Lonesome

 This one follows on from "Cold Front" where there is a desolate landscape with a dramatic sky that nobody sees as there is nobody around to this one wherein there is another desolate high desert landscape but this time there is an indication of human presence. A snow covered track in the foreground leads to a distant solitary light suggesting that somewhere out there is somebody's home hence the title "Lonesome" which occurred to me the moment I conceived the idea for the painting and never found a reason to change it. I was going to make the sky more dramatic and threatening but I thought it would be better to have a more lyrical feeling to the picture that is set at dusk, my favourite time of day. I was also tempted to put in some warmer colour in the sky near the horizon but again I decided against it so that it would not distract the eye away from the single point of warm light which is actually the whole point of the painting, no pun intended!

This is another of my paintings which could be in either my Roadside America or The Big Sky series. Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Lonesome - stage 4

 Used a darker mix of the previous colours for the clouds and darkened the landscape with the Permanent Sap Green/Winsor Violet mix. The single tiny light near the horizon can now be more clearly seen.

Lonesome - stage 3

 I have roughed in the clouds and added a bit of yellow to the sky nearer to the horizon before going over the landscape with a transparent mix of Permanent Sap Green and Winsor Violet. The single distant light can now be clearly seen on the horizon to the right of centre.

I never use black btw, I always prefer to mix a very dark colour out of various paints so that I can get a warm or cold dark (black)  depending on the colour scheme I am using at the time. This "black" was made up of Permanent Sap Green and Winsor Violet.

Other colours used were: Ultramarine Blue. Prussian Blue, Kings Blue Light, Pale Violet, Permanent Orange, Lemon Yellow, Zinc White and Warm White.

Lonesome - stage 2

 Painted a second layer of the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet over the landscape and painted a darker gradated blue over the sky in readiness for tomorrow when I start on the clouds.

Lonesome - stage 1

 

This one follows on directly from "Cold Front"; another largely flat horizon, a relatively desolate landscape somewhere in New Mexico with in this case a solitary distant light near the horizon implying somebody living in a house in pretty much the middle of nowhere. At the moment I am thinking of having the landscape with a dusting of snow again but maybe I will change my mind as I go on... This one differs to "Cold Front" in that there is the indication of somebody actually seeing the glorious sky in this one whereas in "Cold Front" there is more a sense of melancholy as there is nobody there to see the beautiful natural landscape and sky.

"Lonesome" just popped into my head for the title and am sticking with it unless something better suggests itself.

This stage is the tonal underpainting for the landscape using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and the basic background colour for the sky using a mix of Kings Blue Light, Permanent Orange, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Cold Front

 I seem to be in a phase of painting vast spaces with flat horizons at the moment so here's another one and indeed the next one too as this painting has gave me an idea for another. The location is in New Mexico and the sky is a combination of a memory and a bad photograph taken from a train on my way back from London late on a Winter afternoon recently. It seems from a bit of research that it was a cold front passing overhead hence the title of the painting. I decided to have some snow on the ground for this one as it does snow in New Mexico in the Winter and I felt it would be a nice change from my recent regular desert landscapes.

This is another in my Roadside America/The Big Sky series of paintings in which I feel that I am developing a "look" i.e. a dark mainly monochrome landscape using a lot of transparent paint set against a clean but dramatic sky. I actually used to paint this way over forty years ago and it has taken this long to realise what I was doing so that I can now develop it in a more rational and directed way!

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Cold Front - stage 3

 Getting it nearer to what I want, hoping to finish the sky tomorrow before painting in the snow on the landscape. The clouds are too flat at the moment and have no depth - hopefully fixed tomorrow...

Vaughn sold

 "Vaughn" has just sold through Artfinder. One of my Roadside America paintings from a few years ago. Oil on canvas 20" x 20".

It's interesting to see how my work is evolving, I wouldn't paint this how I have done here these days, it would be way moodier with the foreground buildings darker and less saturated in colour...

Cold Front - stage 2

 Getting it nearer to how I see it in my mind and once the sky is finished (this is the first pass) it will be time to paint in the snow.

Colours used: Ultramarine Blue, Kings Blue Light, Winsor Violet, Pale Violet, Permanent Orange, Permanent Sap Green, Yellow Lake Deep, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Zinc White.

Cold Front - stage 1

 Another Roadside America painting but at this stage there is no indication as to what it is going to look like. For starters the landscape is going to have snow on it and secondly the sky is based on a memory and a bad photograph of a sky I saw last week on the train back home from London in the late Winter afternoon. Upon a bit of research it seems that it was a cold front that was passing overhead (hence the title) but due to the basic sky background colour not being dry yet I have not been able to get any further with it and will have to wait until tomorrow to make a proper start on it. The location is in New Mexico where it does occasionally snow in the depths of Winter. It looks a bit like the surface of Mars at the moment....

