Category Acrylic Paintings

WHITE DATSUN.

Al Brown Artist. Leave a comment

I came across this painting of mine from a few years ago on another website and got to look at it through fresh eyes. The sentiment of it’s original concept still moves me today!
Acrylic on 36 x 36″ canvas. 
Adela Legarreta Rivas 1979.
Original image by Enrique Metinides.

The tragic scene in my painting was originally captured by photographer Metinides and is of Adela Legarreta Rivas, a Mexican journalist. Rivas had visited a beauty parlour where she had her hair and nails done in preparation for a press conference later that day. On her way to meet her sister she was hit and killed by a white Datsun on Avenida Chapultepec in Mexico City. In the scene her perfectly manicured nails, expensive jewellery, makeup and hair look almost flawless was it not for a single line of blood running across her nose and face.
In painting this scene I explored my own ideas of death and often use circles seen in the background to represent reincarnation. We hang onto material things and ego to boost our self esteem then suddenly a scan or an x ray can change all of our preconceptions of life in a second. A quote I heard sums this up quite eloquently, ‘Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live!‘

TROUBLED SUNSET AT CROW.

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Troubled Sunset At Crow & Sundown At The Point 24 x 30″ acrylic on canvas. I had a terrible dream about waking up in the night and hearing repetitive thumps in the dark. I looked out and could see distant nuclear mushroom clouds glowing on the horizon it was Russia’s last gambit. In the dream I nudged my wife and said that I loved her and our time had come! After photo-montaging and adjusting several of my images the outcome is the preliminary image above. I tend to work with Adobe on my laptop or Procreate on an iPad and work up the images, a kind of preliminary sketching before finally stabilising the final image! Now to the canvas and paints.
I’ve decided to paint two pictures one with my usual process the other with looser more spontaneous brush strokes. In progress…

Below a triptych almost. The middle, and much larger painting already sold from last year.

LOOKING TO GLASTONBURY 2022.

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Well now it seems like Glastonbury 2022 is going ahead. So as usual I’m working as a veteran with the Recycling Crew and will reside in Tom’s Field near Worthy Farm; Tom’s Field is named after the old horse that used to live there! We have a large marquee where we have wonderful free vegetarian food and entertainment, not to mention the wonderful local Singing Cider. We’re pretty self contained so we could just stay there and still have a fantastic festival. I love meeting up with old Festival friends, drinking the cider and chatting by our camp fires with the thump of distant music.
So almost two weeks to go and after a long lay off we’ll meet again in Tom’s Field and drink and remember lost friends and colleagues who’ll be missed! Al

I’m returning home to Glastonbury Town,
To fly so high I hope we never come down.
Oh come back to dreams and escape from strife,
A few days, an escape, from our hum drum life!

LEAVING HEDDON’S MOUTH.

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An acrylic painting inspired by a walk down to Heddon’s Mouth from Hunters Inn. We walked North up along the South West Coast Path from the Heddon Valley and had a picnic there amongst the rocks enjoying the views up and down the North Devon Coast. This view is looking toward Crock Point, Lee Abbey, Valley of the Rocks and in the distance Countisbury. 750 x 500mm acrylic on canvas.

The Thistle Walk.

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The Thistle Walk an acrylic 900 x 600mm inspired by a walk along the path which tops the inner Bank leading to Crow Point. On this particular occasion the path was flanked with wild looking thistles. The outer bank which used to protect a piece of land called Horsey Island has now breached and the once green space now looks like the Somme! It is too late for the wildlife there and now the salt water is beginning to change the ecosystem on the inner marsh. Some argue Horsey Island was reclaimed from the Estuary for farming and now has been reclaimed by the natural elements!

Storm over The Lizard.

Al Brown Artist. 2 Comments

This painting is inspired by a walk around the Lizard Peninsula from Church Cove around the Lizard to Kynance. It was quite an overcast day and when I arrived at Kynance Cove I walked along the quiet beach admiring the wonderful view. Immediately a massive rainstorm approached and I took cover from the rain in one of the caves there. When the storm had passed over out came the sunshine and the beach was illuminated with an earie neon light. Looking out along the coast this storm had already engulfed The Lizard in it’s dark focused cloud. Oddly it looked somewhat like an atomic bomb explosion, I was taken by how the white of the water’s edge looked against the dark foreboding background. This image was originally taken on my mobile phone, and now an acrylic on 900 x 600mm canvas.

In a place called Douma.

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A painting entitled In a place called Douma, 500 x 350mm acrylic on paper. Painted from an image from the Free Syria Media Hub on Twitter. The title of the picture post was “Real Rivers of blood do flow deep and fast in a place called Douma”. I would photo credit this but sadly couldn’t read the lettering.

Ghosts from photographs past
Remind us of times that couldn’t last
They’re reflections of our golden years
Our hopes, aspirations and growing fears