2015 - The year thats been

"You can't use up creativity, the more you use, the more you have" - Oscar Wilde

This inspiring quote proved true in this amazing year that has just been. At the end of 2015 I have to say that it has been one of the most incredible years, jam packed with opportunities and I am grateful for the wonderful new creative experiences that came my way.

My New Year's resolution on 1 January 2015 was to STAY OPEN. Open to new ideas and opportunities and developments. I knew it was going to be a busy, special year with new challenges, to include a New York licensing fair and giving a presentation at an art conference as well as a whole new direction for my practice: online teaching.

After much thinking, and with the encouragement of my fellow artists and designers, in February I finally decided to offer an online art course. I developed a still life course, and over the next 7 months I worked on, and reworked and recorded video tutorials for the first  Explore Colour course. The courses sold out within days and I will be offering more options in 2016.

The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea is where I have an exhibition every March, represented by Will's Art Warehouse. The gallery also represented me at the Hong Kong AAF and Hampstead Heath AAF later in 2015.

In April I was artist in residence at the Reading Contemporary Art Fair where I guided visitors in the creation of an interactive painting.

Open studios: I have only one event per year when my studio at home is open for three days to visitors. During the first long weekend of May I take part in the Henley Arts Trail. New paintings, work in progress, and items such as my glass casts are available directly from my studio.

In May I also travelled to New York for SURTEX, the licensing fair. It was a new experience to me, and new directions  and licensing outcomes will be realised in 2016.

Work further afield: Adairs, a department store in Australia licensed three of my images and these are now available as  limited edition prints in their stores.

There are two new UK galleries now representing me as well, information on exhibitions with them to follow in the coming months.

Last summer I was a demonstrating artist at Art in Action, a wonderful four day long creative event promoting all kinds of art disciplines. I demonstrated alternative acrylic painting techniques and visitors were involved in creating interactive paintings. A very energetic and enjoyable event and I loved being part of it. I will be demonstrating again in 2016.

Once again I did a community project involving children and adults for BIG DRAW 2016, the theme was Every drawing tells a story. I used letters as inspiration for a large greeting card drawing project called #lettergardens. Around 1000 people participated in this project, including local schools, visitors to the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair, and art clubs and schools in America and Argentina. Wonderful and original artworks were created using the same template, see blogpost below.

The highlight of this year for me has to be the GOLDEN Gathering, a conference for GOLDEN artists-educators in Fort Lauderdale in early December. As an Artist Educator for this outstanding professional artists' material, I did a presentation about interactive art projects. There were over eighty artists from around the world, a fantastic and unique event and I learned much from it as well.After the conference we attended Art Miami and Art Basel over four days. I exhibited in the Square Foot exhibition with Projects Gallery. Thisvisual overdose was followed by a trip I took down the Florida Keys ending in Key West. I have an inkling that my impromptu visit to the Audubon Museum will result in an interesting body of work based on his inspiring copper engravings of American birds.

As the new year is just starting out, I am looking forward to another busy and eventful year. The last surprise of 2015 was the nomination of my painting Summer's Eve for  Artists and Illustrator's: Artist of the Year contest. It made the shortlist of 50, and here is the link for voting online. http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/MacLeod2015

The paintings will be exhibited at The Mall Galleries in London in February when the winner will be announced. I say this is a surprise, as I have no idea who nominated me and only learnt of the contest when I was told I had made it to the shortlist.

I supported two charities with three small paintings being auctioned and raffled this year, and thanks to the support from many they raised over £1000 for Starfish Greathearts and Sightsavers.

Kicking off 2016 I created another #drawwithletters painting. 

A timelapse video of the creating process HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The end result is Tom cat. This 30x30cm acrylic on canvas painting is now available with all proceeds going to an animal charity in Cape Town South Africa. (Offers over £200)

Some news about to happen in the next few months: In February my work will be exhibited at the Brussels Affordable Art Fair through Will's Art Warehouse. I've worked on a brand new month long e-course Creative Leap, this will start in February. More exhibition dates will be announced in January.

