Red and blue and brownie

Here are two new paintings, plus two little things called " art brownies" I've done for this place in Canada. The brownies were fun, I kept going back to them and adding things in between other stuff - sticking on stuff, painting, screwing in bits of metal. I wanted them to be completely different from what they started out as - two lumps of wood.

The paintings continue my interest in frames. It always interests me how frames actually change how pictures can look, to the extent that they become part of the painting - yet in many cases when you see old paintings in galleries the framing wasn't carried out by, nor even suggested by the artist. This was something I was interested in many years ago - the idea of framing work within work so that the work is integrally framed by the artist - so I've been working on making frames ON the canvas. In this case using acrylic gel combined with paint. The gold adds to the frame effect. However, the painting content is contained within the frame, and the frame is designed to complement - and contrast with - the picture. Red and blue thoughts are dominating my brain at the moment.

Abstract Brownies

Red attack 

Red v Blue (framed)