36"

Oil on Canvas

SOLD

Remember - Original Painting

24" x 24"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

Sunday, 14 June 2015

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

With each new Blog post I always tell myself that I should do them more frequently than I do, but I have kind of given myself a break about it recently. Of course I could create a blog post each time a new piece is created or when anything remotely interesting happens to me, but I kind of like waiting a couple of months between Blogs so that they have more meat to them, yeah sure they take me longer to write but I think I'd much rather be sat down in the right frame of mind with the right kind of focus and create better content for you guys to read than bang out a blog every week or so.

Anyway, I'm rambling....

Since the last Blog I have created four new pieces and I'm currently working on another.
The first piece since the portrait I created of my father, is another toy inspired piece and one of my largest pieces to date, My father quite a few years ago gave me an old wind up toy aeroplane, I think with the intention to paint, but at the time I didn't really think of anything I could use It for so put it away for safe keeping. It was only when I was sorting through a few things that I stumbled across this wonderful little toy, obviously now I was creating a few pieces with toys and so this sparked a few ideas.

I knew I didn't want to paint the plane just on it's own and had a few Ideas, but one that kept coming around again and again was a composition that included a pilot, I started to search the web to find the right kind of toy but had no real idea what I would find, until I stumbled across the most perfect toy pilot I could have ever wished for, the colours were a perfect match for the plane, the little details on his uniform etc were exactly what I was looking for, and so a purchase was made.

A Couple of days later he arrived and I set about creating some compositions until I settled on one, this composition was simple yet striking and as I knew what the title would be It would be a nod to the British dry sense of humour.....the title...."Is this a wind up"

I felt this worked as I created the pilot with a very unimpressed expression as if to say "You don't expect me to fly this...do you" whilst at the same time having the more obvious fact that it was indeed a wind up plane.

"Is this a Wind Up"

48" x 36"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

The next piece that came out of the Studio was again based on an old Vintage wind up tin toy I had purchased for my self, It was a small boxing ring with two fighters in the centre and when you wind the toy up the fighters moved backwards and forwards allowing there one riveted arm to move freely and look like they were indeed throwing punches. Again I didn't want to just paint it exactly how it was and so I thought it would be a nice to give the piece a little change so I could show a mark of respect for one of my favourite films growing up, What film??.......Rocky

The way I was going to do this was to change the shorts of the two tin fighters to the short designs that both Rocky and Apollo wore in the first film, only a true fan would notice this small change but for those of you that are not familiar here is a screen shot from the film Rocky

Film Still of the film Rocky.

Now I started painting this piece and to be honest I really struggled for some reason, I found the characters looked too cartoony and kept working on them to make them look more realistic, but then they wouldn't look like the tin material they were made of and this went on back and fourth until finally I decided to stop messing around and paint exactly what I saw

The actual Tin toy I was attempting to paint with my painting in the background

I worked at it more and more and I feel it actually came out really well and looked like the material I was trying to render with paint

"Slugger Champions"

30" x 30"

Oil on Panel

AVAILABLE

The next piece came as a commission, the client was a chief fire officer and had liked some of my toy pieces and asked if I would paint him a little Lego fire fighter character putting out a tea light, his only request was that I painted the character with a white chief's hat.

I set about creating this piece for him and loved every minute of it, the particular challenge for me whilst creating this piece was painting the smoke drifting away from the candle wick, but I was really pleased with how I rendered this and felt it came out better than I was anticipating

"FIRE" - Commission

30" x 18"

Oil on panel

SOLD

Hanging in the clients home

At this point I was craving something with reflections and glass, for those that have followed my work this is as you all know something I love to paint.

And so this piece was created

"The Gambling Game"

21" x 21"

Oil on panel

SOLD

I also had a print made of one of my paintings from my show last year and had it framed to hang in my kitchen and finally got around to hanging it on the wall....and I love it!!

Marmite print hanging in my kitchen.

So, that's you all up to date with my goings on, I'm currently working on a few commissions but as always I'll be blogging about them soon.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

FIRST BLOG OF 2015

It's the first blog of the new year, and in all fairness it's been a pretty manic few months in the Morgan household, but lets start at the beginning.

January saw my Mum and Dad celebrate there 30th wedding anniversary and I wanted to do something extra special for them and so I decided to take some time out of my schedule to create them there own original painting, but what to paint??

This was actually easy to decide because during my show in November a client had called me over who was speaking with my parents, when I went to speak with them she asked me why my Mum and Dad didn't have one of my originals, we joked a little and then I remembered...wedding anniversary!

I asked my parents "what would you even have" and my mum went on to say that she loved Walnut whips but hated the actual walnut and always broke it off to give it to my Dad, I quite liked this small gesture of togetherness and decided that this would be the subject for there Wedding anniversary present.

"You're the Walnut to my Whip"

18" x 18"

Oil on wooden panel

I also decided this year was going to be the start of a new body of work, as artists I think its good to evolve and allow that to happen naturally without forcing it.

My new work will be more narrative, sometimes this narrative will be serious, sometimes comical.

I think that the majority of the time I may use toys to explain this narrative and I'm excited to produce them as I have so many ideas.

The first piece of this new series was created during January, this idea had been playing around in my head for quite some time and was so pleased when I had finally settled on a composition.

"Make Peace Not War"

40" x 20"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

PRINTS AVAILABLE

I decided to use toy soldiers propped onto wooden toy bricks, the bricks spelling out the narrative clearly "make peace not war" like many people, I hate war and although I'm under no illusion that world peace is around the corner I'd like to think maybe one day we will all just ....get along....but I doubt it.

I decided to keep all the soldiers green so to not give them "Sides" and I changed almost all the colours of the blocks because the original colours were quite dull, thankfully this piece was really well received and sold the day after I had created it which was totally amazing and cemented my belief that this new avenue was the right way to go with my work and Im currently working on the next

Also Excitedly I have created a limited edition print run on this piece

The image below shows one of the prints next to the original painting and as you can see the colour matching is very good. Each print is 700mm x 351mm It's printed on smooth rag 300gsm paper using lucia pigment colours, each print is hand signed and a certificate of authenticity provided with matching serial numbered hologram on both the certificate and the print

Prints are sold unframed although I can provide a framing and fine art delivery service but obviously this would be at an additional cost

If you are interested then please email me on - chris_morgan13@Hotmail.com

I also decided to create a new portrait of my father, I created a portrait of him back in 2012 and so I just wanted to create another to see my improvements over the last 3 years, I have been studying skin tones and form quite intensely over the years as I really want to get good.

I was so pleased with how this piece turned out and I feel showed a true evolution in my painting, I have decided to create a few more portraits throughout the year to keep on learning. How many I will actually do I have no idea as this will be along side my still life pieces.

Portrait of my father

18" x 18"

Oil on panel

NFS

And last but certainly not least, on February 15th 2015 at 00:48 my new son Charlie Sydney Morgan arrived in the world, It's wonderful to be a father again to this little bundle and have enjoyed taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy him fully and help my wife out, My other son Lewis is totally in love with him and we now feel complete as a family unit. My drive to work even harder to provide for them has increased and I'm so thankful that my work continues to make people smile

Charlie Sydney Morgan

Saturday, 20 December 2014

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.