Ponte San Pantalon sold

Imagine Gallery in Long Melford, Suffolk have just sold "Ponte San Pantalon", one of my night paintings of Venice from a few years ago. This is my first sale at a new gallery that represents my work in a picturesque town in Suffolk after contact was made at the Brighton Art Fair in 2013. 18 1/2" x 18 1/2" oil on board.

Motel - stage 2

I have put some colour into the sky and will base the painting around a yellow/violet complementary colour axis, making sure that it is dramatic yet still soft in terms of edges. I won't be able to get on with it again unfortunately until Friday.....

The Setting Of The Sun - stage 3

Put some more colour into the sky and made the sun separate from the woman's head. I might make the whole picture based on a combination of green and red (apart from the yellow sun). The figure is proving difficult in that the face looks different when you stand further back from the painting so I will have to paint it at nearer to an arm's length away. I have to go away for a few days tomorrow so I won't be able to get back to this until Friday. Ho hum.

Motel - stage 1

This is the other painting that I am working on and is employing the same method as "The Setting Of The Sun", that is the Burnt Sienna underpainting applied with a rag only so that it has a soft dreamy quality, with no preliminary "drawing" using a brush. It is in fact another version of the Royal Motel in San Francisco (probably long gone now) but this time it will be quite different in mood and colour to the earlier painting, now sold.

Royal Motel

The Setting Of The Sun - stage 2

I just put in some colour into the sky with a rag and then left it for tomorrow so that I could make a start on another painting. I want this very soft and nebulous, at some point I will start to use a brush but I don't want to be tempted into putting in much detail (just for a change!), this painting is all about colour, mood and atmosphere.

The Setting Of The Sun - stage 1

After spending three weeks at least on the previous painting I fancy doing something different: soft, dreamy and quick. This has been blocked in with a rag using a mix of Burnt Umber, Dioxazine Purple and Alizarin Crimson thinned with turpentine. No reference was used and is very simple, just a woman walking towards us in a vaguely Tuscan landscape. I want the whole painting to be soft and mysterious and is really just about colour and atmosphere and is possibly one of a series. I won't be able to get on with this until Saturday as I have to be away for a few days.

Angkor

This has been painted for inclusion in Mike Pfifer's "Lands And Legends" book to be published this year. I chose Angkor for my painting as I went there in 2011 and have been meaning to do a picture  of it for some time and this provided the ideal opportunity. I chose to paint the Angkor of people's imagination, temples overgrown with writhing tree roots within dense and mysterious jungle and have actually combined elements from three temples; Banteay Srei where the tree roots have been left to writhe over and through the buildings and Angkor Thom and The Bayon where the towers of the multiple faces of King Jayavarman look down in an enigmatic even sensual way over the temple ruins of the lost city of Angkor. This is the first of a number of paintings that I intend to show at this years' Illuxcon in Allentown, PA due to the kind invite from Patrick Wilshire. In all of them I intend to fuse my present day approach to painting in oils with the more imaginative subject matter of my career as an illustrator. Oil on board 27" x 36". Previous posts on this blog show a step - by - step progress through the stages of this painting.

Angkor - stage 10

Maybe, just maybe I can finish this tomorrow......just need to finish off the tree roots and temple gateway, put in the monk and his shadow and paint a few glazes on the foreground.

Angkor - stage 9

Spent the day on the forest background, which looks like I will be basing the whole painting around variations of green and red. I like the diagonal that runs from the bottom left corner following the line of the path and shadow of figure, through the tree root under the stone face's chin then on through the direction of the roots coming off the face to the top right corner.

Angkor - stage 8

Have made a preliminary start on the background I must admit a bit tentatively as I am still unsure what colours to use, I could stay in a relatively limited palette of basically reds and greens but feel that I need to introduce some other colours. Mind you it might look more striking if I keep it in the present colour range. Best to leave it alone and look with fresher eyes in the morning.

Angkor - stage 7

Pretty much finished the foreground barring a few glazes to go on once the background is well on it's way so tomorrow is when the time has come to make a start on it. I see it as being painted a bit softer than the foreground but not sure what colours I am going to use yet......

Angkor - stage 6

I have now put in most of the tree roots, I just need to tweak everything  including making the small roots less stylized. Hopefully I will have all the foreground finished tomorrow so that I can make a start on the background next. In terms of design, it will be important to keep all the foreground tonally the same and slightly darker than it is at the moment.

Angkor - stage 5

Finally got back to painting on Saturday and today, Sunday was just too dark in the studio to paint. I left a note to myself stuck to the picture while I was away that said "Green is white" to remind myself when I returned that the light coming in on the foreground was in fact greeny yellow due to the surrounding forest. It has taken me a while to get back into the physical act of painting and am only now remembering how I had been applying the paint prior to my three month absence from the studio. Tomorrow I start on the area where the roots grow into the stonework around the face.

Angkor - stage 4

Getting to grips now with the foreground, working out the colours for the tree roots against the carved stone covered in areas of lichen (?). All this foreground area will be kept fairly dark in tone in relation to the soft focus background. I now have to be away until Friday so no more work can be done until Saturday.

Angkor - stages 2 and 3

Stage 2

After establishing where things are going on the foreground statue in stage 2, I have made a start on finishing this area in stage 3. I will probably leave the background as it is and see what colours will best suit it when I have finished (or nearly) the foreground. I am having a bit of a problem adjusting to working on a bigger scale and of course am somewhat rusty after a lengthy break away from painting but am feeling happier with it now that I can begin to see where it is going.

Stage 3