Low Season

Another painting following the mantras stuck to my easel (see previous posts) this time the location is the King Alfred Leisure Centre on Hove seafront ten minutes walk from where I live. On this one I have joined tonally or literally the dark clouds in the sky to the ice cream kiosk which in turn joins the ground, buildings and reflections next to it to create a continuous shape. I have offset the central position of the kiosk and sun by having very different left and right sides in terms of tones and shapes to hopefully produce an interesting design to the picture. It's based around a yellow/blue colour relationship, the yellow of the traffic cone linking to the clouds and the blues in the kiosk linking to the sky. What looks like orange is actually the Burnt Sienna of the underpainting showing through.
Oil on linen 12" x 16".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on the blog.

Low Season - stage 3

First colour pass on "Low Season". To avoid overworking skies I now try to get it all in in one session as I did here which just took a couple of hours this morning. In the afternoon I blocked in some semi transparent colour on the rest of the picture ready for hopefully finishing tomorrow.
For the sky I used mixes of Prussian Blue, Kings Blue Light, Neutral Grey, Permanent Orange, Unbleached Titanium, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White - all Michael Harding paints.

Low Season - stages 1 & 2

Stage 1

Another painting along the road to what I'm looking for, I'll recognise it when I get there! The location for "Low Season" is the King Alfred Leisure Centre on the seafront of Hove about ten minutes walk from where I live. Still following the mantras stuck to my easel (see a previous post on this blog for the mantras) I have done the tonal underpainting ready for the first colour pass tomorrow morning. I'm after a certain mix of colour, design and atmosphere that hopefully avoids the Picturesque and topographical...
Stage 1 was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.
Stage 2 was put in with a rag using the same paint mix.

Stage 2

Kingley Vale

Another painting carrying on with applying the mantras "Lose Edges! Join Shapes!" and "It's The Painting Not The Place" this one is of Kingly Vale in West Sussex. I am trying to avoid the Picturesque so that the painting is more of the focus than the place itself as I have chosen a pretty ordinary location and what I'm trying to make more important is the design and paint application. The placement and space occupied by the clouds hopefully gives it a slightly surreal quality and hopefully I am working out how to bring out the abstract aspects of colour and composition above a merely topographical description of a landscape - it's early days yet!
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Kingley Vale - stage 1 & 2

Stage 1

Carrying on from the last one, this is another small painting developing from remembering the two mantras stuck to my easel, "Lose Edges! Join Shapes!" and "It's The Painting Not The Place". I have chosen a fairly ordinary landscape at Kingley Vale in West Sussex and am trying to make an interesting painting out of it through design and composition and colour...and how I paint it bearing in mind the second mantra.
Stage 1 was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then was blocked in with the same mix using a rag. The white clouds were rubbed out with turpentine on a rag.
Stage 2 (actually I have completed the first colour pass now but it is too dark to photograph) is the first colour pass on the sky using a mix of Phthalocyanine Turquoise, Emerald Green, Burnt Sienna, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White for the sky and Unbleached Titanium, Zinc White, Lemon Yellow, Warm White and small amounts of the sky mix for the clouds - all Michael Harding colours.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".

Stage 2

A New Mantra

Another mantra is now stuck to my easel, "It's The Painting Not The Place". When I paint a landscape (it works fine with the fantasy work I do) I always try and get it as though you are there and therefore too literal to what's in front of me. But that is the dreaded "Illustrative" approach which tends to make your work look like many other artists and too photographic. To make my work look more distinctive it needs to be more about the painting and less about the place depicted. Many artists' work I like tend to choose a quite ordinary scene and then paint it in such a way that it becomes interesting and beautiful. I suppose avoiding The Picturesque would be a start. Maybe not explaining it very well but I know what I mean...I think.

IX 2019

Pleased to see I've been accepted for the Main Show at IX next year and look forward to meeting up with all the great artists that will be there, some of whom I have not met before. I intend to exhibit on the first floor this year for reasons that I will announce later on! 

