Murals of The Imagination

Like so many others I have more than dabbled with my artistic side, and generally come to the conclusion that mine has been on a permanent holiday since I left behind finger painting. Right through school I was constantly doodling and scribbled in the margins of every jotter. Losing my 'art work' in a house move shortly after leaving school seemed like a giant cosmic sign.

However of late I have suffered from crazed notions that my art is not only worthwhile, but also beautiful. Needless to say the old adage of beauty being in the eye of the beholder still applies, but I dare say there's a partially sighted person out there whom would fall in love with my work. Unfortunately for them, most of my work is firmly attached to the walls of my house.

When the urge to be creative wallops me I have an awful tendency to work on the nearest surface to hand, and I have a lot of walls.

This a mixed media painting stemming from my memories of the novel Voyage of The Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. I loved the series as a child and it still seems to feature quite clearly in my memories. This was done to brighten up a spare patch of wall direct onto wall paper. I used emulsion tinted with watercolours, coloured pencils, crayons and even permanent marker for the outlines and highlights.

Another mixed media mural depicting a space landscape. I have always found the lure of sci-fi and fantasy to be a strong one, and have spent many happy hours travelling with various authors through their worlds. Again I used emulsion tinted with watercolours, coloured pencils, crayons and even permanent marker for the outlines and highlights. There is plans for a dragon to be perched on the near mountain similar to Anne McCaffery novel covers. My confidence in it resembling anything other than a blob, is a little shy, and I'm loath to ruin the outcome.

This is a stylised view from the window of a previous home in Findochty on the North East coast of Scotland near Buckie. Depicting the War Monument overlooking the bowling green and harbour. This village holds a lot of memories and associations for me, and a lot of my 'formative' years were spend procrastinating in the shadow of the monument. This was done in water colours with coloured pencil highlights and crayon blocking to fill in the texture. I especially love the wash around the sunset, I feel I achieved a rain like appearance in this area.
To be honest I think the rest is a bit sketchy and has more 'fixing' in its future.

This is the latest one, a quite generic mountain scape. The water colour washes are completed and the crayon blocking has been done. I have started detailing on the buildings and, though there are areas that look finished already, it has a way to go yet.

 There is something to be said for creativity, it definitely makes a rooms decor unique. I have a few more spaces yet, and I'm more than willing to share the end results. Please feel free to comment, every one appreciates feedback once in a while. You don't even have to worry about being polite, I'm very thick skinned!