Artist Insight: Gavin Mundy
Congratulations to Gavin Mundy, this month’s winner of the Pegasus Art £50 Gift Voucher, courtesy of Portfolio Plus, Artists & Illustrators magazine for his Autumn Still Life painting, seen below.
Do you like entering art competitions, do you think it’s valuable?
It can be valuable; large competitions can give exposure, of course, but smaller ones can help build your own confidence and experience in preparing, organising submissions, and working to a deadline.
What inspired your winning painting? Tell us about the process and materials too please!
The painting Still Life -Autumn was painted using artist-quality acrylics on a hardboard panel I prepared to a smooth finish with a slight tooth. I didn’t use any mediums at the time, just water and acrylic paint.
I was exploring still life subjects and composition. I love texture, autumn colours, and the natural textures of the season. This led me to a few paintings along these lines.
For this painting I found a range of potential subject matter, leaves, twigs, chestnuts, bits of bark etc and just played with various arrangements and lighting. Being a small setup, I could have this on my desk while I painted. Though on such a small scale, a slight move of the head position or angle changes the relative position of the element, so I took a photo as a constant reference and used it as a guide to lay in the foundation elements but had the real thing for colour and detail reference; however, I was aware leaves would move and curl as they dried out, so didn’t take too long to get the main bulk of the still life in place.
Are you a full-time artist or do you balance your painting with other jobs?
I do have other work. I’d love to work full-time as an artist and am working towards this.
Were you formally trained or self-taught and do you think this matters?
I’m not quite sure where I fall in these two categories, as I feel I am a bit of both. I am partially self-taught with painting techniques and a lot of drawing and sketching. And though not formally trained in fine art or painting, I did train in graphic design with some art history, colour, and composition tuition in the mix.
Do you paint every day and what keeps you going?
I may not paint every day, but I’m always doing something arty. Either planning a painting, listening to arty podcasts, working on promotion, reading about art or artists, or preparing resources. Whatever needs doing. But it pays to be organised.
I get into my art and enjoy my next project, and that creative outflow is what I enjoy and look forward to. Knowing I’ll be in ‘the zone’ and something is coming into existence excites and engages me. It’s nice wondering what you are going to create next, being excited about it.