Birling

This carries on from "Toscana" in that it's trees against sky but this time with a more Summery feeling to it with white clouds and blue sky. I had to resist the temptation to paint a second pass over the sky as I usually would and I'm glad I didn't as it would have looked less livelier and too photographic - I want them to look like paintings not photographs. I was also tempted on the second day to leave the trees and landscape as they were after the first pass because it really looked like sunlight on them but I deliberately painted another darker pass over them as that was the look I am trying out; also it looked more ordinary too. I'm still following the mantra of "Lose Edges, Join Shapes", all the foreground is of a similar dark value and therefore join together to form a stronger design shape within the picture. 
The trees are at Birling Gap on the South Coast of the UK, the prevailing wind having blown them into these elongated shapes.
I will continue developing this "look" over a couple more small paintings before making a start on a large commission.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Birling - stage 2

First colour pass and it would be tempting to pretty much leave it as it is but it isn't the look I'm aiming for. Although it is already summery-looking it is also ordinary and too photographic-looking so I will carry on tomorrow with what I intend to do with it - dark foreground, light background.
Colours used for the sky; Kings Blue Light, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Orange, Zinc White and Lemon Yellow. The clouds were painted with a mix of Unbleached Titanium, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White - all colours Michael Harding.
The trees and landscape are a mix of Permanent Sap Green and Burnt Sienna.

Birling - stage 1

The tonal underpainting stage of "Birling", my next small painting trying things out. I am starting to narrow down what I'm trying to do which is basically to find a "look" to my paintings that people recognise as my work in both the Imaginative Realism work I do and also the "fine art" stuff as well. This carries on from "Toscana" in that it's trees against sky but this time against a summery blue sky with white clouds. What I am homing in on is dark against light, dark foreground as though in shadow against lighter background, still following the mantra of "Lose Edges, Join Shapes" by joining all the dark foreground elements together. This should make the design of the picture come through more.
The trees are at Birling Gap on the South Coast of the UK, the prevailing wind having blown them into growing this way.
This stage was first very simply "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then the tonal underpainting applied with a rag (the clouds being rubbed out with a clean rag and turpentine) using the same paint mix.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".

Toscana

Carrying on from where I left off with "Ronda" I have incorporated the trees at left in "Ronda" into a more lively Tuscan landscape. I wanted more movement and a less oppressive atmosphere than the previous painting, a lot of the composition for this one was worked out in the tonal underpainting stage when shapes and tonal masses were adjusted using a rag and my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin. Apart from rubbing out lines I hardly use turpentine at this stage any more as I find it rubs out what is underneath too much although it is a nice way of emphasising the grain of the canvas which I might try out on some rougher canvas in another painting. I was originally planning on it being monochromatic but decided later on to use a yellow/violet complementary with the green being a mix of Permanent Sap Green and Burnt Sienna.
Maybe getting nearer to what I'm looking for.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Toscana - stage 2

The first colour pass after deciding to go for a yellow/violet and green colour combination. I intend to keep the movement in the sky in tomorrow's session. 

Toscana - stage 1

Carrying on where I left off with "Ronda" I have incorporated the trees at left in "Ronda" into a Tuscan landscape with a livelier more expressive landscape. I want a lot more movement in this one as the last one was too still so I hope to paint a more expressive stormy sky. I am trying to avoid horizontals and verticals apart from the cypress trees which will act as a counterpoint to the flowing diagonals. Probably going to keep it fairly monochromatic although we will see what I decide tomorrow morning when I resume work on it. Still trying to follow my mantra of "Lose Edges, Join Shapes!" 
This stage was barely "drawn" up at all, just some very basic lines for placement with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then everything else put in using the same paint mix with a rag. The tonal underpainting stage is a good time to adjust the composition as I did here because you can see how the tonal masses will work against each other and problems can be worked out here and not later on in the painting.

Ronda

Another small painting trying things out in line with my new mantra "Lose Edges, Combine Shapes!"
Still not there yet but maybe I'm on the way. I like the trees at left which gives me the idea of a landscape next maybe even including these trees again but the whole thing cleaner looking with more contrast. 
Originally based on a red/green colour complementary I changed it to a yellow/violet when I introduced some violet into the sky and a few other areas. Although conceived as a relatively limited palette picture I felt I needed a bit more variety of colour in it. 
I think I have got into some bad habits over the past couple of years when painting more "fantasy" pictures as the genre generally encourages lots of detail which is fine but I have lost some connection with my earlier work that was more "fine art" oriented so I think that is where I need to to draw a line between the two different approaches and try to keep each side of my work more separate and distinct. I don't want all my eggs in one basket and need to ensure that I am progressing in both areas.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Ronda - stage 2

Before painting the colour underpainting I gave the first stage an extra wash of the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix over the whole picture the night before so it was dry for this morning's session. The painting is going to be quite dark and moody with bright late afternoon sunlight hitting some of the buildings. These light areas will be painted in later with warm opaque yellows so I am keeping the painting subdued at the moment with relatively muddy colours so far. It will be based around a red/green near complementary with yellows and warm browns and has so far used mixes of Burnt Sienna,  Permanent Sap Green, Italian Green Umber, Unbleached Titanium and Yellow Lake Deep, all Michael Harding colours.

