The Somnambulist

 The fourth in my "The Sleeping City" series this one is set more on the edge of a city on those roads out that have all the gas stations and eateries along them with the large roadside signs. Under a shimmering moon a man walks along a strangely empty road with no cars where no lights can be seen but there are lit signs on the top of the distant skyscraper. Some orange light can be seen inside the nearest building, is it a fire? I have always enjoyed a mysterious feel to paintings and have tried to put that feeling into my work too, sort of dream/nightmare imagery. In dreams it's usually places you know but they are always somehow different, things missing or just unseen, to this end I am going to accentuate this in this series, I particularly like signs where there is no lettering or buildings with no signage on them.... that feeling of something is missing...

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

The Somnambulist - stage 3

 

Decided against adding a building in the background - so far, and got on with getting it ready to finish tomorrow. I worked on the distant roadside buildings adding more signs but having it all unlit. I then worked on the foreground road and moon reflections. I have started adding a small amount of Lead Tin Yellow Lemon to the moonlight reflections on the road as they were looking too purple.

The Somnambulist - stage 2

 First colour pass on the sky and foreground building. I decided to have a light on in the building although it is is darker and more subtle than it appears in this photo. Tinkering with having one more tall building in the distance and putting in more signs on the distant road, I want to set this one in those areas of an American city where eateries, motels etc signs line the road as you go out of town.

Torii sold

 Pleased to say that "Torii" sold immediately on Every Day Original today. 

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

The Somnambulist - stage 1

 A terrible photo of the underpainting stage of the next in my series "The Sleeping City". This is really stage 2 but I didn't get a photo of the tonal underpainting stage so this will have to do. Essentially I have painted some rough colour over the underpainting just to make a start so that it will be dry for tomorrow to work on. I want a dreamlike feel to this one to go with the title...

Colours used so far: Indanthrene Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Viridian, Neutral Grey No 5, Dioxazine Purple, Quinacridone Red, Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Warm White.

Wrong Side Of The Tracks

 This is the third in my "The Sleeping City" series and the first in a few upcoming paintings that will be about pools of light within areas of shadow. Here we have a run down part of town with low rise buildings in the foreground behind which are the skyscrapers of the more affluent Downtown which is either separated from this side of town by a river or more in keeping with the title, railway tracks.

Based on a yellow/violet colour complementary with the violets fairly desaturated. As in all my paintings I want them to look like a painting and try and incorporate visible brushmarks and try to avoid the comments I used to get "it looks like a photograph". I 'm trying to walk that tricky line between realism and painterly...

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Wrong Side Of The Tracks - stage 4

 Worked on the background but still not quite happy with the horizon of foreground buildings and will have a final faff with them tomorrow. I also made a start on the foreground buildings and the pool of light at the front.

New colours used: Magenta Violet, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Lead Tin Yellow Lemon.

Bar & Grill sold

 With the paint barely dry "Bar & Grill" has just sold to a buyer in the US that has about three of mine already. The third in my current series "The Sleeping City". 

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

Wrong Side Of The Tracks - stage 3

 First colour pass on the background and I'm trying to keep it desaturated so that the lit area will pop nicely. I quite liked the overall colour of the previous stage and might well work within that colour range on another in this series.

Colours used so far: Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Dioxazine Purple, Pale Violet, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Amethyst, Chrome Green and Warm White.

Wrong Side Of The Tracks - stage 2

 I first gave it a wash of transparent Ultramarine Violet apart from the lit area in front of the building. I then mixed a darker base colour of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple and started blocking in some tone. I then gave the lit area a very light wash of Yellow Lake Deep thinned with a lot of Liquin. It's now ready for the opaque colour tomorrow.

The Wrong Side Of The Tracks - stage 1

 This is the third in my "The Sleeping City" series and possibly the first in a number of paintings that will be about pools of light in areas of shadows. Here we have a run down section of town with low rise buildings behind which are the skyscrapers of the much more affluent downtown part of town which is either separated from the other by a river or in keeping with the title, railway tracks. There is still the obvious Edward Hopper influence in here but maybe this one won't have the slightly desolate feel of the earlier painting "Bar & Grill".

This the initial tonal underpainting stage using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and flat brush.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12"

Bar & Grille

 The second in my series of paintings "The Sleeping City". They are kind of Edward Hopper inspired but with touches of Magritte maybe combined with my penchant for mood and atmosphere. I want these cities to be dark and silent as though it really is sleeping but they are hopefully enigmatic too - they look too silent perhaps, maybe this is some sort of post Apocalypse where there are just a few survivors left or in this case by some anomaly a lone neon sign lights a forlorn street in a dead city... or maybe it's all quiet and everybody is tucked up in bed peacefully sleeping... I do like enigmatic pictures, a sense of mystery....

I am trying to use different colors to what I normally use for this series with this one based around violets that have been desaturated with green where needed.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Bar & Grille -stage 4

 I have the background mostly finished and am now working on the foreground buildings, I seem to be settling on the neon sign being mostly pinks with some yellow but I haven't started it yet, just left a space where it's going. Still difficult to photograph...

New colours used: Brilliant Pink and Manganese Violet.

Orogrande sold

 "Orogrande" has just sold to a buyer/Facebook friend who has I think two more of my paintings in his collection. As it was sold direct I have marked it as sold on my Artfinder page...

One of my The Big Sky/Roadside America series of paintings and another of my abandoned gas station paintings (I seem to have a thing about them).

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Bar & Grill - stage 3

 

Didn't get a lot done today.... I painted a second pass of colour over the sky and background buildings and then made a start on the middle ground buildings ready to finish tomorrow, Trying to keep it soft and mysterious....

Bar & Grill - stage 2

 Really hard to get  a decent pic of this, it's much more like a blue/violet in the background than it appears here. The colours should work but it might be the final scan that shows the true colours - that I think will work, honest. I have also worked out how I'm going to do the sign but that's a few days away yet. Trying to keep the background soft and mysterious....

Colours used so far: Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet. Dioxazine Purple, Pale Violet, Permanent Sap Green, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange and Zinc White.

Bar & Grill - stage 1

 This is the second in my "The Sleeping City" series and is another New York (although it could be any large American city?) rooftop picture but this time I am planning on using different colours to the last one. I struggled with the composition of this as I was planning on it showing a solitary neon sign above a shop/bar/whatever on the ground level as well as showing a rooftop view across the city - this proved impossible so I left it alone for a day and thought about it this morning over my breakfast coffee and decided to combine a neon sign further up the building with the rooftop view.

This is the initial tonal underpainting stage using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and flat brush.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

The Night Owl

 This looks like the last in my "Snow" series as it has now morphed into a new series called "The Sleeping City" of which this is the first...

A decade ago I was doing a lot of Edward Hopper-inspired paintings which tailed off when I started to produce work with a more Fantasy feel as I had broken back into a market that I thought I had left behind but which at least I still had some tatters of recognition in. I seem to have come back full circle with the Fantasy work now informing this more "Fine Art" aspect to what I do. "The Sleeping City" will (hopefully/presumably) be a return to some urban scenes with possibly a slight Retro feel to them combined with a Fantasy sensibility in terms of mood, atmosphere and lighting.

A recent theme has been the solitary light in an urban or landscape scenario which I now intend to develop for this new series in one way or another. Whether they will all be nocturnes for instance I have no idea at this point....

I had originally saw this in my mind as based on desaturated blues but as it progressed I decided to keep some of the colour of the brown/purple underpainting to give it more variety of colour.... this is the advantage of being your own Art Director, you can change things, quite a lot sometimes.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.