Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog Days in the life of Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:38:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Madder Pool http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/02/03/madder-pool/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/02/03/madder-pool/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:53:38 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=664 Although no Madder Lake pigment was used in this painting the notoriously fugitive rose colour did suggest the title for this latest one to be developed from observations of puddles in the park. Lake pigments are manufactured by precipitating a dye, the madder root in this instance, with an inert binder, usually a metallic salt. Although the word lake derives from lac, a resinous secretion, rather than a body of water, the association of a small puddle with a lake was appealing when part of the interest in this series is with the ambiguities of scale. The binder for the rose madder pigment has to be white and before metallic salt, chalk, white clay and crushed bones, were used. Crushed twigs and leaves immersed in puddles therefore seemed like another reference to the precious madder root pigment.

Madder Pool 100x140cms Oil on canvas

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/02/03/madder-pool/feed/ 0 Leaching Yelow (Dyptych) http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/24/leaching-yelow-dyptych/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/24/leaching-yelow-dyptych/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:45:20 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=655 The observation of soil erosion in a small puddle suggested a leaching of colour caused by one element on another, and a good starting point for a painting. Working in themed series means that I work on a number of paintings at any one time. This means that some are abandoned because they just don’t seem to come together. But others, like this one, are set aside and tantalise with the promise of possible resolution. The advantage of this delay is that with time thought processes can slightly alter or a painting can offer up a solution; this could be a radical overhaul or a slight change of colour,tone or detail, or simply an insistence that the original idea was strong enough after all. After some doubt the original conviction returned sufficiently to press on to completion.

Leaching Yellow (dyptych) 100x134cms Oil on linen

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/24/leaching-yelow-dyptych/feed/ 0 New Digital Prints http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/03/new-digital-prints/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/03/new-digital-prints/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:11:30 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=625 These prints have been made using a combination of processes which start with an initial study that is used as the starting point for a monotype on glass. The monotype is then used as the starting point for the final digital print.

Birch Wood 25x35cms

Burnt Bush 30x30cms

Red Shadow 30x30cms

Accidental 30x25cms

Red Earth 24x34cms

Orange Run 26.5x34cms

Green Flash 30x33cms

Reeds Cuckmeere 27x40cms

 

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2012/01/03/new-digital-prints/feed/ 0 Sketch Book http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/10/25/sketch-book/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/10/25/sketch-book/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:04:11 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=578 Wanting a break from substance abuse in the studio I have decided to take advantage of the warm Autumn weather to get out into the fresh air with watercolours and a sketchbook…

 

Breaking – Mixed media on paper 20x28cms

 

Downscape – Mixed media 20x28cms

 

 

Devil’s Dyke – Mixed media 28x20cms

 

Devil’s Dyke 2 – Mixed media 20x28cms

 

Drystone Wall – 20x28cms mixed media

Gorse – 20x28cms mixed media

 

Reeds – 20x28cms mixed media

 

Hawthorn Sussex – Mixed media 21x21cms

 

 

 

 

 

 

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/10/25/sketch-book/feed/ 0 Sussex Downs http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/09/20/sussex-downs/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/09/20/sussex-downs/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:15:27 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=595 It was some time after moving to Sussex that I began to see the Downs as possible subject matter. Initially this landscape of rolling hills seemed too bland. But centuries of man’s mark-making on the surface, together with the ever changing moods began to fascinate. After a break of many years I have once more returned to explore both elements.

Disused Chalkpit Sussex 46x63cms Oil on canvas

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/09/20/sussex-downs/feed/ 0 Crystal Palace Park http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/08/13/crystal-palace-park/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/08/13/crystal-palace-park/#comments Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:00:32 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=589 The seasonal changes to the surface of the paths continues to provide motifs for a wide range of approaches to paint application like spilling, staining dragging and layering. Chance can surprise or obliterate, some paintings work and some don’t, so knowing when to stop becomes the key decision. If the surface offers no further opportunities the work has to be abandoned;perhaps this one will make it through.

Autumn Path 61x76cms Oil on canvas

 

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/08/13/crystal-palace-park/feed/ 0 Routemasters http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/07/12/routemasters/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/07/12/routemasters/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:44:42 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=530 Another signed reproduction of the 1982 painting Routemasters was ordered this month and the buyer asked me for a history of the original painting. A few of the signed reproductions are still available so here is that history for anyone else who may be interested.

Routemasters 1982 Oil on canvas 110x150cms

 
In the early 1980s I was working on a series based on observations of daily life on the high street. I would take up a position and simply observe the daily theatre of ordinary lives; brief encounters;entering and leaving shops; walking dogs; tussles with children; crossing the road and boarding and leaving buses. These small dramas could have taken place on almost any high street in the country except of course those involving the iconic Routemasters. After prolonged observation of the arrivals and departures at a bus stop on Chiswick High Road I decided on a composition that would capture both. I divided the canvas exactly in half and with a slight distortion of the advertisement boards was able to show both the arrival of one bus and the departure of another. At that time I was showing at the Piccadilly Gallery in Cork Street, but when the director saw the finished painting he  said, “You can’t split a composition in half like that!” I was disappointed by this response so I took it to Fischer Fine Art in St James’ and they offered to include it in a forthcoming show on British Realism. The following year Routemasters was included in a show entitled 8 British Realists at the Louis K Meisel gallery in New York. After prolonged discussions with the The London Transport Museum came to nothing I decided not to show the painting again and it remained in storage until 2010 when it was included in my show Time Passages at the Bigger Picture Gallery.

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/07/12/routemasters/feed/ 0 Landform http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/06/09/may-paintings/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/06/09/may-paintings/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:34:59 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=496 Five fast oils on board to relieve the strain of the slow staining process of the recent large site specific oils on canvas. The references to earlier imagined primordial landscapes are obvious, once more provoking thoughts about land-forming forces. The freer work on board also encourages more spontaneous approaches to compositional possibilities and use of  colour.

Oil on board 61x61cmsLandslide 2011 Oil on board 61x61cms

 

Landfish 2011 Oil on board 61x61cms

Landslip 2011 Oil on board 61x61cms

Landrise 2011 Oil on board 80x61cms

Landsea Oil on board 61x80cms

 

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/06/09/may-paintings/feed/ 0 Green http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/04/04/green/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/04/04/green/#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:32:51 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=459

]]> http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/04/04/green/feed/ 0 Folkestone Surfaces http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/03/04/surfaces-2/ http://guybeggs.com/blog/2011/03/04/surfaces-2/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:01:18 +0000 Guy Beggs http://guybeggs.com/blog/?p=431

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