Cold Constantinople - stage 3

I gave the whole painting a wash of Burnt Sienna, let it dry and then scrubbed in some colour underpainting. I made a light and medium dark mix of Zinc White, Permanent Orange, Emerald Green and Prussian Blue which I have roughly applied and now we can see where this painting is headed, cold and moody!
I will be away from the studio now and back to painting on Tuesday so regretfully there will be no more progress on this until then.

Cold Constantinople stages 1 and 2

As I enjoyed painting the last snow scene I thought I would do another, this time more architectural so I thought of doing a painting of Istanbul in Winter. Hagia Sophia is at the top of the picture and then I have taken various buildings in the area and redrawn them in a nice sweep through the composition to lead up to the Byzantine church turned into a mosque by the Ottomans. This painting will again be in muted colours concentrating on the patterns made by the snow on the rooftops and hopefully will be nice and moody!
Both stages were painted with a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin, Lukas Number 5 medium and turpentine using a thin bristle brush in Stage 1 and a flat brush in Stage 2.

Artist Of The Year 2015- I win a prize!

Rich Newman and I spent a day walking round the London galleries yesterday, something we haven't done for quite a while; it was good as I saw for the first time originals by Albert Goodwin, Harry Clarke, Peder Mørk Mønsted and Petrus Van Schendel. We then decamped to the Mall Galleries for the private view of the Artists Of The Year 2015 competition after looking around the Pastel Society show. Much to my surprise I won the Gemini Digital Colour Award which amounted to £500.00 worth of digital printing such as giclées etc. After talking to Dominic Lee from Gemini that presented me with the prize it transpires that I can use the money to print books and brochures too....now this I am interested in! I am going to have a think about it and decide whether to do another book that is more up to date than my last one that I only have a few copies left of or maybe a few different brochures...or both.

The Lost Cathedral

I decided to take a little break from the intensely coloured pictures (and red) for a while and do a moody and subtly coloured snow landscape as a change. The influences are Caspar David Friedrich and Monet for this one and is based on a red/orange - blue/green complementary colour axis. How I came to the title is kind of interesting: I was mulling over possible titles whilst coming back from the dentist on a bus, the titles being variants of "The  Forgotten Realm", "The Lost Realm"etc and was just thinking of "The Lost ......" when a child on the bus near to where I was sitting just said "cathedral" which I had also been considering. With that I took it as serendipity and felt that it was fate that it be called "The Lost Cathedral".....
Also in the back of my mind was a piece by Debussy called "The Engulfed Cathedral" ... 
Oil on linen 22" x 16". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

The Lost Cathedral - stage 7

I was hoping to finish it today but due to poor light in the studio I had to stop painting early afternoon so I will finish it tomorrow. All that remains is the foreground area in front of the tree and any tweaks I feel necessary anywhere else.

The Lost Cathedral - stage 6

Getting the painting looking nearer to how I imagine it now with the brighter areas in the mid-foreground. Still need to sort the trees out before I tackle the frozen stream and the rest of the foreground. All the colours are mixes of white, blue/greens and oranges, for the darks and the lights.

The Lost Cathedral - stage 5

I only managed to get a couple of hours work done today as I was delivering my painting "Drive Thru" to the Mall Galleries in London for the "Artist Of The Year 2015" competition. I have pretty much finished the background and am now working my forward where the light gets brighter and the paint gets thicker.

Life Drawing

I went to the Drawing Circus Star Wars themed evening at The Old Market in Hove last night where they had models dressed as Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker etc. My regular model, Naomi was there dressed as Princess Leia and here is a 45 minute drawing of her in pastel pencil on Murano paper.

The Lost Cathedral - stage 4

Worked on the sky, cathedral and background landscape today although I had to stop work in the afternoon due to poor light in the studio - I can only paint in daylight, I don't find so-called "Daylight" bulbs very helpful. I haven't done anything to the foreground snow yet but the basic idea of the background being dark and moody against the foreground is starting to come through.

The Lost Cathedral - stage 3

I forgot to mention yesterday that there is also a Debussy reference to the title as I had the title of one of his pieces, "The Engulfed Cathedral" in the back of my mind when thinking about this picture.
It was a nice bright day in my studio today so I was able to get in a colour underpainting finished based around a red/orange - blue/green colour complementary. I have kept the values away from being too light as I intend to paint in the snow with opaque mixes on top of middle/dark values.

The Lost Cathedral - stages 1 and 2

Stage 1

I have decided to take a little break from the intensely coloured pictures (and red) for a while and do a moody and subtly coloured snow landscape as a change. The influences are Caspar David Friedrich and Monet for this one, planning to base it on a red/orange - blue/green complementary colour axis, hoping to make it look very cold and moody with a dark sky against the brighter snow. How I came to the title is kind of interesting: I was mulling over possible titles whilst coming back from the dentist on a bus, the titles being variants of "The  Forgotten Realm", "The Lost Realm"etc and was just thinking of "The Lost ......" when a child on the bus near to where I was sitting just said "cathedral" which I had also been considering. With that I took it as serendipity and felt that it was fate that it be called "The Lost Cathedral".....
Stage 1 was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with turpentine.
Stage 2 used the same paint mixture applied with a wide flat brush and a rag.

