Fine Art Blog

Category: Artists

Artists

  • Artist Kerry Darlington: Extraordinary Art

    Welsh artist Kerry Darlington makes amazing art work. If you dont believe me go and see for yourself. Her use of acrylic and oil, textures and use of gesso, as well as glazing the final product, makes for a very original looking style that is totally different from other artists.


    Living Tree by Kerry Darlington

    Darlington was inspired to do a degree in illustration by old picture books by authors such as Rackham, Dulac and Beardsly. Which, as well as travelling and working abroad, led her to become the artist she is today.


    Tree Of Life by Kerry Darlington

    Her first collection in 2006 was called the “Volcanic Collection” and was based on satellite photographs of Earth and quickly became very sought after. Her newest piece is no exception, Tree of life is an extremely popular piece due to its total uniqueness in the art world at the present.


    Abstract Tree by Kerry Darlington

    In 2007, Darlington was a finalist in the “Best Up and Coming Published Artist” category in the Fine Art Trade Guild Awards, and we expect to see a great deal more from this artist in the future.

    Click here to read more about illustration which inspired Kerry

    More about the Fine Art Trade Guild Awards here

    I am sure this will be the first of many posts about this extraordinary artist. Watch this space!

    Thanks for reading

    Vicki

  • Sherree Valentine Daines – art of the British social calendar!

    We thought we would start with some general background on Sherree as this is our first of many posts about this most celebrated of English artists.


    A Day At The Fair by Sherree Valentine Daines (New for Winter 09)

    This remarkable lady celebrated her 30th anniversary as an artist in 2007 by publishing her first art book ‘First Impressions.’ Having had a remarkable career so far, producing nearly 150 different limited edition prints and canvas titles, she certainly shows no sign of slowing down her pace as a published artist!

    Sherree has been televised on numerous occasions, including ‘This Morning’ on ITV with Fern Britton and has won many awards; remarkably she found time to teach ‘life art’ classes for twenty years, run a gallery & be a housewife and mother to her husband and four children!


    Ascot Splendour by Sherree Valentine Daines (New for Winter 09)

    She is well known for her figurative and impressionistic art work by the art community & has exhibited at prestigious galleries such as Tate gallery, The Barbican, The New English Art Club and The Lords Museum. Recently an art critic described her as “The face of modern British Impressionism” and shortly after Sherree was voted the UK’s leading impressionist artist. Other awards she has received include The Laing Landscape and Seascape Competition and The Young Artist of the year award from the Royal Portrait Society.


    End Of A Perfect Day by Sherree Valentine Daines (previous release)

    Renoir and Monet influence can be seen in her work, her focus on light and shadow especially. Her interest in Impressionism and Figuratism maybe attributed to her love of ‘people watching’ & then capturing their emotions and behaviour onto canvas. Sherree also experimented with many mediums while studying her art degree but decided that oil was her favourite because of the richness and texture the paint gave her work.

    Thank you

    Emily

    links:
    Royal Society of Portrait Painters
    The New English Art Club
    Claude Monet

  • Artist Sarah Graham: Chupa Chups, London Buses & Cola Bottles!

    Sarah Graham is a realist artist who paints big canvases featuring toys and sweets. Inevitably, the end product of her work is very bright and colourful, and usually looks good enough to eat!!!


    Lollipop Lollipop, limited edition box canvas by Sarah Graham

    Sarah says that she has always been interested in art since childhood & fell in love with her oil paints bought by her dad when she was 8 years old. For her, art was a natural talent, one of the few subjects she didn’t have to work hard to achieve her grades.

    Did Sarah Graham identify a gap in the market by choosing to paint toys and sweets? (something not seen in this format before) Or was it the nostalgia of remembering childhood experiences? She says that her inspiration is simply ‘colours’ & the use of these in her work and interesting textures she can achieve with oil and other mediums…as well as being a big kid at heart of course!


    Routemaster, limited edition box canvas by Sarah Graham

    Some people, on first seeing her box canvases, believe they are a clever Photoshop creation but they are not, they are limited edition prints from her original paintings! This just shows what a talented artists she is, so good that it looks computer generated and makes a picture of a cola bottle look so real that you think you could pluck it from the canvas and eat it!!!


    Penny Cola, limited edition print by Sarah Graham

    Who would have thought pictures of toy cars and Black Jacks & Chupa Chups would sell? Yet it has sold, very well indeed in fact. It is the nature of her work that has attracted so many fans and collectors, the realism, the vibrancy of colour and the fun subject mater that make Sarah Graham so popular.

    Thank you

    Vicki

    Links:
    Buy Fair Trade Sweets
    The International Sweets & Biscuits Fair

  • Artist George Somerville: A Glaswegian Kiss Anyone?

    George Somerville was born in Glasgow and is a self-taught artist, as his family couldn’t afford to send him to art college despite his obvious talent from a young age. He began his career by painting pictures of community groups and factories of different types, as he felt that they reflected his childhood, growing up in 1950’s Glasgow. However, he soon realised that his work was changing and no longer had the industrial backgrounds of his early work, and the characters were becoming more prominent.

    Have a look a couple of his new pieces…


    An Unexpected Gust (original painting) by George Somerville

    Brrr! looks chilly! just like British weather-especially Scottish weather!


    Street Party (limited edition print) by George Somerville

    Something that rarely happens these days, a street party!!

    Somerville has also released some sculptures of his work, and here is an example of how it looks:


    Blown Away (sculpture) by George Somerville

    George Somerville’s work reminds me a lot of Alexander Millar’s work, in that they both have a similar style, painting older working-class gentlemen: ‘Gadgies,’ often sideways or with their backs to the viewer. As well as this, they both have a style where the background is hazy or blurry with no detail. They also both often feature a dog in the pictures with their main characters.

    I would love to hear from you if you agree or disagree, which artist you prefer or any comments and opinions you would like to post about George Somerville!!

    Thanks for reading,

    Tanya

    Useful Links:

    Glasgow
    Northern Art Prize (Competition)
    Northern Art prize 2009 finalists announced