Ronda - stage 1

First stage of a new small painting called "Ronda" (working title) with which I'm trying out my mantra "lose edges and join shapes!" In my mind's eye this one is going to be very moody with a dark sky and low sunlight hitting some of the buildings. Before tomorrow's session I'm going to rub a thin wash over all the sky and buildings which I will do later tonight when the under drawing is pretty dry. I will fix the church tower later in the painting!
This stage was "drawn" up using a small bristle brush and later a rag with a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.

My New mantra

...stuck to my easel. See the previous post for explanation!

Shotgun Shack

Another small painting trying things out. This time however I think I am getting somewhere; what bugs me about too much of my work is that I paint too literal to what is in front of me and put too much detail in. I have realised that most of the work by other artists that I admire all have the same thing in common, they lose edges and merge things together. This not only helps the atmosphere as things are more suggested than stated but the design becomes stronger as the shapes become larger. These are my two main concerns in what I am trying to achieve, atmosphere and strong design.
This painting of a shotgun shack I came across in New Orleans many years ago is starting to address this new way of going about things. I hope to put all this much more into practice in the next painting whatever the subject may be.
I now have a note stuck to my easel saying "Lose edges! Join shapes".
Oil on linen 12" x 16"
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Sunny Kensington Street sold

"Sunny Kensington Street" has just sold through Asgard Arts to a buyer in Taiwan. It's a painting of Kensington Street in my hometown Brighton which was until recently covered in Street Art but is now being developed for Affordable Housing by the Council-good for them too...as long as the right people are able to buy/rent there. Consequently most of the Street Art has disappeared although this bit was still there last time I walked past. The title has an oblique reference to a song by Donovan from The Swinging Sixties.
Oil on board 18 1/2" x 18 1/2".

Shotgun Shack - stage 3

The second colour pass and have made a note to myself stuck next to the painting - "Lose edges!" I am narrowing down what I am looking for in these small paintings and one of the things that bugs me about my work is that it's too literal to what's in front of me. So I'm hoping to start changing this over the next few paintings before I start work on a large commission. Let's see how things go tomorrow.

Shotgun Shack - stages 1 & 2

Stage 1

Another small painting trying things out, this one is of a shotgun shack I came across outside New Orleans a good few years ago. Hopefully things I learnt from the last painting will be applied to this one and am hoping to keep this more blurry and broken up than "Ninth Avenue", the brown/grey tones maybe be giving it a slightly nostalgic feel but with the threat of the stormy sky in the background.
The first stage was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin which I allowed to dry for the afternoon session when I put in the tonal underpainting using the same paint mix with a rag.
The second stage was the first colour pass on the sky and adding more tone to the building with another coat of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet. The picture will be based around a fairly desaturated complementary of yellow and violet. For the sky I used mixes of Ultramarine Violet, Van Dyke Brown, Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Yellow Lake Deep, mostly Michael Harding paints.

Stage 2

Ninth Avenue

Although in one way this is OK, on many points I actually don't like it: the scale of the traffic signal post is wrong to the figures near it, why is the car there it doesn't fit, it is too much like what I was painting some years ago and feel that I haven't moved on and it is all way too static and lifeless with too many unbroken verticals...and I don't think the colours suit the subject.
Still we learn from these problems so hopefully the next painting addresses these concerns!
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Ninth Avenue - stage 5

I have actually nearly finished it this afternoon but the light was so bad in the studio that I couldn't photograph it so here it is as of lunchtime today. I messed around with sky again before carrying on with the buildings trying not to put too much detail in. It 's getting nearer to what I'm looking for but I think I will try this again but with a different kind of cityscape or even a landscape.

Ninth Avenue - stage 4

Still not sure about the sky, I did change it this morning in that I changed the clouds to a light blue/green from pink but may still tone down the saturation of the green/blue when I come back to it in a couple of days. In the meantime I have worked on the buildings at left and right trying to keep it relatively simple and avoid being tempted to put in every little detail as I often do.

