Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

A Fire in the Forest by Matt Brown

10.7 ft by 4.9 ft canvas print, hand-finished with clear acrylic paint, for added texture and protection - click here for details.

Also available as in various sizes as a standard canvas print - click here for details.

CLICK TO ENLARGE…

“… Suddenly the bird felt anxious. The ancient forest, far away, was burning. Faster and faster still, the bird flew. The flames licked the sky. The fire spread near the great tree. The bird fanned the fire with its wings, hoping to put it out, but the flames burned more fiercely.

So the bird sped to the spring, dipped its wings in the water, and rushed back to shake the water over the forest. The drops sizzled. It was not enough, not enough. The bird’s entire body soaked in water was not enough to extinguish the fire. …”

A Fire in the Forest is a picture about the destructive forces of nature. It echoes a Vietnamese folk tale called “The Ancient Tree”, a story about a little white bird.

The ancient tree represents all that the bird holds most dear. It is it’s home, it’s community, a source of food, it’s livelihood - perhaps in it’s branches await the bird’s hatchlings. So, naturally, it will do anything it can to save it. But, as it is just a bird, how can it hope to fully understand the nature of fire?

Nature, life, even society, can be mighty, and it can be complex. The wider world infringes upon our best plans, exerts pressure from all corners and sometimes upon those things we hold most dear. It can often seem as inevitable as a forest fire. And even if most of our troubles are more abstract or prosaic than that of the bird’s, they massage the very same fight of flight reflexes.

Protecting the ancient tree, for me, is being able to continue creating art, and creating the best artwork I can. Staying true to my principals, not giving up, not selling out. This is never easy in any climate.

The bold lines in the picture are a defiant gesture to the impish faces in the fire. For our hero - the crisp, white bird in mid flight - it is the moment of reckoning. Is it sleeking into the night? Or is it heading for the spring in order to meet it’s foes head on?

“… In that moment, the bird felt the fullness of its existence. Loneliness and emptiness vanished, and the image of the monk, the image of the sun behind the mountain peak, and the image of the rushing water falling endlessly through a thousand lifetimes took their place. The cry of the bird had become the rush of water, and without fear, the bird plunged into the forest fire like a majestic waterfall. …”

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

I recently discovered that my website had featured in the design magazine “Smashing”. They were launching a design competition and used (among others) mattbrownart.com as an example of the sort of thing the judges were looking for. Thanks guys.

It’s interesting watching the ripple effect that ensues whenever a high-profile website briefly turns its spot light in my direction. Firstly, this site received a spike in visitors. Sales of my art increased slightly and I also received a higher volume of spam - (due to my email being cited on my contact page).

Interestingly, a number of other sites referenced me within a short space of time, each creating their own rivulets of traffic. Were these related to the Smashing article? Who knows. But my Alexa rank climbed more a million places as a consequence.

Amusingly, I briefly became the most prominent Matt Brown according to Google, topping the list of my namesakes. Since I have a common name, it’s a tough and competitive league. Even though we never communicate, I’m sure my Matt Brown doppelgangers, some of which include a politician, a musician, a major-league baseball player, a Lord, a professor, an actor and a self-proclaimed vampire, keep tabs just like I do.

After all, several of us seem to depend upon the internet for a large portion of our income. And even more of us have careers that involve a public profile. So far, no-one has climbed to the rank of super-stardom, so unlike the Steven Spielberg league, there’s still everything to play for.

To my knowledge, there are no Matt Brown world-leaders, Hollywood leading men, Nobel laureates or criminal masterminds. So that top spot is always up for grabs. But sooner or later, one of us is going to win out…

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

My latest painting is a large double-canvas picture of a peacock feather. The peacock feather seems to be a reoccurring motif in my work.

But finishing a painting and prepping it for sale are two different things entirely. I want to present the picture nicely. I want to show it in the kind of environment it might end up in. But getting this piece up online has proven to be most difficult. Notice how the two canvases in this mock-up picture don’t quite match. It isn’t because I’ve painted it wrong, but because everytime I photograph them (seperately), I get my angles wrong. It’s driving me nutso!

Attempt one:
Taking each canvas outside by the sea and in the sunlight. Madeline holds each one as I wrestle with the wind, pin back my hair and try to take a photo. Result: The perspective is off, and there’s too much glare from the sun.

Attempt two:
Ambient light from inside the house. Result: Not light enough. Blurry images. Colours dim.

Attempt three:
Scanning the picture in, bit by bit on my tiny A4 scanner, and fitting it together on Photoshop like a jigsaw. Result: Hours of fiddling; havin to rotate each bit by a degree or two; impossible to get the canvas flush flat on the scanner bed. Pulling hair out.

Attempt four:
Canvases on floor. Halogen light pinned to the doorframe. Stood wobbling on a chair overhead trying to take a picture. Result: Disappointing. Colours dim.

I’m returning to the scanned jigsaw method. As fiddly as it is, the colours and contrast are correct. The picture above is one of my Photoshop creations. I’m quite pleased with the lighting effects and the wallpaper etc. It’ll be much bigger when it’s finished.

Next to do…
Design a website to showcase painting. When people type “Peacock Feather” into Google, I want my site to come up No.1. How best to go about this I do not know.

