Etching on copper plate using hard ground, soft ground and Dutch mordant acid.
COLIN BAILEY - OIL PAINTINGS
Sticks and Stones: Exploring the textures of the East Sussex coast
COLIN BAILEY
ARTIST & PRINTMAKER
Oil Paintings
Exploring the coast between Hastings and Dungeness
HORNS OF A DILEMMA
(Dec 2007)
Oil on board
20 ins x 30 ins
CUT THE MUSTARD
(Dec 2007)
Oil on board
20 ins x 30 ins
STICKS AND STONES
(Nov 2007)
Oil on canvas
24 ins x 36 ins
New oil paintings
I am presently working on a series of larger ambiguous and more “abstract” oil paintings which I hope to have on this page soon.
These paintings are the beginning of a new body of work; exploring and developing my earlier coastal theme of shoreline objects breaking down through the action of the elements. In these I am "zooming in" on each object to the very blueprint of its construction and destruction, exploring the minute and inconsequential worlds that hide unnoticed within the much larger and more recognisable forms that we see as rocks, rust or splintered wood. These paintings attempt to chart the individual continents, islands, and oceans that make up a patch of faded and chipped paint, the canyons and ravines in a splintered piece of wood and the faint maps of ancient coastlines etched by erosion on the exposed face of a rock.
ARM’S LENGTH
(In progress)
THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND
(In progress)
BLOODY NOSE
(In progress)
MUSSEL BEACH
(In progress)
FOOD CHAIN
(In progress)
QUAY QUESTION
(In progress)
Work in progress
Paintings based on the patterns of erosion on rocks at the foot of the cliffs at
Rock-a-Nore, Hastings
Titles are provisional only
All 20 ins x 30 ins
Oil painting
on Canvas board
Notes on painting technique
Despite the apparent abstraction of these paintings I have kept fairly tightly to the form and structure of the found image, gridding the canvas board like an ordinance survey map and charting each contour and line faithfully from the photographs I have taken earlier. Using these reference points the image is drawn out using charcoal, pencils and ink. Thin washes of acrylic are added to map out the areas of colour and where necessary to soften edges and add texture.
From here I start building on the acrylic foundation with thin washes of oil paint, which I often wipe away before it has completely dried leaving faint residual stains on the canvas.
As well as painting with brushes I also often make use of sponges, rags and tissues to apply increasingly thicker layers of oil paint which can rubbed away or ground into the surface of the painting. The history or archaeology of the marks and layers of the painting are important to me. Occasionally I will brush on a paint stripper such as “Nitromors” and scrape back the layers to uncover earlier lines and ghostly forms. Slowly thicker layers of paint are added, accidental marks are not only tolerated but actively nurtured and finally thin glazes of almost transparent primary colours are layered over each other.
Colin Bailey
Hastings, Rock a Nore, Fairlight, Winchelsea beach, Rye, Camber, Rye Bay and Dungeness