Nightmare On Kensington Street

In my continuing quest for colour in urban environments here is another painting of graffiti art, again in Kensington Street, Brighton. Compositionally this was a tricky one as the graffiti is such a dominating element so I chose to have the lightest part of the painting in the background and tried to subdue the light colours in the graffiti. The other point of the picture is painting hard focus against soft. Anyone who knows this street will see that I have cheated with the placement of the graffiti against the background of Sydney Street. 18 1/2" x 18 1/2" oil on board.

Sunny Kensington Street

That's Kensington Street in Brighton btw. This one is a larger painting centered on my current obsession with colour, particularly in urban environments. I have altered the scale a little bit so that the figure is more dwarfed by the background; the next painting will also be set on Kensington Street but will involve a bit of a cheat with placement and will focus more on sharp against soft focus. This painting contains a nod to the work of the late Richard Bunkall and the title contains a nod to a song by Donovan. 18 1/2" x 18 1/2" oil on board.

Two Paintings Sold

Tina's Place

Shelter

A nice lady from Alfriston came over to my studio on Tuesday 5th February and chose two of my small Brighton paintings to buy. She chose "Shelter" and " Tina's Place".

Private View - Osborne Studio Gallery

Me in front of "Royal Motel".

I went to the Private View of the First Annual Artists & Illustrators Magazine exhibition at the Osborne Studio Gallery on Tuesday 5th February as I had three paintings included, nicely positioned too at the front of the gallery. It was well attended and I got to meet some of the artists including a good chat with Mark Fennell whose work I particularly admired as well as most of the people who work at the magazine that until then I knew only from emails. The exhibition runs to the 19th of February.

Lucky Dogs - better foreground

I didn't like the foreground, it was too dark and didn't work spatially so I lightened it up a bit. Now it's finished.

Lucky Dogs

Two day painting based on red of a guy pushing a hot dog stand in New Orleans when I was there a number of years ago. It has come out quite different to how I intended as it was going to be a much warmer picture, the green underpainting was going to have orange glazes over it but when the underpainting was finished I thought it would be more dramatic  to develop it as it was in just green and red. 12" x 12" oil on board.

Nymans

Most of my recent work is centred on a colour, recently it has been red, this one is yellow and is a follow-on from the background landscape in "Phone Home". I wanted a strong contrast between the golden yellow background and the deep green/blue foreground shadow. Nymans is a country house and garden near Haywards Heath in Sussex, UK. The next painting will be red again! 12" x 12" oil on board.