Congratulations to my Valentine's Day competition winner!

In January I decided to host a competition exclusively for my newsletter subscribers. I feel like my subscribers need a special name...Art Animals? I will think on that, let me know if you have any ideas!

You guys are awesome and I wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Unfortunately there can only be one winner. I wrote down the names of each entrant (except for you Mum but I still love you!) and pulled a random name out of an old paint tray. Very old school but it does the job. If you didn't win, the remaining paintings will be available to buy from my shop in a few days. Feel free to email me (jasminefarrowart@gmail.com) if you are interested and I can reserve the ones not chosen by the winner.

So without further a do, the unveiling....

Thanks so much to every name here who entered!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! If this is you please email me at jasminefarrowart@gmail.com with details of which piece of art you would like from the four pictured below. Also could you please let me know the address to send it to. I hope you enjoy it.

Win an original piece of abstract art!

If you would like to win an abstract sketch painting to brighten up your walls please just fill out the subscribe section to the right of this post. The winner may choose which painting they would like from the four pictured below. Paintings are 20x20cm sketches in acrylic on canvas by Jasmine Farrow. The draw takes place on valentines day 2018. Good luck everyone!

Fancy a different painting? I have many more to look at in my shop. Feel free to contact me with any questions or enquiries. Thank you for visiting my website.

Happy 2018! A massive thank you, a House and Garden feature and an Artsy Shark article.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are feeling positive about the coming year. I for one am ready to take this year head on.

2018 has been a great one for me and my abstract art. I was finally well enough to knuckle down and make art full time (as full time as illness allows at least!). I managed to get featured in some publications and various places on the interwebs which has been exciting. I have sold paintings to collectors as far away as the USA and completed my first commission piece. My series titled 'new' is now embarking on a traveling exhibition around the U.K. and I am ready for another year of hard work.

Before moving on I must send out a HUGE thank you to all of you. This time a year ago I couldn't have dreamed I could have achieved so much. A year before that I didn't even think I would be painting again. So whether you have liked or shared my posts on social media, subscribed to my newsletter or even bought one of my paintings, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. You have all helped to give me confidence to keep going.

A HUGE thank you from Jasmine Farrow Art.

This year is starting well so far. I have been featured in House and Garden magazine, UK February edition which was nice. I don't know how they found me but I'm glad they did. The painting featured is called 'Face The Breeze' and is part of the 'new' collection

The other news is that I was also featured in an article on Artsy Shark. Artsy Shark is a website dedicated to inspiring artists to create better businesses. They have interesting articles for both artists and collectors. Click on the image below to be taken to the article.

Artsy Shark article.Paintings: Top Right 'A Walk In A Rest'. Bottom Left 'Rock Yourself To Sleep'. Bottom Right 'Freedom In A Mirrored Room'.

So here's to a great 2018 for all of us! Keep attacking your goals. Even small achievements are still achievements and a step in the right direction.

JIMON Art Magazine Interview With Jasmine Farrow

The link to the interview is at the end of this post in green.

The link for this interview is at the bottom of this post in green.

I was recently asked for an interview from JIMON magazine. Of course I jumped at the chance. They feature artists that I feel are a good fit with my own abstract art work. The interview went live yesterday. For various reasons I have only now had the time to write about it here on my blog. However my new regime will change things around and my big news will be available on this website first. There will be more about that in a future blog, but for now back to JIMON.

It is funny when you are answering questions in an interview that you know other people can read. It makes you question everything you know about yourself. It does with someone like me anyway haha. Every answer I gave I was just thinking...'do I really think that?'. 'Is that what I mean?' etc. I much prefer interviews that are done via email as opposed to face to face. I like that extra time needed to say an honest considered answer rather than blurting out the first thing that comes in to my head.

I need to stop writing now because I have some 90% dark chocolate begging to be eaten! The link below will take you to the interview.

How a holiday can help your art.

If you are feeling stuck in a rut with your art work maybe a holiday is the answer?

I have noticed that a few of the artist's I follow on instagram have been on a holiday recently. This seemed to have a big impact on their art work in one way or another. For example my friend kimmiLee_Art (https://www.instagram.com/kimmilee_art/) recently came back from Bali. She paints rock-like shapes with interesting compositions. Since her return, these shapes seem to glow and look almost like jewels.

This got me thinking about how my own recent get-away may influence my future work. The work for my current series has been about the feeling of finally getting outside for the first time after two years of being confined to my bed. I have been trying to express that moment when I first experienced all of the colours of 'outside'. It was like an explosion in my head that I could not take in. So much information to process. It was a very emotional moment. It was important for me to try and capture a bit of it whilst the feeling was still clear in my mind. But now I am coming to the end of that series of 11 paintings. Already I have so many ideas of what to do next and they all seem to have been conceived on holiday.

I found that just the act of being somewhere different made me look at things in a more inquisitive way. Sometimes when a place is familiar you stop noticing things as you learn the normal patterns of it. When you feel you know it well you may even stop looking. Somewhere new opens your eyes and state of awareness. It opens you up to having new ideas.

I didn't go far. I went to North Norfolk where I grew up. But this time I was visiting as a holiday maker rather than a local. Although it all seemed familiar, I had changed in myself enough since last time I was here to notice and appreciate completely different things. My partner and I stayed in a lovely little flint cottage in Stiffkey (https://www.norfolkcottages.co.uk/north-norfolk-coast-cottages/stiffkey/1642-poppy-cottage). It was perfect for what we wanted. A cozy place to relax and recuperate, in the middle of an amazing area of natural beauty. This down time gives your head the space it needs to process and contemplate the things you see. This leads to conscious thoughts about ideas and allows you to dwell on them for longer and finalise them.