I look forward to see what 2016 will bring and I wish everyone a colourful and happy new year.

Warm regards,
Este

Drawing with letters

Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.          Jonathan Swift

It's Big Draw time again. Last year's Question mark creative challenge was great, more than 1200 children took part in the drawing project globally.
This year I a drawing project, fun and a bit different, for people from everywhere to join in, not just children. 
The idea is simple and is based on a creative exercise to engage with shapes and forms. 
How it works: 
An A4 template with the handwritten words t e l l  m e  a  s t o r y printed upside down is to be used to create a flower garden drawing with.  

The letters, acting as shapes, to be incorporated in a drawing of a flower garden, only black lines, no colour to be used. 

This template is also a handy card when done in the UK at different venues. One thousand cards had been printed and available to be used as long as stocks last; see The Big Draw for details. 

On World Kindness day Friday13 November 2015, the completed card artwork is to be given to an adult to be coloured in. The idea is to give it to someone in need of a thank you or cheering up. The colouring aspect is in response to the trend for grown ups to colour in. I came upon the idea of creating a card and colouring in combination after one of my paintings was featured in the Autumn edition of Colour.in Fitting into my Creative Community Project concept it is an added bonus to be doing something fun and art related in schools and art fairs involving the wider public as well. 

Join in this project, schools, groups, individuals, artists, young and old, any time from now until 13 November when I will be doing a live Periscope letter drawing session from 7-7:30pm at the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair.

The card as it appears, A3 size, to be folded in half, on the back page is a finished #lettergarden, a drawing I made from the words 'Every drawing tells a story' (upside down)  this can be coloured in as well, lots of birds, insects, hearts and eyes are hidden, a little bit of fun for eyes to seek out and colour in. Here is the Dropbox link to download the template. You can download the A3 size, of just the front of the card with the large writing on it.

See the youtube chanel  for videos of letter drawings. 

Alongside the purpose of this drawing project to promote art and creativity in the community I'm raffling a painting for Sightsavers, a vision charity. 

Donate £2 or more to Sightsavers via Justgiving Every £2 buys a virtual ticket. An original painting of 30x30cm, based on the concept of letters in art is being auctioned.

Lettergardens, the original painting being raffled.

Developing an online painting course.

This is me doing interactive painting with visitors at the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair last November.

Around six months ago I decided to create an online painting course.

The reason for this was a demand from people following my fb page and encouragement from fellow artists and friends. I occasionally do workshops and projects to promote creativity in the community, but time is often an issue and creating my own art has taken 

Having thought long and hard about how  this will proceed I looked in depth at the way I create.

My working process and methodology is unorthodox and very intuitive, focussing on creating calm from a rather chaotic and colourful background.

Starting off with colour shapes

Completed still life.

A busy visual to start off a landscape painting.

The landscape painting nearing completion.

To demonstrate this practically in the course I have experimented with shapes, colours, a variety of techniques and drawing marks. A tentative formula and working process to be implemented in this course will include live elements and interaction thanks to digital technology with virtual 'hands on' elements to be included by myself drawing digitally on students' developing artworks to offer guidance without actually touching the physical item.

It's quite tricky to explain, and I will release a short video to explain the process in more detail. 

Meanwhile, I've documented the creative process of one of my still life paintings in a time lapse video and demonstrated some of the techniques to be used in the September course.  

I limit places on the course to 60 in order to interact with students effectively. A further course might be added in October as the September one is nearly full.Further courses on Landscape painting and a more Floral design based option will be offered early 2016.If you are interested in the course, have a look for detail on the link at the top or see  www.explorecolour.com


Explore Colour Online Course 12-20 September from Este Macleod on Vimeo.

Registration opens on Monday 29 June with the option to benefit from an early bird 15% discount with preregistered students being offered spaces first.
Early bird discount is offered for 24 hours until 12pm 30 June GMT.

