A really warm welcome to the gallery

Hello and welcome to my website. I hope you enjoy the artworks shown here on these pages.

You can also see my work at regular exhibitions throughout the year in Colinton Arts Gallery, and I also accept selected commissions.

Buyers are very welcome to view and buy work from my studio. My work is also available via a number of online galleries – do get in touch to find out what is exhibiting and where.

“For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to paint.

When I was 17 years old, I did apply to Art college but wasn’t successful.

For a very long time that felt like a set-back. Though I tend to see the positives now; at the time I applied, the focus was on conceptual art and less so on painting and drawing. So, in many ways I’m pleased that I continued to focus on the art that made most sense to me.

I’m self-taught – and my art journey continues; certainly it has been borne from years of practice and is a great passion of mine.

However, for many in the art world being self-taught means something undesirable. For a long time that meant I didn’t value my natural artistic abilities.

“Now, I realise that there is value in being able to produce the work that I do naturally, inspired by the landscapes around me and the effects of the elements and light upon them. I’m also really passionate about encouraging other artists to have the confidence to create their own artworks.”

Subject material – Tess Dunlop

“My subject material can seem diverse but my pieces are created from a desire to capture the light and shade and to bring the subject to life.

There are a number of collections published in these gallery pages – landscapes, seascapes, animal paintings, floral paintings, figure paintings. There are also some of Edinburgh, the beautiful city where I live and work. I hope you enjoy viewing my gallery pages.

Painting style – Tess Dunlop

“When I’m in front of a canvas, I’m excited by the process of mark-making, the brush strokes, paint flow and the light and shade and create my pieces with an initial plan … but the actual work evolves before me in a largely unconscious process as I become entirely lost in the process of creation and cease to think about what I’m doing.“

“I love to paint on coloured canvas and for many years this was always a mid toned cadmium red. More recently, the canvas has been cobalt blue, black or orange – depending on the subject and what I want the finished piece to say. Sometimes I use a broken colour technique to allow considered areas of the under-painted canvas or earlier layers of paint to show through. This technique enables the colours to appear to shimmer or vibrate against each other, giving each piece a warm, vibrant and exciting quality. Or at least, that’s how I feel about it. I enjoy playing around with light and shade and lost and found edges too.”

Medium

The majority of my completed in oils. However, occasionally watercolour or mixed media pieces (using collage, tissue paper or newspaper) are created. In addition to the works in the gallery here, I also accept selected commissions.

Sales

My work is in private collections across in the UK, Europe, the United States and the Far East. Art works have also been published in a number of magazines and been shortlisted for exhibition in the Royal Scottish Academy.