Ninth Avenue - stage 3

Unfortunately too dark in the studio this afternoon to carry on painting so this is the morning's work on the first colour pass on "Ninth Avenue". Basing it on a blue/green - red/orange colour complementary I am just weighing up the idea of altering the saturation on the sky, I will make a final decision tomorrow morning with fresh eyes to see if it still bugs me or not.

Ninth Avenue - stage 2

I decided to add a bit more contrast to it so I could see how the tonal design is going to work by giving it another pass of the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix with a rag before going to colour tomorrow.

Elies Dendro

The title is Greek for an olive tree as it's a painting of a very old olive tree on the island of Zakynthos in Greece although through the use of desaturated colour it looks more like England! When I thought it was finished a couple of days ago I kept looking at the very cold looking colour I had used and realised it was bugging me too much so I decided to give it a thin glaze of a green-blue to warm it up a bit. It now has more of a dreamlike quality to it which is better but I'm still not sure about this one, some work out others don't but then that's why I'm doing these paintings at the moment to try things out.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Ninth Avenue - stage 1

Continuing with my series of small paintings trying things out this is the first stage of "Ninth Avenue",  a New York cityscape. I have very roughly "drawn" it up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then used the same mix and rubbed in some tone with a rag. I intend to break up the lines and shapes a lot but this will give me the underlying framework for the scene with the brightest part of the picture being the light hitting the back of the car.

Cloudscape 2

I seem to have forgot to post this one that was actually painted in October, the second in my series of small sky-based paintings this one based on the simple idea of a single dark cloud against a streaky cirrus clouds background. It originally had a landscape at the bottom left of a hillside with some trees but I painted it out as I wanted the painting to be more of an abstract pattern.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Artists & Illustrators 2019 Calendar

Artists & Illustrators magazine has one of my paintings, "The Lost Garden" included in their 2019 calendar. It has been used for December as it is very cold and wintry, not suitable for July for instance! It costs £3.99 from The Chelsea Magazine Company website, the link for which is below:
https://www.chelseamagazines.com/shop/product/artists-illustrators-2019-calendar/

Elies Dendro stage 3

I have finished it but intend to give it a thin glaze of green when it's dry as I just don't like the colour. I will then post up the scan of the final version as it is not easy to photograph as usual.

Elies Dendro - stage 2

Worked on the background and made it softer and slightly warmer by adding a bit of Lemon Yellow to Warm White for the sky and foliage. Not sure if I like the desaturated colour but as these are all experiments I'll finish it off and move on to the next one having hopefully learned something from this one.

Elies Dendro - stage 1

The title is Greek for an olive tree - it's a painting of a very old olive tree on the Greek island of Zakynthos. This is the first in a series of small landscape paintings in which I try things out. This one will be a pretty much monochromatic one in which I push around the paint thinned with Liquin with some different, fairly knackered brushes, no initial drawing just straight to paint at the first stage. I am using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Indanthrene Blue, one semi opaque the other transparent. I am probably going to keep the tree trunk in sharp focus and the background will be soft and atmospheric... or I may change my mind as I go along. 
Oil on linen 16" x 12".

Cloudscape 6

This one was instigated a few nights ago on the way home when I saw white clouds in the sky as the light had faded pretty much to night. I thought an Orientalist setting might suit it and then realised that I had Orientalist architecture on my doorstep, Brighton Pavilion. I chose an orange/blue complementary with just a touch of orange/yellow in a couple of windows to offset the predominately blue sky using a warm tonal underpainting in the first stage.
The blues were mixes of Kings Blue Light, Prussian Blue and Permanent Orange and the "black" was a mix of Prussian Blue and Permanent Orange. A tiny touch of Cadmium Yellow was painted in the window, all colours Michael Harding.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a short progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Cloudscape 6 - stages 1 & 2

Stage 1

This one was set off a few nights ago on the way home when I saw white clouds in the sky as the light was fading to night, so they are not lit by the Moon for instance. I thought an Orientalist setting might suit it and then suddenly realised that I had Orientalist architecture in the city where I live, Brighton Pavilion. It will make more sense when I get the clouds painted in the sky. I will have some artificial orange light in a couple of windows at left making it a blue/orange complementary colour axis.
The first stage was painted in with a small bristle brush for the outlines using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then the same paint mix was used for the tonal underpainting, a flat brush used to fill in the silhouette and then the sky was put in with a rag using the same paint mix with a dash of turpentine.
For the second stage I painted in the sky with a mix of Prussian Blue, Kings Blue Light and Permanent Orange and then filled in the silhouette with a very dark mix of Prussian Blue and Permanent Orange, I don't use black.