Course price is £150, with the discount, £ 127.50

A deposit of £27.50 by end of June will secure a space at the discounted rate in the course from 12-20 September.
Payment of £100 is payable on 1 August onwards. 

SURTEX

Wow what a week! 

I've just returned from #New York where I exhibited a selection of my paintings as images together with an art collective at #SURTEX from 17-19 May.

The show is intended for designers and agents showing new surface decoration images for licensing. Applications for designs range from textiles to billboards, greeting cards, publications wall art, wall paper, rugs and interior design.

I exhibited in a booth with Cultivate Art Collective, a selection of nine designers from the UK, Canada and USA. 

As this was my debut licensing event it was an interesting experience and not knowing what to expect I was quite amazed at some of the visitors who approached me enquiring about licensing options. Certainly some pleasant surprises and more will be revealed in due course.

The brighter work seemed to attract a lot of attention from visitors and hopefully some of these bold designs will become textiles in the future. Watch this space!

Three of my paintings, two landscapes and one still life will also shortly be available exclusively to Adairs in stores across Australia as part of their Wall art collection. 

Black hills

Stephanotis plant with spoon

Blue skies

Colourful birds

Find the bird.

I'm now back home in the UK and very happy to get stuck into completing paintings for several exhibitions happening over summer.

'Yellow flower' 

This painting has raised over £200 so far through the online Just giving raffle and a winner will shortly be drawn from the many donators who pledged £2 or more towards a very worthy cause benefitting Starfish greathearts AIDS charity

Under a £100 to be raised to get to the target, to be in with a chance please donate on: Just giving

ETSY: New prints and a few originals will be available in my store this weekend.. 

Manic, Magic May

I love the month of May, it's often the busiest time in my calendar as well.


OPEN STUDIO:
The first long weekend of May is the time I have my studio doors open during the Henley Arts Trail, 2-4 May, it was a busy and brilliant weekend with over 220 visitors, many repeat customers and several new faces. Fourteen paintings sold as well as sculptural glass and ceramics.

EXHIBITION:
I'm taking part in an annual Still life exhibition at Will's Art in London. It started on 8 May and continues until the end of June.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!
A bit of travelling for me will happen as well this month as I am going to New York next Friday to show new designs and images at the SURTEX trade fair,  happening from 17-19 May at the Javits centre.

I am starting to get excited about the eminent New York adventure, meeting some of my fellow artists and designers, buyer, attending seminars and visiting a few museums and galleries as well.

FURTHER AFIELD:
A selection of my paintings can be seen at the Hong Kong Affordable Art fair from 22 - 24 May I am represented by Will's Art.

ETSY: 
My store is one year old, to celebrate over 100 sales in the first year I am having an offer of free shipping on all orders over £15. 
Offer expires on Monday 11 May. 

ONLINE COURSE:
I am continue to work on the EXPLORE COLOUR online course to happen this September. If interested please have a look at the link at the top, and get in touch if you would like to be added to the list.

Open Studios 2015

It's that time of year again.
From 2 to 4 May I am taking part in the Henley Arts Trail.
Everyone is welcome to visit my studio over these days from 11am-6pm.
New work, still lives, landscapes and colourful floral and bird paintings will be available.
Many of these paintings had been created whilst I was visiting South Africa.

More paintings will be added in this post shortly.
If you'd like to visit see more details on HAT15
All items in my ETSY shop will be available at a 15% discount, use coupon MERRYMAY15

Blue Sky is one of these paintings, and is about to be licensed for wall art prints. The original is available.

Busy birds acrylic on canvas 60x60cm. Available

Birds and Butterflies acrylic on canvas 40x40cm Available.

The Changing Season

I love springtime. At the moment with winter turning into spring it's lovely to see things growing as the days are getting longer. 

Seasons, nature, travel and the environment inspire me to create.

I also love colour, it is probably the most important and continuous inspiration for my paintings. 

Here is a documentation of a 40x40cm acrylic on textured canvas. 

