Affordable Art Fair, Bristol

If you're anywhere near Bristol over the weekend, then I've got paintings there at the Affordable Art Fair at Bristol Temple Meads - AFFORDABLE ART FAIR.

This is one of them...

Cranes by the Waterfront, Bristol (Oil on linen, 24 x 26)

It's a well-known group of 4 cranes on the waterfront at Bristol, along from where Brunel's SS Great Britain is berthed (and very near the Lime Tree Gallery!).  

It's great to paint something which is a little grittier and more industrial, and to find colour in something urban.  It's also good to try and depict man-made, non-organic things, after all that landscape, and to give them a certain life and vigour.  

To do that, I have to remember to keep everything quite loose and relaxed, and not get too caught up in depicting every last strut and line.  It's about an impression of the cranes, the feeling of them standing there, rather than an exact architectural rendering.  So the complicated structure of the metalwork of the cranes is sillhouetted and contrasted against the fluffy, organic clouds, the grey of the metal against the bright blue of the sky.

If you want something exact, then you can refer to a photograph, but it's the job of an artist to go beyond that, and tell you what it was like to be there.  Hopefully that comes across.

The Fair is open all weekend.  You can see my work with the Lime Tree Gallery (Stand A10) and the Wren Gallery (Stand D9).

For a half price ticket to the Fair, go to the Wren Gallery website here, click on the Affordable Art Fair picture on the right hand side of the page, then click on the pink Affordable Art Fair icon on the right of the page to print your ticket.