Oil painting on panel 5x7"

Another bright frosty morning had me setting up my easel by the banks of the river Thames again.  This group of trees is becoming a recurring motif in my paintings. You can find it in Orleans Gardens, looking over towards the Ham side of the river.
There was a lot of haze in the air which really increased the atmospheric perspective.  Its only a couple of weeks since the last frosty painting  but the light seems very different already as the sun is now higher and the light  stronger.
Maybe because of the smaller panel size, I didn't feel in such a rush this morning.  I remembered to step back and consider the overall effect a lot more.  I've been thinking about how to create colour harmony and researching this in Edgar Payne's book, Composition of Outdoor painting. I used a lot of blue and yellow today, it seems to tie the piece together quite well.

Oil painting on panel 8x8"

It was tricky to rearrange the daffodils exactly as they were the day before, I resorted to wiring one of the stems with a pipe cleaner from my daughter’s craft box (must get some florist’s wire).
Although I’m painting flowers, I have to stop myself from getting into too much botanical detail because it’s my visual impression that I’m trying to record. I have to remind myself to get back from the painting, to not try to make the painting look like daffodils but just to judge shapes and values and try to get everything in the right place. I’m always asking myself how much I really need to say about each section, and what degree of resolution am I aiming for?
I paint first with filbert hog bristle brushes, I also use a few size 4 kolinsky sables for details or layering up strokes. I often go back over with the hog bristles at the end - simplifying the values as much as I can, eliminating detail from both the lights and shadows.

Oil painting on panel 8x8"

One of the positives to come out of my daily painting practice has been trying out new subjects.  I've really got into painting flowers, and have decided to make a series of flower paintings.  I think most of these are going to take me two sessions rather than one (remember I only have a couple of hours per day to create my daily painting - not a whole day) so while I'm doing these I will be posting every other day.
I'll still do other smaller daily paintings on the days I'm not working on this series.

These primroses were really hard to paint! The petals are almost flat and as a result had the very subtlest changes in value across them.  The folds in the petals were quite crisp and deep, hard to suggest without overdoing and creating very hard edges. I think I spent a large amount of time making adjustments to those creases and getting very frustrated with the results.  Its one of those paintings I like better now I can't see it compared to the subject!  
It seems to work ok as a painting but really I didn't feel that I'd done the primroses justice at all at the time.

I've included some process shots below.  I started with the pot and foliage but could equally have started with the flowers, in fact I think that would probably have made more sense as the flowers are likely to change much more. I'm starting with the flowers in my latest painting of some daffodils and will do a blog post about it tomorrow.

I hope the process photos are interesting, and maybe even useful if you are learning to paint.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment, I'd be glad to help.

Oil painting on primed card 6x4”

The shiny red skin of this apple makes it an irresistible subject to paint - however high chroma objects like this are quite difficult to render. It’s impossible to match the chroma in the lighter values, so I add in a little cadmium yellow medium which takes the hue around towards orange but keeps the chroma quite high. The values in the mid tones and lights are pretty compressed as well. I’d love to hear from other artists how they get around the high value, high chroma problem in their paintings.

Oil painting on panel 6x3"

I haven't managed any painting for nearly a week now.  Both my children were ill with the flu so I couldn't find any time at all.  Felt pretty rusty this evening trying to get back into it! 
Here's a little drawing I did of my daughters while they were sleeping on the sofa.

I hope to get back to normal with a painting every day from now on.

Oil painting on mdf panel 9x4"

At last I got to paint some snow! There was hardly any snow left on the riverbank so I carried on to Marble hill park, Twickenham, where there was a light dusting of (rapidly melting) snow. I found this little snowy track leading into the trees. I was surprised to see dry leaves still attached to the saplings, which along with the green grass and violet grey in the distant trees created a colour triad.  The scene reminded me  of Isaac Levitan's paintings.

Isaac Levitan, Autumn Landscape 1880 (photo from Wikipedia)

About 30 minutes into the painting it started sleeting lightly. To protect the painting I tilted the easel forward a bit, and lowered the lid of my pochade box (which I was using as a palette) .
30 minutes after that the sleet really set in - I had painted the whole panel loosely so I packed up to finish at home.
This is how the painting looked at that stage (the white patch at the top is where the clip was holding the panel to the easel)

Back in the warm with a cup of tea it was a matter of trying to get the shapes and values right from memory. I was aiming to improve the composition and the accuracy of the drawing using what I know of perspective. I think accurate drawing is so important in this type of painting - it’s key to getting the sense of being really there -feeling present in the landscape. If the drawing is off it is a big distraction to me. I think the drawing is ok in this painting, but being cold and in a hurry I didn't exactly do my best. I noticed that the three foreground trees were very evenly spaced which is problematic, so I moved the furthest of the trees slightly to the right.
I hope I've managed to capture something of the mood anyway, which is the most important thing for me. And also kept the brushstrokes loose and interesting when seen close up.

Original oil painting on mdf panel 8x8"

 I was torn this morning between painting the daffodils again as they had opened, or heading outside to paint the heavy frost, but it was such a beautiful morning it seemed a waste to spend it painting indoors  so I quickly packed up and walked down to Orleans Gardens.
Painting the frost was the hardest thing yet - squinting into that bright sunlight as it bounced of the ground was almost impossible. I found it difficult to judge the relationships between the values. Also I didn't reserve enough space for the white on my palette and it became hard to find any clean white to add the highlights.  This meant I had to finish the painting off at home, but at least I remembered to put in the tree shadows at the start this time, so I've made some progress!
I feel like the value relationships could do with a bit of adjustment, perhaps the greens in the foreground could be darker? Maybe Ill experiment with some glazes once its dry. I hope for some more frosty days to come so I can do some more studies outside.
And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for snow tomorrow : )

Original oil painting on mdf panel 6x9"

A few daffodils I selected from one of those £1 bunches that appear in supermarkets this time of year. I love the buds,  and the shape of the buds when they are just opening. Tomorrow I may attempt the fully opened blooms. I love the bluish green foliage and the silky papery bits that fold back as the flower opens (they must have  a name?)
Daffodils - love them : )

Original oil painting on mdf panel 8x8"

 First of all, let me tell you why I didn't post a painting yesterday.  I did make a painting. Maybe it was the late night the night before, or maybe it was the fact that I only had one hour in which to paint, but I can honestly say that  the painting was the most hideous, ugly, ill thought out and executed I have painted in many years!!
Sometimes that happens..
I took great pleasure in scraping it off the panel so that I could no longer see it, and at least rescue the panel for another painting.
I was chatting to an artist friend about it, and she told me that those paintings we hate are the best ones! I was taken aback at first, but what she meant was that we learn from our mistakes and failures make us try even harder next time.
So today, I wanted to paint something a lot better. I got a bit over ambitious in fact and decided to paint the whole bunch of tulips before they wilted. There was no way I could complete it in a couple of hours, so I had to work on it some more in the afternoon. There are a couple of things I'm not quite happy with but I wont be scraping this one. Phew!

Please excuse the fuzzy photograph, Ill upload a better one as soon as I get the chance.

Original oil painting on primed card 6x3"

Left it a little late to get started tonight and then my youngest woke up from a nightmare while I was in the middle of painting this clementine.  Ended up being a late one!