Jean Noble RI

Houseboats - 18" x 19" - Acrylic on Paper

All my work begins in front of the subject, whether in the urban landscape or the countryside. I allow my eyes to relax and my thoughts to absorb what is around me, so that from the initial sketch I make a response to my surroundings. Back in my studio I interpret my sketches into paintings that once started often dictate changes and further responses to colour and shapes that I recollect from my original interpretation.

As an abstract painter, it is very important for me to keep the ‘idea’ of the original reaction to a given space and allow the viewer room for their own interpretations as well.

 Moorings - 23" x 19" - Acrylic on Paper

Some of my work is intimate, some giving depth in space and air. The density of colour, it’s transparency or opacity, the layers that build up the painting are designed to add richness to forms within the flatness of the canvas or paper.

My work is an ongoing journey. So far the end is not in sight!

My work has an ‘essential reality’ in it’s non figurative execution. Hopefully, giving an immediate contact with the viewer.

The Boat Yard - 20" x 22" - Acrylic on Paper 

All my pictures are the result of personal experience and whatever reorganisation of the subject has undergone in the process of painting, something of the colours and shapes I originally saw always remain. Paint represents space and makes it ‘actual’. I do not start with the idea, but with the experience. My source is from the ‘sensation’ of the place. The summarised compositions never entirely relinquish specific subject matter whether in cities, sea or landscape, though they exercise freedom of paint handling of an abstract nature. The paintings are about reality without resorting to imitation.

Web: www.jeannoble.com
Images and text © Jean Noble 2011

Chris Forsey RI

Cottage Cluster Port Isaac - 20" x 16" - Mixed Media

I began painting in watercolour as an antidote to the rigours of being an illustrator, a career that I fell into when offered a chance to “give it try “when I left art college. My style was tight and detailed and I have spent 30 years trying to escape that discipline, to create work that is loose , well composed, expressive, but with an underlying component of sound draughtsmanship.

End of the Afternoon - 16" x 16" - Mixed Media

My technique has evolved from straight forward watercolour into something of a hybrid, using some mixed media, ink, pastel, crayon and acrylic paint applied to a paper support, sometimes partly covered in gesso. I apply acrylic ink or acrylic paint in transparent washes over a largely tonal, expressive underpainting, then increasingly opaque acrylic paint in richer colours followed by more form and lights in thicker body colour, final detail sometimes added with very loose ink mark-making, scratching out and body colour highlights to draw the eye to a defined focal point.

St Ives Light - 16" x 16" - Mixed Media

Landscape subjects are my favourite inspiration, I enjoy structured compositions, townscapes, cliffs and coastline, treescapes, and harbours, always using the weather and lighting to try to create mood and atmosphere in the work.

Tools of my trade include broad, flat brushes, card and palette knife, dip pen, stick and finger nail, toothbrush and pipette. I enjoy the uncontrolled, the unexpected and the accident…therein lies my creative excitement.

Web: www.chrisforsey.com
Images and text © Chris Forsey 2011