Sanctuary Of The Sun - stage 4

A little difficult to see here, but I have taken some of the yellow out of the sky and replaced it with an orangey pink which helps to make the sun more yellow. I then used the same orange/pink in the mist over the hills behind before roughly working over most of the painting to knock into the shape that I imagine in my mind.

Sanctuary Of The Sun - stage 3

Have made a start on putting in some of the colours I intend to use, no part of the picture so far is finished as I need to see how they work with each other. Compositionally I have offset the centrally placed arch and sun with a sweeping diagonal that goes round through the temple at left, along the path in the middle and up to the platform where the arch, sun and figure will be.

Sanctuary Of The Sun - stages 1 and 2

Another painting that is hopefully heading for Illuxcon whereby I am hoping to develop the successful elements of the last picture into this landscape of abandoned ruins. I say abandoned but there will be an implied narrative like the last picture this time of a small figure within the arch and below the sun that has their arms outstretched towards the sun as though some rite was being performed. I want a still, somewhat melancholic feel based around an analogous mix of pinks,violets and oranges and is in fact influenced by a painting by Sydney Long called "Spirit Of The Plains". The first stage was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine. I then washed in a mix of Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna thinned with Lukas Number 5 Medium and turpentine with a rag (this meant it was dry to paint over in the afternoon session) over the ground and ruins and Quinacridone Red thinned with Lukas Number 5 and turpentine over the sky. In the afternoon I painted in some rough colours for the underpainting.

Island Of The Old Gods sold

Yes I am pleased to announce that this painting sold within hours of being posted on Facebook, in fact it has sold while the paint was still wet! I also had very encouraging feedback from many people including from artists whose opinion I really respect (and was surprised to hear from). I hope to paint more with this feel to take to Illuxcon as I might have identified a niche that I can work within that could prove popular.

Island Of The Old Gods

A woman is being rowed to the steps of an island temple, everything is quiet and hushed, the boat hardy ripples the surface of the placid water. It is late afternoon with a slight chill in the air, a mist starts to form as the setting sun is glimpsed through the gap between two islands in the background. The temple entrance looks forgotten and neglected as though nobody has been here for many years - maybe the woman is here to seek advice and sustenance from connecting to the Old Gods, maybe the new ones have proved disappointing.
A painting influenced by the Isles Of The Dead pictures by Arnold Bocklin and Ferdinand Keller which will be exhibited at Illuxcon in October. I wanted it to look a bit like a Victorian era Symbolist painting and is based around a contrast between warm and cool greens using red/orange as a basic complementary. Oil on canvas 23 1/2" x 23 1/2". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 7

Pretty much finished the island and foreground rocks and water and have roughly put in the boat and water behind. Tomorrow I will paint in the mist and then finish the boat and figures. It is only then that I can paint in the foreground water and reflections of the background disturbed by the wake of the boat. That should be it finished. 

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 6

I needed to get some indication of the reflections in before continuing with the building so I scrubbed in a bit of colour as a guide. This confirmed in my mind that the painting is centred around greens, colder blue/greens in the distance and warmer yellow/greens in the foreground. The red/orange then acts as the complementary. There will be a layer of low mist running along the distant shoreline.

Cuckmere Meanders To Seaford Head sold

A painting of one of my favourite landscapes, the area where the Cuckmere river nears the sea on the South Coast of the UK, has just been sold by the Llewellyn Alexander gallery in London. This was a landscape format version of a square format painting called Cuckmere Haven which is available as a giclée print from this blog.

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 5

Didn't get a lot done today as it was mostly fiddly work on the building. I decided to reference the Isles Of The Dead series by Arnold Bocklin again by putting in some Wisteria as it introduces some different colour into potentially a fairly monochromatic area of stone and trees.

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 4

Multiple apologies for no posts recently, I had to go to hospital for an urgent operation and was only discharged yesterday. Luckily I felt up to doing some painting today so this is as far as I have got. I have warmed up the sky with a lemon glaze and made a good start on the trees. Currently trying to work out the colours for the stonework and tried a kind of orange which I am not convinced about yet so left it and got on with other things.

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 3

Despite using some Liquin the sky was not dry for this morning's session so it is only partially finished. Until that is in I will not be able to judge everything else for tone and colour.

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 2

I decided that I needed some more colour in the underpainting so I gave it an extra coat of reds and browns to sit under the top coats this morning - I used Lukas Number 5 Medium for this so that it would be dry enough to paint over in the afternoon session. I then put down a basic colour underpainting making sure the reds and browns showed through the greens. I have left the reflections in the water until I have finished the background as it will be only then that I know what to reflect!

Island Of The Old Gods - stage 1

OK it's time to get on with some paintings to take to Illuxcon in October. This is another painting influenced by Arnold Bocklin's Isles Of The Dead series and has a woman being taken to an island on a boat. The island itself has Classical-influenced architecture that is crumbling and overgrown; I want a beautiful but somewhat melancholy atmosphere to this painting and probably won't be set around a single complementary colour axis this time. It needs a kind of hushed atmosphere, probably with an early evening/ late afternoon light to it.

Munday

Munday is a small town in Texas I came across and chose this scene for another of my Roadside America paintings. I decided again to use two basic blocks of colour as the design for the painting, the complementaries red/orange - green/blue. I think that keeping the picture free of any humans or cars, together with the threatening sky give these paintings a kind of eerie surreality. Oil on canvas  19 3/4" x 19 3/4". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Munday - stage 3

Trying to work out how much of the underlying orange will be seen in the foreground. I will finish the background first and then see where I go from here; I still want to keep to the original idea of two basic blocks of colour, blue/green - red/orange.

Munday - stage 2

Made a start on the colour underpainting starting with the sky this morning. Due to this little heatwave my studio is really warm resulting in the sky being dry enough in the afternoon to put down a second coat.