The creation of Blue skies:

I started on a black gesso background. Applying thin layers of colours to create a texture and rythm to build upon.

A meadow with a small bit of sky started to appear. GOLDEN high flow and fluid paint is used for thin but opaque layers and marks.

White details are over painted with transparent washes of acrylic matte medium and GOLDEN* fluid paint.

More detail is added on an blocks of colour defining the fields, sky and trees.

The final outcome.

Fresh bright greens and little pink flashes to catch the eye and lift the heart.

This painting was sold before the paint have dried

Prints are now available on https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EsteMacLeodDesigns

An A3 print will be given away to someone on the mailing list. 

To join the list either go to http://www.estemacleod.com or sign up on the top right hand side of the page.

Winner of the print will be emailed.

I'm currently working on the content of an online painting course. In September a two weekend long workshop exploring colour will be offered. Students will get to experiment with new acrylic painting techniques as developed by myself in my practise. Using paints such as FLUID, HIGH FLOW, HEAVY BODY and OPEN along with painting medium, it's bound to be engaging, fun and informative.

Spaces are limited to sixty students.

If interested please email este@estemacleod.com

The Creative process

I am regularly asked about the way in which I work and my creative process. How I plan the painting beforehand, and the application and use of colour. As a painter I do not work in mixed media generally, I paint exclusively in acrylics, Golden artist materials in particular.. This is s wonderful material with a high pigment content in the paint and a wide selection of mediums and pastes to create texture and variety.  I used to paint in oil paint, but find this a better alternative with paints ranging from Heavy Body to High flow. Paintings mostly start off with a black gesso surface occasionally mixed with a texture paste such as pumice gel or moulding paste. At the moment I enjoy working quite freely by applying colours to the surface in a selection of flowing patterns, organic geometric shapes, drips and marks. There is some planning involved and colour sections are kept relatively clean and defined. These marks and shapes inform the next process of finding the correct composition for the artwork as it comes to the fore from a the busy background. There is some structure to this, I add some painterly brush marks and an interesting surface as this helps to create interesting areas to work with.

Once I have figured out the direction I want the painting to go, I use the colour and marks to guide the process. I find this way of working create a different kind or energy and use of shapes other than the marks I would normally create when making a painting and planning a composition before I start, I use this way of working for still life, landscape and more design led paintings.

The painting develop further as layers of paint is applied mixed with a matte painting medium.

More layers  and colours of paint are applied.

In this case I finalised the painting 'Sunday morning' with a dry brush technique using Golden' titanium white fluid paint.  If you would like to see a time lapse video of a painting being created sign up to the mailing list. If you are interested in doing a two weekend long e-course focusing on colour, creativity and mark making, sign up as well. More detail to follow next week. The course will take place in the second half of 2015. 

Blueberries.

Here's another painting's progress:

Starting with coloured texture areas that allow me to 'see' objects and let the painting flow from there.

I continue to fill in the negative space.

More detail added

And the final outcome

Blueberries 30x30cm acrylic on deep stretched canvas. 

Both paintings are deep stretched on canvas and available.

See other available paintings and prints: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EsteMacLeodDesigns

Spring is in the air..

..and so is love.

For this week ending with Valentine's day, I have been creating some paintings featuring hearts.

A bit of love and colour in these paintings to brighten up your day.

I'll also be picking a winner of a print of a brand new image. 

To go into the draw just leave the number you guessed in the comments box. The question is:

'How many hearts shapes can you seen in the painting 'Spring is in the air'

Winner picked from all entries next Saturday 14 February, regardless of the answer.

'Spring is in the air' 40x40cm acrylic on linen. Original available, limited edition of 50 40x40cm prints available on https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EsteMacLeodDesigns

Two 22x30cm deep stretched paintings are available as well from my studio.

Pink bird 22x30cm Acrylic on deep stretched canvas. Available 

'Canary' 22x30cm acrylic on deep stretched canvas. Available.