Something that struck me most were the textures. Being in a house for so long you grow accustomed to square lines and sleek finishes of smoothed furniture. I was filled with pure joy and excitement when looking at the chaotic madness of nature with all its faults and roughness. It was quite windy so the movement and swaying of the tall reeds and grasses exaggerated their height and their linear form.

The other thing I was struck by was the vastness. Norfolk is famously flat. Also famous for it's skies. There is something so freeing in being able to stand and look out as far as the eye can see. And when you stand under the sky which looks so big, you really do feel vulnerable, but also part of the wildness. There are so many birds here, their noises fill the empty space. They fly like shoals of fish over your head, calling to one another. It makes you feel like the lost member of their group, longing to join them on their journey.

This is part of the The North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest

Lots of the little trees we saw here look gnarly and tangled. Many were covered with a yellow lichen which seemed to glow in the light.

At first glance the colours of the area seem to be greens, beiges and blues. On closer inspection you start to find yellows, oranges and even purples. I will always sniff out colour if it is there.

Colour and colour combinations really excite me. So many times I have thought to myself "If I painted this how it actually looks, people would think I have painted it wrong". So instead of painting 'corrected' landscapes, I prefer to use nature as inspiration. I can really see me taking so much from this holiday in terms of ideas, inspiration and even self improvement. I suppose we will see how this trip influences my actual future work when I start my next series. But it has certainly already changed me.

"Watching The Sun Go Down" 30x24 inch (76x61cm) Acrylic on canvas

Starting a new series of abstract paintings

"Face The Breeze"

I am so excited to be starting my new series of abstract paintings. I was contacted by Little Van Gogh and they asked me if I would like to exhibit ten pieces in a touring exhibition. The exhibition will mostly be in corporate buildings, with large walls to fill. This means the pieces need to be large scale. Automatically I was excited as I have been wanting a reason to work bigger for a while. But because most of my paintings were under the size limit, I decided to start from scratch on a whole new series.

A large blank canvas and a work in progress.

So how do you go about starting a new series? First I decided that I wanted a square format. This is for many reasons, one being that I like it aesthetically and I find my compositions work better. Another reason which is secondary but still valid, is that I use instagram which has a square format. Any images of my paintings are either cut off or include distractions around the edges in order to fit the whole painting in. 

How do I choose canvas size? I knew it had to be large scale but I also know that my little studio can't handle ten canvases that are super sized. Of course the bigger the canvas the more expensive it is too. All things considered, for me the 80x80cm size made the most sense.

"Outside In Cuckooland".

And finally to the hard part. What will I paint? When starting a series it is important to choose a topic, style, colour palette or theme that you won't get bored of easily. The paintings must all look good together and be cohesive. I know this is something I will struggle with because I have so many ideas and things I want to try and express. Orchestrating a uniform thread is difficult. I have completed two of the paintings and already they are completely different to each other! I am hoping that the rest of the paintings will bridge the two together bringing in elements of both to disguise their apparent incompatibility.  I am sure this is not how to go about this type of thing. It is a good exercise to reign me in. I will try to always work in series from now on in the hope I will get better at planning.

My little studio.

At the moment my studio is our spare bedroom. It is very small and cramped. It is a bit of a struggle to store finished paintings, especially oil paintings that can take a year to dry. At the same time I need space to paint new paintings and I am desperate to work on larger scale pieces. I have lots of plans for my room though and I am just so grateful for this little space. It is only recently that I have been well enough to paint anywhere that isn't my bed, and so having a little room to call my art studio makes a lot of difference psychologically.

My plans are to design a drying rack for my paintings, to put up in the tiny walk-in wardrobe. Unfortunately I won't be able to build it myself although that would normally be the kind of thing I would have loved to do. My brother is staying with us at the moment and so I am hoping he and my partner will do the building part. I will let you know how that goes.

Another plan is to de-clutter! Although those words send a shiver through my spine! I hate throwing things away and love to re-purpose as much as I can because I hate waste. But there comes a time where you haven't re-purposed certain things for a few years and it's time to go. I will see if I can sell or give things away where possible. Anyone need two boxes of used bubble envelopes?!

Art Colour Inspiration

I am sometimes asked what inspires my colour choices in my art. There is no formula to choices made during my creative process. I do however, find that nature is still the thing that inspires me the most. Sometimes I am inspired subconsciously and it is only later on that I realise that something I have seen has had more of an effect on my work than I had first thought. For example, a few months ago there was an unbelievable Norfolk sunset. It was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I tried to capture it on camera but it just didn't look as wondrous as in real life. I watched it until all the colour had drained from the sky. I didn't notice until I later looked back at things, that from that evening I have developed an obsession with pinks, salmons and oranges alongside blues and greys. It really has given me a new appreciation for the colour pink. Pink is a colour I had previously hated with a vengeance!

Abstract Art Colour Inspiration. Norfolk Sunset.

Abstract in nature.

I was able to take a trip to Fairhaven the other day. It is one of my favourite places. It is situated on the Norfolk broads and is beautiful at any time of year.  As always, I took my trusty camera. I find that the process of framing things within the viewfinder completely changes your perspective. Images can be broken down in to shapes, colours and textures without the need for a narrative. Some people might look at an abstract piece and say "It's just a bunch of scribbles, lines and blobs". That is exactly what I see when looking at nature

Scribbles, lines and blobs.