Stage 2

 

Wall Of The Citadel

Continuing with my current obsession with red, here is an Orientalist landscape painted in just reds, oranges and yellows (with a small amount of purple added for the darkest shadows). A lot of my work is based around a particular colour combination or mood with the setting and content in a somewhat secondary place so this is a painting about colour and not as such just an Orientalist landscape! 
       This a painting that potentially I will take to this year's Illuxcon.
Oil on linen 22" x 16". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Wall Of The Citadel - stage 6

Painted in most of the darks now on both sides of the river with some preliminary work on the felucca which is all getting me ready to paint in the reflections tomorrow. I added an extra palm near the felucca for compositional reasons to do with massing of shapes.

Wall Of The Citadel - stage 5

Painted in the middle-dark values on the riverbanks still using semi transparent glazes of oranges and reds, now with some red-purple too.

Wall Of The Citadel - stage 4

Like most of my work these days this painting is really about in this case a colour, red, with the seeming subject of the painting hanging off this simple idea. 
         It's nice to get back to painting after a few days away from the studio with today's session concentrating on getting in the sky and background buildings. However I first had to get in the palm trees at top as I wanted to cut the sky into the shapes a bit so they had to come first. I'm trying to keep white out of any colour mixes to keep it as rich and warm as I can so all the mixes so far are made up of transparent or semi-opaque paint.

Wall Of The Citadel - stage 3

Only had a chance for an hour or so's work on it this morning as I am away from the studio until Monday. I have just had time to scrub in some tonal colour ready for getting on with it on my return.

Wall Of The Citadel - stages 1 and 2

I enjoyed painting all the reds in the last picture so I have decided to do another one but this time a landscape. It was originally going to be an Orientalist picture of an oasis but somehow it changed into a scene of a river running by the side of a walled citadel. I want it to look hot and dusty and plan to keep it within a pretty narrow colour range of reds, oranges and yellows. 
I initially gave the linen canvas a wash of yellow (apart from the position of the sun) before "drawing" it up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Permanent Orange and Burnt Sienna thinned with Liquin and turpentine.
In stage two I washed in some tone with a rag using the same paint mixture.

 

YouTube video...again

Grovelling apologies to people that have already seen my earlier post on my YouTube video but I have been informed that to gain maximum hits I need to include the blurb that accompanies the video that has many keywords embedded in the text. So here it is:

Dreamlands - Oil Painting With Mark Harrison. Although not a regular oil painting demonstration this film portrays the development of an oil painting by Mark Harrison from initial sketch to completion. It shows Mark Harrison's basic working method and oil painting techniques, in this case a fantasy landscape painting called "Borderlands" for exhibition at the Illuxcon Art Symposium in the USA, held in Allentown PA in October 2015. The film of Mark painting in oils was filmed and edited by Cliff Wright of Eaglesmirror in Mark Harrison's studio and home, compressing the time taken for painting "Borderlands" into one notional day.
Mark Harrison was an illustrator based in the UK for 25 years in which time he painted 484 book jacket illustrations for most major UK and USA publishers including Penguin Books, Bantam Doubleday Dell and Harper Collins. An artist's monograph of his work called "Mark Harrison's Dreamlands" was published in 1990 by Paper Tiger for which he won The British Science Fiction Society's award for Best Artwork in 1991.
In 2003 he ceased illustration and started to paint personal work for sale in UK galleries, at first using chalk pastel but now paints exclusively in oil on canvas. He has exhibited work with The Pastel Society, The Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of British Artists at the Mall Galleries, London, the Medici gallery in Cork Street, London as well as many other galleries in the UK. He is also a frequent contributor of articles for Artists & Illustrators magazine published in the UK as well as his own work being published in American Art Collector and International Artist magazines in the USA. He is included in "Who's Who In Art" published by the Morven Press and "The Dictionary of 20th Century British Illustrators" published by The Antique Collectors Club.

No rubber ducks were harmed during the making of this film.
http://www.paintingsbymarkharrison.com
http://cliffwright.co.uk

And here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-pjWoxxzK0

Naomi Rouge

I fancied doing something a bit simpler than the last one and felt like painting something all about red, a colour that I love in paintings. I then remembered that my regular model Naomi Wood has red hair so I decided to do a portrait of her entirely in reds and oranges. It is exceedingly difficult to photograph this picture but this is as good as I can get it until the paint dries when I can scan it. The hair was painted mainly with glazes of Permanent Orange so that it visually stood out from the red background - by putting the figure against the sky one gets a more iconic image which I like in paintings. I am thinking of exhibiting this at the upcoming Illuxcon.....Oil on linen 22" x 15". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.