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.
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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!
Original oil painting on primed card 6x3" I'm sneaking a bit of summer into January with these strawberries.
Original oil painting on mdf panel 10x5" available from Newbloodart It felt a bit spring like this morning, and I felt inspired to paint some flowers. I bought a bunch of white tulips, but just painted this one as that's all I had time for. To paint flowers you have to work incredibly quickly as they change shape much more rapidly than you'd expect. I would have preferred to spend a bit longer, but by the time I'd picked up my daughter from nursery and come home, the leaf had wilted and the flower opened further, so I decided to leave it as it is. As I was painting I was listening to this video tutorial by Mark Carder, where he talks about learning to work quickly. He gives great advice - I highly recommend watching it. There are some process shots below. As usual, I was working from the back to the front and from the darks to the lights, saving the highlights right until the end. I really wanted to get yesterday's still life finished so that I could move on to something new. I don't enjoy returning to work on a painting, I feel like the original inspiration has been lost and it becomes a bit of a slog to complete it. I sometimes feel nervous about spoiling what I've previously done so become a bit more tentative. Alternatively, I can feel tempted to adjust what was done the day before and so loose the spontaneity, practically repainting the whole thing. So it ended up taking me just as long to finish the last two apples as it did to paint the whole of the rest of the still life! But at least I did resist the temptation to repaint the work that I did yesterday. Once its completely dried and oiled out I'll be able to see if it needs any more work. Some areas had already partially dried and become matte so it was difficult to see exactly how the painting will work as a whole. I couldn't risk oiling it out this morning in case the paint just lifted off. Fingers crossed it will be ok. I thought I'd also tackle the foreground in this landscape painting (which was daily painting no 21). I referred to a photo and memory to make it up, also darkening the tree trunks to increase the sense of light behind them.
So, no daily painting for today, but I'm ready to do one tomorrow. Original oil painting on mdf board 9x7" I wanted to see if I could bring some of the experience I've gained lately of working swiftly en plein air into painting a still life. I selected a 9x6" panel as this is what I've been working on a lot outdoors lately and set up a still life using some objects I have already painted to give myself a bit more of a chance. As usual I worked from the back of the set up to the front. You can see some progress shots in the slideshow below. I tried really hard to work as directly as I could, aiming to lay down each stroke with the right colour and leave it without any further adjustments or strokes over the top. I didn't manage this over very much of the painting, but I did find that my concentration and decision making had improved a lot. After 1.5 hours it was time to stop as I had to pick up my youngest daughter from nursery. Very frustrating as I was so nearly done. I'll finish off tomorrow as long as the light is ok.
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About meI am a realist painter, working in oils, painting landscape and still life. Archives
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