Special present

This one is on board, about size of A4 sheet of paper, with helpings of collage, acrylic, gloss, emulsion, opil and varnish. Done as a present to celebrate a birthday , I wanted to get both perspective and illusion in this.

A winter warmer

Lots of bronze and silver with a good splattering of collage give this a warm feel, just right for those cold winter evenings!

new works October 2010

'duel' has a pearly finish with some silver wash over green and red layers.

Red brown and yellow add the movement. On board.

'Dark Star' started life as that cracked mud from brown gloss and varnish, but these things do happen.

All sorts on this including some floor tile adhesive!

On Board.

New Work 1 - October 2010

This is taken in sunlight, but I love the shadows.

'Runner' is on board and framed in wood.

Stop!

Another in the popular storm series!

'Storm brewing'

New works October 2010

Another in the 'storm' series!

Storm in a tea cup.

New world

Above the sky

Dreaming

Rainbow tree

The last 4 all on board.

New work in progress

Some fun with this one, I used a photo of Ab Lincoln statue and a Banksy rat with sun glasses.

A small mouse somehow worked it's way in bottom right too!

This is the base for a work in progress, I wanted to get a feeling of dried mud and will then build a primitive design on top (probably!)

lots of brown gloss with water based varnish on top prior to being fully dry gave the nice cracked effect. I worked some red acrylic into the varnish to add a bit more colour.

I left three behind

These three pieces are in the Beams Gallery, at Fisherton Mill.

I have some more work which will be displayed on this blog shortly

All wrapped up

The Exhibition was a great success and everything is now packed and wrapped and if sold it will be delivered very shortly.

I have three paintings remaining on show in the Beams Gallery at Fisherton Mill which is adjacent to the main studio gallery where the exhibition was.

Thanks to everyone that helped and purchased for the support and encouragement.

Bringing Zappa home

Last few days of the exhibition

I have to remove the four large paintings on Friday as that is the only day I can have use of the van.

The rest I will pack up on Saturday afternoon.

I might see if I can leave one or two small paintings in the shop area, if there is available space.

For example, this one, which I have just completed, is only 290x360mm, looks good with a bright silver alumium frame

Swapping some paintings with new ones

I decided to put these five new pieces in the exhibition as there is still a week and a half left.

There are some paintings that I will remove and others will move around to make more space, two of these are quite small so should have plenty of room.

The aluminium frame on this one is dark green gloss (almost black) and looks great.

Goodbye Mr . Pink

This is one of the new pieces I am taking to the exhibition for showing in the second two weeks up until 4th September.

This is on canvas and I'll leave the edge painted without a frame. I just got the aluminium frames delivered for the others.

Nobody like Mr. Pink so he has been laid to rest underneath this painting.

You can still make out the movement of the arms and legs, and some of him still appears where I have sanded down.

The original Mr Pink ...

OK fair enough!

New pieces

This one is just completed and I have ordered a dark green gloss aluminium frame for it.

Using collage a lot now, the 'fish' is from a large black and white photo of a tiger from the Independent.

Launch day 7th August

A fantastic day, some good ideas for new works and loads of inspiration. Thanks to everyone for the support, and good wishes.

We managed to get 40 pieces on show and 9 were sold that day, so I need to get busy again.

Just checking!

Set up time

Day two of the set up and we have finished. A few pieces moved around at last minute and an extra 5 works found space for, two at the foot of the stairs leading to the upstairs gallery space.

Many thanks to Steve for driving all the paintings over to Salisbury in his camper van and of course to Maz for two days hard slog lifting everything and adjusting everything endless number of times!

Getting ready

Nearly all set now, just have the final layout to check, 35 paintings in all which is great, including the latest one which I just fitted the frame on, from Lion Framing in Birmingham. Infact all the aluminium frames used were ordered from Lion Framing, they are a really good supplier and quick too!

Business cards arrived, and two A3 posters dropped off at Fisherton Mill.

Some press coverage too which is good, in the Dorset Life magazine. , Devon Life mag. , Great British Life magazine. and The Wiltshire Magazine.

Those very nice people at the Hampshire Chronicle have put a piece in the what's on arts section in today's weekly newspaper. Thanks to Saskia for sending out the super press release! I can't find it on their website, but it is in the 3 copies of the newspaper that I bought (honest).

My First Exhibition is at the Fisherton Mill Gallery, Salisbury

Exhibition of work by

John Mobley

6th August -- 4th Sept 2010

Fisherton Mill Gallery,

Salisbury SP2 7QY

Pieces on show created 1969-2010. Early paintings use a mix of media, including household gloss, emulsion, acrylic, varnish and diverse substances such as polycell, starch, bleach, and tin foil. Small details made from collage are partly concealed. Later work also makes use of oil, quick setting glues, and for texture petals, grass cuttings and filler. Finishes range from varnish to heavy sanding. Some works convey the energy of electric guitar at volume and some make use of newspaper/magazine photographs of a few of the “heroes” of the time including Frank Zappa and John Peel. More recent work draws on influences from modern jazz and experimental/improvisational music from artists such as Portico Quartet and Nils Petter Molvaer.

All done except the frame

I finished this one today, all bar the frame, which will be aluminium. I settled for just one piece of collage in the end, but have now got very keen on doing a mainly collage piece next.

Not sure if I will have room for this one at the exhibition, but I would like to show it, may need to remove a couple of smaller ones to fit it in.

Measuring up

Here's a side on view of my latest painting which has deep texture from emulsion and gloss 'waved' across the board with an old car windscreen scraper.

I went to measure up space at the lovely Fisherton Mill Gallery today and found I had more space than I thought so will be able to get some more large pieces in there for the exhibition. Bad news is that transporting them all is becoming a bit of a problem!

Good news is that I should have room for some of the more recent works including this one if I get it finished. This detail is from bottom centre.

I want to get some collage on this around the edges.

Getting the trowel out

This is the start of an idea for wrapping the painting with edges that have a 'live' feel. In this case I used papier mache, mixed up until close to pizza dough consistency, and then using a mortar trowel, laid on to an mdf base board fixed to the back of the painting.

When dry on the surface I cut out with sharp knife and reversed it onto the painting, glued and nailed in place.

(It reminds me of something carved out of stone and definitely one to get your hands on!)

The surplus mdf board was then cut away to leave a very sharply defined edge that shrank and twisted as the drying continued.

I finished it with some varnish to bring out the colours hidden in the pulp.

The edge is really sharp now it is completely dry.

Hands-on and textures

This is bottom left quarter from 'Riders on the Storm'. I finished this with burnishing on some black poster paint (rubbed in with a thick glove until it almost shines.) The colour creeping through is from pieces of crushed petal, and the white is emulsion lightly brushed in prior to applying a soft sheen varnish. I also kept the canvas slightly loose on this one.

Frames and Edges

I only started framing and finishing the edges of paintings a little while ago, as some needed a frame in order to hang properly.

Wood lends itself to some fun treatment as shown on this close up, can become part of the painting.

Surf's up...

Here's a detail from one of the two surf's up pieces. This one I made with a stick on frame from recycled wooden window blind and is very thin, and so I used velcro on the back to keep it as flush to the wall as possible. I enhanced the colour on this image, and of course it is upside down!

another close up.

Another clip from an early work, which shows use of starch, tin foil and the bleach which has burnt lines into the paint under the bright red lines on the lower right.

Close up

I particularly like the way this face looms out from behind the black gloss marbling, on a piece from 1970.

Catalogue of work

The majority of work from 1969-2010 is shown here.