Ho Hum! I just want to paint.

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

Here’s my latest picture. Prints will be up for sale in the next couple of days…

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

Drawing with confidence – the type of confidence where you trust in your hand’s ability to create the line you see in your mind - is an incredibly difficult skill to master. My current style is somewhat scribbley. With practice, this will improve. But it’s interesting to observe the lines of hesitation and the compulsion to go over the contour once, twice, three times.

It betrays something of my thoughts too. Like handwriting (and mine is awful, by the way). Currently, my style of drawing is not as fluid as it could be. There is a brittleness that comes from neglect. Not to worry. These are things that can be learned and relearned.

Presently I’m taking great pleasure in learning about human anatomy. The construction of the human figure. Being able to understand the mechanics and the form seems to be a step up from simply drawing what you see.

At the other end, if understanding is gained, I think there is probably a balance to be achieved, since not every human figure follows the same precise formula of proportion and muscle tone. However, like all English teachers tell you – once you master the rules of grammar you can bend or break them with an authority that says “this was not an accident”.

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

I’m having problems with my database, so the post will appear here in just one sec…

If You’re RSSing this or seeing this in Live Journal, then you may have to visit the site to see the edited post. Sorry.

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

Clicking on the old Firefox icon…

As of March 2007, that’s how one in four of us enter the Web. So what does that little Firefox icon mean to us? Well. It can mean anything:

• Surfing
• Shopping
• Music
• Emails
• Research
• Chatting
• Work…

It’s our gateway into the world’s collaborative fairground of cyber delights – our friend the internet. So as an icon, it’s absolutely loaded with layers of imagery and meaning.

What emotions can it trigger? Sometimes it symbolises fun, after a hard day’s graft or, like Solitaire, a guilty pleasure, grabbed when we should be working. Combined with mild addiction, (in my case an obsession with my website statistics) it’ll trigger a buzz, a little rush of endorphins. Who’s been watching my site? How many pictures have I sold today?

Of course, that can also turn into disappointment – why haven’t they replied yet? Why is my site down? Why’s it going so slow?

What it means to you, however, is an entirely different kettle of javascript variables.

But there’s no denying it… Just a handful of pixels and yet so many possibilities. Icons are perhaps one of the most potent forms of imagery of our time.

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday I was merrily framing my pictures, and marvelling at the power of my beautiful staple gun.

Wow! Isn’t it great? I thought, oh-so-innocently. Look at it go!

There were a couple of awkwardly-placed knots in the wood. Any of my previous staple guns would have melted in my hands, but not this little fella. What a hero.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through one knot.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through another.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through my thumb!

Oucho galacticus, that hurts! The little fella bit me! He bit me, the little—

I stop and stare for a while, marvelling at the staple now puncturing my nail, and what feels like my bone.

I almost don’t want to take it out. Just looking at it makes me feel queasy. But I know it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I mean, at least there’s no blood yet.

I pick up my pliers; choose some appropriate expletives, and bite my lip…

At first, it won’t budge. Gosh. It must really have dug in deep, the pesky critter. The unavoidable wiggling is sore as I apply more pressure.

It’s coming. Ooooh! Hmmph!

And now the rush to the bathroom to stem the twin geysers that have sprung from my beloved opposable digit.

After twenty minutes or so, the bleeding seems to be under control. And here’s the result…

A pair of near-invisible puncture wounds is the only clue that anything happened. And the painful throbbing of course.

The annoying thing is, I was only half way through my work. It took me hours to finish, one thumb short.

Here’s the dastardly culprit…

Hopefully, my thumb won’t turn black and fall off. Oh the perils of being an artist. I don’t know how I put up with it!

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

I’m sorry for the recent silence. It seems I’ve had absolutely no time for writing these past weeks. I have been rather busy though, don’t worry.

Here’s my latest painting. Mmm. Strawberry. Again, this is a departure from my usual style. However, I’m studying the effects of light as it interacts with surrounding objects.

The painting is a mixed media painting (acrylic and glazes) on canvas, mounted on natural fibre board, and is approx. 7.5″ x 8.5″.

Originally published at Matt Brown: Art to Lift the Heart. You can comment here or there.

Whilst I may have sketched and drawn ‘things’ in the past, this effort is probably my first ever attempt at doing a proper painting of a ‘thing’.

Certainly it’s the first time since using poster paints at school. Why have I chosen to stray from the jagged purple splodge that represents the path of an abstract artist? Well, it’s because I feel I need to study light.

Light falls on objects. It interacts with it in strange and curious ways. As well as creating two-dimensional patterns of colour and form, I often intend to fill my abstract pictures with light; to create an illuminated three dimensional abstract space.

The problem is, these pictures are coming from my head, and so I have nothing on which to base my perception of light and shade than my own feelings. My whim.

On top of that, painting is still unfamiliar to me.

If I were painting an object I could perceive where the light falls, where it reflects and where it diffuses. I need to gain a better understanding of the properties of light, so that when I come to paint imaginary objects, they are accompanied by an accurate imaginary light-source.

So here we go. It’s a garlic bulb, by the way!

It is a mixed media painting (acrylic and glazes) on canvas, mounted on natural fibre board, and is approx. 6.5″ x 7.5″

For a full price list and first dibs, just enter your email -