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Sunflowers WIP
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Message
Posted
Im so happy to be getting back into my painting.
Life has taken a few swipes recently so the creative urge has been a bit dampened down. Ive also resurrected my Sylvs Shed at the top of the garden , a long walk.....yo get to it. It had become be one big spiders web. So I've banished all the arachnoids (hopefully). Coerced my daughter to help me tart it up , and had a fun day producing these . There is still work to be done. I started with a pen and wash/ gouache sketch . then I just covered my canvas in a lovely rich blue/ green, and away I flew. Tomorrow's busy, naughty grand children still here, vet appointment (for the dog) eye appointment ( for me) . So, maybe Tuesday.
This is acrylic on the dreaded , controversial box canvas. 
Posted
You're a born fighter Sylvia - good on you. These are exquisite, I do love sunflowers, in fact hubby brought home a bunch from the shops the other day and I spent a happy hour photographing them from every angle. I painted sunflowers a little while ago so paintings from these photos will wait a while. Enjoy your "Sylvs Shed" - sounds great, especially without the spiders!!
Posted
Well done, but that's not a box canvas. It's just ....... a canvas.
And your painting will be all the better if you don't try taking it round the corner and painting part of it on the sides. Oh yes it will.
Seriously, glad to see you've got your oomph back, after all your medical issues over the last year and more.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
I used to paint oils on box canvases and always continued the paintings around the sides because I didn't like the alternative of having just the white showing if it was unframed. Obviously this is a bone of contention with some artists. However, I don't use box canvases any more. I do have a few stretched canvases lurking around and if I do use them, I will frame them! But out of interest, why is it considered not a good thing to continue the painting around the sides because, when I first started painting, I thought that this is how you painted on a box canvas?
Posted
Adele, I wrote a very long answer to this, but realized I was ranting. So I've scrapped it.
My non-ranting reply is that a painting needs to have integrity in its own right, and that means you should be able to look at it head-on and take it in for what it is. Painting the edges of the canvas as part of the picture destroys that integrity, in my opinion - and it's the mark of amateur painters who have picked up the habit from artsy-craftsy types on television, the internet, and in certain magazines; some of them will think, as you did, that this is what artists do. But they don't. Their work wouldn't be taken seriously if they did - touches like this, and that includes painting the frame as part of the picture, which entirely misunderstands what a frame is actually for, fail to show the work proper respect and detract from it.
That's the thinking, anyway; but of course there's no compulsion to agree with it.
I realize of course that not everyone aspires to be a professional artist - I even have trouble defining what such a concept really means: but I think whether we're professionals or amateurs, following a vocation or pursuing a hobby, it's important to have professional standards - because I don't see the point of painting otherwise.
My rant version is available if required! I've saved it, so I can borrow choice phrases from it in future..... it's not in any way personal, but it does go off the deep end a bit.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
I do agree - painting round the edges really does look dated like baggy trousers (by the way I still see old men wearing them {I'm not one of them I hasten to add} where do they get them from?).
However it does depend on what you are painting - an abstract does sometimes seem to call for it - and get get away with it