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| 'Salad for One' - Ink and gouache on recycled card 13.5 x 13.5cm |
Well, so far this year I've not been very good at blogging - one post for the whole of January!
Hopefully this won't be my only post for the month of February. My excuses are as follows:
1) I've decided to focus more on gouache animal portraits and less on little illustrations and so I've not been producing a whole lot of art so far as each piece takes that bit longer to complete; and
2) I've been very distracted (in a good way) with my Reiki stage 2 because although I completed the course over two days in January, I have 3 different case studies to complete before I get my certificate which means I am then officially a Reiki Practitioner (if I decided I wanted to make a career of it).
Also, we went to Glasgow on Friday 24 January to see one of our favourite bands from the early 90s (although S and I didn't know each other then it turns out we shared a love for Del Amitri, a band that really should've had much more success than they did). It was in the Hydro - a new purpose built venue - and it was brilliant. We had a fabulous meal in one of the several vegan restaurants in Glasgow as well beforehand so it was like a proper night out which S and I rarely have these days preferring the comfort of a sofa, an open fire and a good movie instead!
On the Saturday we went to the Jack Vettriano retrospective - a collection of over 100 pieces that are all normally in private collections all over the world. I love his work - to me it's like the flip side to Norman Rockwell - that same wonderful 1950s era but instead of just the innocent bright side, Vettriano's work is more about the dark and dangerous 'film noir' side to that era. S bought me a book on his work and one of the writers described his work as making you feel nostalgic for an era you didn't even live through and that's exactly it.
What I love most is that he is hugely successful despite being self taught and even though the Scottish art world criticised his work (probably because he wasn't classically trained and his subject matter was inspired by actual things such as a song title or a scene from a movie rather than pretentious nonsense).
Anyway, he inspired me to try a little homage to one of his most famous pieces 'The Singing Butler' but with my own favourite subject matter. It's a work in progress and it may or may not work but I'm looking forward to giving it a go.
In the meantime, you're probably wondering what all this has to do with a little bunny rabbit having a quiet veggie lunch? I came across this photo on my favourite photo reference site - Paint my Photo - when I was looking for reference photos for the piece I mentioned above and because I'm in love with the several rabbits who are currently living at the rescue centre I wanted to paint it. I take them in carrots or curly kale every time I volunteer there and I swear their little eyes light up when they see me now as they know I come bearing veggie gifts!!