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

Texas Crossing

 Still haven't found a location for my next rainy Roadside America painting so I got on with this one after seeing this sky over the sea playing boules on Brighton seafront last week. I needed a flat horizon for the sky to work so I chose a lonely location in Texas. 

Most of the paintings in this series are kind of about man and his (her!) position in the natural world i.e. pretty small! I often choose abandoned or run down examples of human activity within a vast and often hostile landscape (which is why I often choose the desert states of South West America) as though they are kind of facing a losing battle against the elements. If it's an urban scene I always have them deserted as though something terrible may have happened like post nuclear holocaust or climatic catastrophe... or at least an ambiguous hint at that. I'm looking for beauty but tinged with unease and in this case melancholy - a beautiful sky but nobody there to witness it. Nature just carries on while we live our little lives regardless of the bigger picture that we are changing the climate to make things worse for ourselves. Nature adapts and carries on regardless of our welfare, we think short term while Nature will go on  for many millions of years whether we hang around or not.

One day I will gather all the threads that make up the content of these paintings together and write down a coherent explanation of what I'm up to.

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

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

Texas Crossing - stage 2

 Due to some distractions to deal with I only managed to get the first pass on the clouds done today using a semi-opaque mix of Prussian Blue, Pale Violet, Permanent Orange and Zinc White painted over the basic pale blue background.

Texas Crossing - stage 1

 I still haven't found the right location for the rainy Roadside America painting I want to do but while playing boules on Brighton seafront a couple of days ago with friends I took some pics of an interesting sky out to sea which gave me an idea for another one to get on with in the meantime. I thought the sky would suit a flat horizon just like I saw it above the sea and decided that a flat lonely landscape like you can get in Texas would be a good subject. So it will another one like "Stop" where you have a beautiful sky in a desolate place that probably nobody is seeing which I think adds to the melancholy.

This is the tonal underpainting for the landscape using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and a mix of Prussian Blue. Permanent Orange and Zinc White for the sky.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Galata Sunrise sold

 I am pleased to say that "Galata Sunrise" sold as soon as I posted it on social media. Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

Galata Sunrise

 As I haven't yet found a suitable location for my next Roadside America painting (another rainy one) I thought that I would get on with an Orientalist piece for my upcoming slot on Every Day Original - except that it will be postponed to possibly December at the earliest.

I am carrying on with this different way of painting skies and thought it would be nice to do a dawn/sunrise sky over my usual minarets etc. In the end I settled on Istanbul and this view of the European side of the city from the (third?) Galata Bridge with the Eminonu Mosque as the main feature. Seeing as it is a fantasy painting I have felt free to rearrange the architecture somewhat and have made the mosque higher off the ground than it is in real life. I originally planned it to be just a pink dawn sky but thankfully I decided to have an area of yellow light near the horizon which has gave it a lot more variety of colour than otherwise it would have had.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

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

Galata Sunrise - stage 2

 Very hard to get a decent shot of it at this stage, the buildings are kind of darker than this but this will have to do. I'm kind of winging this as I go along and have left it here for today as I need to look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes over my breakfast coffee to work out how I am going to paint the foreground...

Galata Sunrise - stage 1

 This is only a working title at the moment and isn't really stage one either but I forgot to photograph the basic drawing so here we are...

I was originally going to start another Roadside America painting, a rainy one but I haven't found a location that I'm happy with yet so I thought that I would get on with an Orientalist one instead for my November slot on Every Day Original - except by the looks of it the slot might be coming up in December...

This is a view looking along the old Galata Bridge towards the European side of Istanbul (I will put a few figures in later on) and thought it would be nice to carry on with the different way I'm painting skies at the moment and do a soft dawn sky which would suit an Orientalist picture like this. I don't want the city and bridge to be too dark and trying to keep it a dusty red brick colour with some smoke and morning mist around. I'm glad I introduced that yellow in the sky at right as that will vary the colour and allow me to introduce it's complementary, violet into it as well.

Colours used so far: Winsor Violet, Ultramarine Violet, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Brilliant Pink, Alizarin Crimson, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Warm White Yellow, Zinc White and Warm White.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

Stop

 Another Roadside America landscape (or is it part of my "The Big Sky" series?) where I am trying out using reds and in this case, pinks. I wanted a fairly desolate and lonely location offset by a beautiful sky above it to in some ways to highten the melancholic aspect but also in way giving it a feeling of hope maybe too? I like pictures that have an ambiguous quality to them and always try to avoid "Pretty" and more interested in Beauty but with an edge of menace or unease. In fact earlier on in this painting I came up with a phrase when I was thinking about what I was trying to achieve in my work - Beautiful Unease.....that seemed to cover it.

I have a thing about desolate crossroads, probably resulting from the myth about Robert Johnson selling his soul to The Devil at a crossroads somewhere in Mississippi in exchange for mastery in playing the Blues.

I tried to make the sky look as rich in colour as I could by painting the landscape in dark unsaturated colours as a contrast.

Oil on fine cotton 20" x 16".

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