Third drawing for the SCAC May Exhibition

I have decided to frame up a third life drawing for the upcoming Sussex County Arts Club exhibition that will run during the four weekends of May as part of the Brighton Festival. It is in fact one from last night's session at the club of Francesca Cluny (Frankie), this pose being up for a vote to last fifteen minutes instead of the usual ten which I didn't vote for as I felt she was too far away to merit spending fifteen minutes on. Wrong. I would have loved to had an extra five minutes on this in retrospect......pastel pencil on Mi-Teintes paper.

"Saturated Colours" - my new article in Artists & Illustrators magazine

My latest article in Artists & Illustrators magazine has just been published in the June 2015 issue. This one concerns the use of saturated colour for one of my Roadside America series called "Saharan Sunset", a famous motel on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. In fact the colours are so saturated that the printing process of the magazine couldn't really handle it as there is a degree of subtlety in the original painting that is lost in the reproduction, although this is often the case when it comes to printing images of paintings in books and magazines.

Life Drawings

Russell

I have been going through all the life drawings I have done over the past year at the Sussex County Arts Club to choose some to frame up for the May Exhibition of the club during the Brighton Festival. I will choose two or possibly three from these, all pastel pencil on Murano or Mi-Teintes paper:

Kate

Laura Kate

Michaela

Ischia

The reason why there have been no posts for a while is that I have been in Italy for a short holiday based in Naples. I only managed to get one session in of painting/sketching and that was on the island of Ischia. I  found a nice quiet spot facing the Castello Aragonese and settled down for a couple of hours of painting. Gouache over a thin acrylic wash put down in the UK in a large Moleskine sketchbook.

Main Street slightly repainted

There was something that always bugged me after I thought that I had finished "Main Street". One was the whole painting looked a bit pallid and a bit too "real" so I gave it a thin glaze of transparent yellow but this still wasn't enough so I gave it another glaze today which has brought it to a state that I am now happy with. I also accentuated the Cold War era feeling that I am interested in by having a vapour trail high in the sky.

Fireside Inn

Another in my ongoing Roadside America series this one being located in a small town in Nebraska (can't remember the name). I wanted a stormy sky behind the building that is lit by a low late afternoon sun so a yellow/violet complementary colour combination seemed logical. All these paintings are as much about colour and atmosphere as they are about the location itself and I'm looking for a sense of beauty of the ordinary but with an edge of menace/threat/unease to it as well. Whether that is the sense of the "sublime" in art I am not sure! Maybe it's that Cold War Angst coming in again......Oil on linen 16" x 20". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in earlier posts on this blog.

Fireside Inn - stage 4

Worked a lot on the building today although looking at it now I think I need to soften the edges of the shadow falling on the building. I have been mixing Lukas Number 5 Medium into the paint on the building as I want a nice texture on it.

Fireside Inn - stage 3

Got the sky pretty much how I want it although I might give it a thin yellow glaze at the end . I put in some indication of the background but kept it soft and out of focus and then went on to paint in the preliminary highlights on the sunlit boarding - there will be less definition between the slats in the final version.

Fireside Inn - stage 2

I put some colour down today; some violet mixtures for the sky and some warm colours on the building that will sit nicely underneath the yellow highlights on the sunlit paintwork. As you can see I am having some slightly lighter cloud at the top and right to give some variety to the sky area as well as making sure there are some touches of the building colours in it for colour harmony.

Fireside Inn - stage 1

Another in my Roadside America series, this is located in Nebraska (can't remember the town). I want the light from a low sun hitting the building against a dark, stormy sky so I guess it will be based on a yellow/violet complementary colour axis. This time I have opted for a less traditional composition and will be hoping to accentuate the strong design although I am still utilising the Rule Of Thirds as to the placement of the shadow falling on the building. I first "drew" it up using an old bristle brush with a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet mixed with Liquin and Lukas Number 5 Medium and then in the afternoon after it was touch dry I painted in a tonal underpainting with a rag using the same paint mixture thinned with turpentine. I am also tweaking the sky on "Main Street" which I will post up when I'm happy with it.

Some good news and some bad news

Whilst away in Leicester for a few days last week I had two contrasting pieces of news come in. Firstly the good news was that I have been accepted as a finalist in the 2014/2015 ARC Salon. This is a competition ran by the Art Renewal Centre in the USA for Realist Art and I am very pleased to be included alongside artists whose work I have long admired as well as talented friends from Illuxcon. I have no idea yet which painting/s have been accepted in which category but I am definitely included in the catalogue and have a chance of exhibiting a painting in the USA show.
The bad news was that I was not accepted for the Sky Landscape Artist Of The Year competition. They say that I could attend the heats as a Wild Card entry but I am not going to bother. Sod them!

Main Street (Jet)

This is another in my ongoing series of Roadside America paintings. It is in a very small town in Oklahoma called Jet which was the working title for the picture but I decided to call it "Main Street" in the end. I want this series to have a certain atmosphere; on the one hand they are almost romantic paintings of ordinary places in America but the combination of the way they are lit, the lack of human activity and the ominous shadow hints at something uneasy. What is casting these shadows? Is there a giant monster walking the land or something worse? I like paintings that are beautiful but have an edge of darkness to them, I don't like Pretty. I guess that there is an influence of Hopper in this although unintentional. I find the American urban landscape much more visually interesting than the UK, maybe there is a certain nostalgia in them from all those TV series and movies I saw as a child as I usually look for buildings from that period for these paintings. Is there some Cold War angst in them?...
Oil on linen 20" x 16". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting on previous posts on this blog.