Stage 2

Cloudscape 5

I would have posted this sooner but the white paint took longer to dry. This is essentially the same cloudscape as I used in the previous painting but I have put it into a colour setting. Actually I was going to put more distant clouds in the sky at the bottom but quite liked as it was so I left it.
I used a new style of brush on this one that seems idea for painting soft clouds, Proarte Masterstroke Series 61 Filberts that have a more rounded tip than the usual filberts, the soft synthetic hairs also really help too.
The next one is going to be a night sky with light clouds after I saw this on my way home a few days ago.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a very short progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Cloudscape 5 - stage 2

First colour pass on the sky using a new style of brush that seems ideal for clouds - Proarte Masterstroke series 61 filberts which have a much more rounded end than a normal filbert and the soft synthetic hair really helps too.
The colour mixes so far are made up of Van Dyke Brown, Burnt Sienna, Winsor Violet, Unbleached Titanium, Permanent Orange and Yellow Lake Deep, all apart from the Van Dyke Brown being by Michael Harding.

Cloudscape 5 - stage 1

On this one I am combining most of the sky of "Cloudscape 4"with a line of late afternoon sunlit sky  at the horizon.
This tonal underpainting stage was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then the same paint mix with a small amount of turpentine added was applied to the sky with a rag. The land was put in with a Flat brush using a mix of Van Dyke Brown and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.

Cloudscape 4

I might actually title this "Wish You Were Here" even though I have used the title before. For this one I wanted to work in a very limited palette keeping it dark and moody so I used mostly desaturated colours. I chose to locate it on the Brighton and Hove seafront near to where I live with an advertising ice cream cone, normally associated with happy times, set against a lowering sky and deserted seafront path. My dark sense of humour coming out a bit on this one! 
Keeping the colours desaturated I have kept them within a warm grey framework, no black being used and with Unbleached Titanium acting as the white. Mixes of Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown, Burnt Sienna, Indigo, Zinc White and Lemon Yellow were used for all the warm brown/greys - a mix of Michael Harding and Winsor & Newton colours.
Oil on linen 16" x 12". 
A step-by-step short progress of this painting is in previous posts on this blog.

Cloudscape 4 - stages 1 & 2

Stage 1

For this one I wanted to work in a very limited palette and to keep it very dark and moody. I chose to locate it on the Brighton and Hove seafront with an advertising ice cream cone, normally associated with happy times set against a lowering sky and deserted seafront path. I might call it "Wish You Were Here" even though I have used the title before.
Stage 1 was roughly "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then using the same paint mix but thinned with turpentine the tone was applied with a rag.
Stage 2 was the first colour pass on the sky which although not apparent in this photo the colour is a warm brown grey partially achieved by letting the underpainting colour show through. I did not use black, Unbleached Titanium was used as the "White" at this stage with the greys made up of mixes of Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Indigo, Zinc White and Lemon Yellow, mostly Michael Harding colours.
I have actually already finished the painting but am waiting for the paint to dry so I can scan it as digital photography does not come close to the colours and tones that are in the painting itself.

Stage 2

Cloudscape 3

Another of my small sky-based paintings that I am doing to try things out. The more successful ones may get new titles in the future. This one is located on Hove seafront only a few minutes walk away from where I live although it could be anywhere. The next picture may well be a monochrome using all neutral greys, we shall see.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a very short progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Cloudscape 3 -stage 2

First colour pass over the whole painting using mixes of Kings Blue Light, Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Naples Yellow, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White - all Michael Harding.

Cloudscape 3 - stage 1

Actually "Cloudscape 2" is finished but haven't got round to scanning it yet and wasn't actually planning on starting this one today...and then just went for it. A painting of Hove seafront but really it could be anywhere, the sky was seen from a bus high up on the South Downs heading back to Brighton from seeing my parents in the care home at Woodingdean.
This was stage was "drawn" up using initially a small bristle brush and then washing the rest of it in with a rag using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquitex and turpentine.