Haboob sold

 A nice lady in Little Rock has just bought "Haboob" after being disappointed by being beaten to buying "Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq" yesterday on Every Day Original. My next slot on EDO is in two months time when I will probably put up another Orientalist painting for sale.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq sold

 "Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq" has just sold on Every Day Original. That is all three I have so far posted have sold pretty much the moment they came on at 10.30 EST. Rather gratifying to see some strong interest in what I am painting, it seems the  Orientalist paintings I have been doing are striking a chord with buyers.... so I guess I need to do more!

I actually don't really make that much money out of selling through EDO and kind of treat them as loss leaders to get people interested in my work. There is a maximum price of $500 so when the EDO commission and shipping is deducted I am coming out with about $250 which is really a bargain considering the amount of time it takes to paint them! 

Anyway having said all that it's still great to sell so fast!

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq

 At the confluence of two caravan trails across the desert sits the holy city of Wadi Shuruq. Considered to be sacred due to being the only source of water for many hundreds of miles around, this oasis is magically transformed by the occasional rains into a temporary lake of pure water in which the domes and minarets are reflected.

Well, maybe...

Another Orientalist painting of a place that does not exist. This painting will be for sale on my upcoming slot on Every Day Original on the 28th of this month.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.

Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq - stages 3 & 4

Stage 3

 Stage 3 is the first colour pass on the sky, colours used were: Winsor Violet, Manganese Violet, Emerald Green, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Yellow Lake Deep, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White.

Stage 4 is the second colour pass on the sky and then the first colour pass on the rest of the painting. Additional colours used were: Winsor Yellow and an Old Holland colour called Naples Yellow Reddish Extra (!).

Hoping to finish this tomorrow....

Stage 4

Sunrise, Wadi Shuruq - stage 2

 Slight change of title. had to unexpectedly go to London today to deliver a painting to a buyer. Not a lost day of painting though as I was able to give the tonal underpainting another pass so that it is ready to go to colour tomorrow before I left.

Wadi Shuruq - stage 1

 Another Orientalist painting of somewhere that does not exist, this one is intended for my upcoming slot on Every Day Original on the 28th May. A desert sunrise over domes and minarets reflected in the water of a wadi/river. Intended to be dusty pinks and oranges but who knows if I will stick with that after my customary morning coffee...

This is the first tonal underpainting stage (I might give it another coat before proceeding to colour) using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and applied with a small bristle brush and a rag.

Oil on linen 16" x 12".

Empire of Night sold

 "Empire of Night" has just sold through Asgard Arts. This is an older painting of Hove seafront where I live and is a sort of homage to a Magritte painting called "Empire of Light" in which he has combined a nocturnal landscape with a daytime sky.... as I have here.

Oil on board 18 1/2" x 18 1/2"

Low Tide, Jebel Moussa

 Somewhere along the shores of The Black Sea stands the famous shrine of a Sufi saint called Abu Moussa. He lived as a hermit on the rock promontory overlooking the sea for many years and although he lived a life of solitude and contemplation he was visited by many devotees seeking enlightenment which he always claimed he could never give them but they came anyway. On his death some devotees built a small shrine on the promontory that over the years was enlarged and added to until it appears as you see it today and continues to be a place of pilgrimage for those that make the arduous journey to find it. Some people never find it as it is rumoured to move at night so that only true pilgrims may find it whereas tourists all search in vain. 

Well maybe. 

This is the daytime version of a previous painting "The Domes of Jebel Moussa" which can be seen below. I liked the setting and composition of this picture and thought that it would be interesting to see it in daylight. Although a complete fantasy I wanted it to look as though it was a real place (hence the back story to add a supposed authenticity) so I decided to try and give it the feel of a crisp, bright morning with the tide low so that I could use the complementary of blue/orange to advantage. Setting it in daylight however brought with it certain problems. In the night time version little detail is needed to delineate the architecture and rock shapes but in the light of day everything has to look right. This was fine for the rocks but when it came to the buildings I had to redesign them a bit to look possible and real. To emphasise that this is a fantasy I have deliberately combined and invented different elements of Islamic architecture so that like all my Orientalist paintings they are much more in The Arabian Nights tradition than anywhere real or historical. So in that way continuing the genre of Orientalist paintings by Westerners in late 1800s and early 1900s some whom had never actually been there and were the constructs of their fevered imagination of concubines and harems etc.

To try and keep the colours in the sky clean and bright I decided to do the tonal underpainting in two colours this time; I painted the landscape in my usual Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix but did the sky in washes of blue.

Oil on linen 20" x 16".

There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including the colours I used in previous posts on this blog.

The Domes of Jebel Moussa

 

Morning, Jebel Moussa - stage 4

 I'm still thinking of retitling this to "Low Tide, Jebel Moussa".....

What I'm trying to do with this picture is to make somewhere that only exists in my imagination look as real as I can and I think the new title makes it sound even more like a real place. So it's a fantasy painting but I'm trying to paint it as though I had set my easel up on the sand and was painting it as a plein air or at least a plein air finished in the studio.

I have redesigned some of the buildings as in daylight they didn't look very possible (in the original night time painting it was too dark to tell!), so tomorrow I hope to finish the buildings and make a good start on the sandy foreground.

Same colours as before but with the addition of Naples Yellow.

Morning, Jebel Moussa - stage 3

 Sky and background finished and now working on the rocks trying to keep the light crisp and bright. Going to have some greens in the lower rocks to suggest seaweed at low tide.

Morning, Jebel Moussa - stages 1 & 2

Tonal Underpainting

 As I mentioned earlier I have decided to go ahead and paint the same scene ("The Domes of Jebel Moussa") in daylight. Emerging from the gloom of recent paintings blinking into the light I want this one to have the look and feel of a bright, crisp morning with the sunlight hitting lots of wet highlights. As before I am setting it at low tide so that I can play around with channels in the sand and reflections of the sky and rocks in the wet sand. To this end I painted the tonal underpainting in two colours this time, the land in my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet and to keep the colours clean I painted the sky in blue/violet.

Colours used were: Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Winsor Violet, Emerald Green, Permanent Orange, Burnt Sienna, Lemon yellow, Zinc White, Warm White and Warm Light Yellow.

Oil on linen 20" x 16".

First Colour Pass on sky and background