About Joy Gregory Creative Studio

12 November 2019

All my life I have been driven to be creative, I am recently retired but my career was in IT, as a programmer, project manager and lastly running my own web design company, all quite stressful and I found the best way to relieve the stress was to lose myself in creating. I had a particular fondness for painting nudes and was part of the "Starkers" exhibition at a Harrogate gallery.

Oil Painting Woman Warm Light

Retirement from the crazy world of IT was going to give me loads of time to really indulge my creative side, but a new project with my husband took over - we bought a bungalow in a lovely village - which needed some serious renovation - as in completely strip and totally remodel inside and out. However it did give me the opportunity to let my love of colour and design free, I did get some strange looks when we started painting but now it's finished those same people admit it works well and looks beautiful !

I made sure we included a studio/workshop, something I've never had before. I have room for all the different arts and crafts I can now find time for. I made several paintings for our new home, we have red kites that fly over the garden, so of course I had to paint them.

Around this time I discovered polymer clay and what a wonderfully versatile medium it is, I had been to several 'play days' with the South Midlands Polymer Clay Group where I learned some techniques for using it and decided to make wall sculptures, starting with the red kite shown below.

Red Kites Painting and sculpture

I was really pleased to be asked by the group to use some of my bird sculptures on the Guild stand at the Craft Show at the NEC recently.

British Polymer Clay Guild

Polymer clay is so versatile, I am constantly thinking up new ways to use it, from larger sculptures, clocks, butterflies to smaller jewellery items like brooches. I am also working on a new range of necklaces and earrings that will be in my shop very soon.   

Everything in my shop is designed and hand made just by me, I hope you enjoy looking at them. If you have any questions please get in touch and I'll do my best to answer. I will be adding another blog soon with information on polymer clay and how I use it.

Painting Bluebell Woods

24 September 2019

Painting Bluebell Woods Finished

 

The first 'Bluebell Woods' was painted as a commission piece for the lovely people we are renting a flat from while we renovate a bungalow for our new home, they own and maintain these woods and I often walk through them as they are just a few yards from where I'm living. When it was finished I decided to paint another one for our new home - just need the building to be finished so I somewhere to hang it ! The woods were so beautiful in the Spring when the bluebells were flowering and I took many photos, searching for the best view. I eventually decided on this one, I liked the path between the trees leading the viewer into the painting, the sweep of bluebells down the slope from left to right and, most importantly the play of light and dark as the sun shone through the trees from the right. The painting is 4ft by 2 ft (oil on canvas) so I had to put several photos together. 

Painting Bluebell Woods Reference

 

Stage 1 Drawing:

I almost always start a painting by covering the canvas with a single colour, using the main colour of the scene - in this case a green, this tones down the glaring white and provides a background colour which is much easier to judge tone and colour against than white. Then I make a rough drawing, taking care to get proportions and placement correct. The actual painting is a much lighter green, I had to enhance the photo so you can see the drawing.

Painting Bluebell Woods - stage 1

Stage 2 Colour/Tone Blocking:

Next I start putting in blocks of colour using a large brush, it's important not to get too picky at this stage. What I'm trying to do is establish the main areas of colour and crucially get the tones right. I'm not too concerned that the colours are accurate at this stage. The success of a painting like this rests mainly on the play of light, to get the effect of light through the trees I need to establish the lights and darks early on. Don't be afraid to make the darks really dark and the lights really light, probably more exaggerated than the original photo, if you overdo it you can always correct later, but it's much easier if the contrast is well established than if it's wishy washy.

Colours I used: zinc white, permanent green, permanent yellow medium, lemon yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna. For the bluebells: cobalt blue with a touch of permanent violet medium. 

Painting Bluebell Woods - Blocking In

Stage 3 Painting the Main Areas:

So now I'm starting to paint the main areas with more detail, but not overdoing it yet. It's important not to get carried away on a small area, but to paint the whole painting at each level of detail. As this is a large painting I will paint it in stages, for a smaller painting I would be painting it much more as a whole. I'm also now being much more accurate with colour. I started on the areas of brown bark chipping at the bottom of the painting, then laid in the colour for the grass areas and the bluebells and roughly painted the trees. I'm taking care to make sure I get the tones right, standing back often to see it from a distance to make sure I'm maintaining the contrasts properly.

Painting Bluebell Woods - Main Areas

 

Stage 4 Painting the Background Trees:

Next I'm painting in the background trees, again looking at tones to get the feel for the light coming through the trees. I'm also looking at the shapes that are emerging, it's impossible to paint every leaf so you need to paint an impression of massed leaves, following the photo in general but making sure the shapes work. Someone once said, or I read it somewhere, 'you're not copying a photo, you're painting a picture' and I think of this every time I paint. So feel free to change things, add more trees where it works, beef up the contrasts, whatever the painting needs. Step back frequently and check the painting as a whole and identify areas that aren't quite right. Have another look after a few days, any problem areas will be more obvious after not seeing it for a while.

Painting Bluebell Wood - Background Trees

 

Stage 5 Getting More Detailed:

Now I'm finishing the background trees and starting to add more detail to the foreground. I'm also going over the trees to add more light and shade where I feel it needs it. I've left some areas to the right as I need to let the paint dry before I can paint the branches over the sky and the lighter leaves on the tree to the right. This is my favourite stage, when you can really see the painting coming together. 

Painting Bluebell Woods - More Detailed

Stage 6 The fine Details:

Now I can get really detailed. I've completed the trees on the right, added more detail to the rest of the trees and painted in some branches. I've finished the path, making it narrower and more like a woodland path than a path in a park. I can at last paint the foreground bluebells, adding stems, their base leaves and more tufts of grass. I've taken a fan brush and gone over the sweep of bluebells with both a lighter and darker colour to add variation.

 

Bluebell Woods - Detail

Bluebell Woods - Detail1

I hope this was useful to you, I love to hear your comments, you can add one below.

 

 

Making Suncatchers

29 June 2018

Making suncatchers


The sun’s shining and I’m enjoying making more sun catchers. I have a new stock of some lovely crystals, including some Swarovski call ‘metallic sunshine’ and some great faceted large crystals which really sparkle and throw rainbows in the sun. Here I'm making the purple spiral sun catcher you can see below, using Swarovski AB clear and fuschia crystals. These look lovely with the sun shining through them.



Still working from a small table in our rented flat while we wait for our renovated bungalow to be finished, I'll have a dedicated studio where I can really have fun crafting and painting, I have lots of plans for some exciting new jewellery ranges when I have somewhere to set up properly.