The Vampire Of San Marco - stage 5

 I realised that I couldn't put the fog in until the water was painted in and in fact I really needed to work on the buildings a bit more so.... the fog goes in tomorrow.

The Vampire Of San Marco - stage 4

 I have kind of overpainted the buildings across the water as I want them to be dark and semi-silhouetted but will have a lot of fog/mist over them soon but I still want some of this detail to be there. Bear with me...

Solo Show

 My solo show "Home Land" opens today at the Abend Gallery, Denver CO comprising 15 symbolic landscape paintings in panoramic format all oil on canvas. All can be seen on previous posts over the past year in this blog.

The Vampire Of San Marco -stage 3

 After giving most of the painting a desaturated blue/green wash I painted the first colour pass on the sky. As the painting is based around a blue/green - red/orange colour complementary I might put in a touch of lemon into the lighter area of the sky - decision will be made over tomorrow's breakfast coffee.

Colours used so far: Phthalocyanine Blue, Phthalocyanine Green, Dioxazine Purple, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange and Warm White.

The Vampire Of San Marco - stage 2

 Finished the tonal underpainting ready for a desaturated blue/green wash tomorrow and make a start on the sky. The plan is that the brightest parts of the painting are the moon and the lights in his eyes with everything else fairly dark and foggy so that it looks like as the viewer walks along the canalside pathway a Nosferatu vampire suddenly emerges from a narrow alleyway. I want it be fairly scary... and kind of beautiful as after all it is Venice....

The Vampire Of San Marco - stage 1

 I now have a chance to get some paintings done to take to IX later in the year (if I am able to get them to the USA now tariffs are complicating things) and thought I would paint another in my occasional series of "Vampires Of Venice". I must explain that I find Venice quite a mysterious place particularly at night and on foggy days and do not associate it with romance! I love walking around it at night and due to the age of the city it occurred to me some years ago that the whole place could be inhabited by vampires who each have a certain campo or canal etc that they haunt looking for unsuspecting tourists like me to empty of blood...

This is set in the sestiere of San Marco on the side of the Grand Canal looking towards the Salute - in fact this is impossible as there are no walkways on the side of the Grand Canal in this section of San Marco but hey it's Fantasy right?!

This is halfway through the initial tonal underpainting and didn't have time today to get it all in so I will finish it tomorrow. It uses my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and brush.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Lunar Triad

 Now that I have finished the series for my upcoming solo show at the Abend Gallery I thought that I would get on with some paintings to take to IX in October and fancied doing another Star Wars Tatooine panorama. Luckily I was doing some research and discovered that it it has three moons in addition to the two suns so that was a perfect theme for this painting. It is quite evident here that it is not much of a jump for me to go from an Orientalist desert scene with a mosque and minarets to a Tatooine Science Fiction landscape - the building style is Futuristic Mosque just as the architecture in the movies is a version of Islamic North Africa where they were filmed. The deceptively simple sky took a long while to paint as it is made up of glazes which I kept adding to until I was happy with the light.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2' x 12".

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

 

Lunar Triad - stage 9

 Painted in the foreground rocks at left and made a start on the buildings/space port ready to hopefully finish tomorrow. Glad I've managed to get some variation of colour in the landscape.

Lunar Triad - stage 8

 Managed to paint in the landscape at right with some variation in colour that I wanted and will now move on to the landscape in the left corner before I finish with the buildings/space port. I guess the sky is finished.... maybe.

Lunar Triad - stage 7

 Just had a couple of days away from painting so glad to get back to it today. I decided to work on the central section of the landscape first whereby I worked out the colours to use which I will now continue with for the rest of the painting - basically bringing in a kind of blue into the highlights that aren't picking up the sunlight. This gave me the variation in colour that I was looking for...

New colours used: Pale Violet and Naples Yellow.

Lunar Triad - stage 6

 I may well tweak the sky as I go along but it's good enough for me to be able to start on the landscape now so today I managed to paint in the background. Good to stop here so that I can evaluate the colours I'm using etc as I will be away from the studio tomorrow and will get back to it on Wednesday.

New colours used: Manganese Violet, Brilliant Pink and Yellow Lake Deep.

Lunar Triad - stage 5

 Still faffing around with the sky after I realised that the area near the horizon was too dark for when it came to painting the landscape so changed it today. Nearly there, should be able to make a start on the distant mesas even if the sky is still maybe not quite finished.

Lunar Triad - stage 4

 God glazes are slow going! I gave the sky a second pass of yellow and gave the landscape a blue/violet wash but unfortunately the yellow wasn't dry enough to start on the orange/pink washes later in the afternoon. It will be worth it in the end because only glazes can give you one colour shining through another which is what I want but unfortunately I can't get on with the landscape until the sky is finished...

Lunar Triad - stage 3

 I worked up the tonal underpainting a bit more and painted in the base colours of the sky with the first glaze of yellow going on late this afternoon over the blue. Hopefully I can get the first pink glaze in tomorrow...

New colour used: Lemon Yellow

Lunar Triad - stage 2

 I gave the tonal underpainting a second pass to strengthen the contrast and then once it had dried in the late afternoon gave the sky a preliminary pass of some base colours ready for tomorrow. The sky will take a few more passes as it will be made up mainly of glazes and at this point gives no indication of what it is finally going to look like!

My transition from Orientalist mosques and minarets to Star Wars Tatooine architecture is actually not much of a stretch as you can see here where that could quite easily be a mosque on a desert hilltop and not a space station....

Colours used so far: Kings Blue Light, Manganese Blue Hue, Dioxazine Purple, Lavender, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Warm White.

Lunar Triad - stage 1

 It seems time to start painting some stock to take to IX in October and I fancied painting another Star Wars inspired landscape of dusty Tatooine. I have been reading up on it and happily found out that in addition to the two suns it also has three moons so this one will be about that but not a nocturne as such as it is set at dusk when there is still some residual sunlight near the horizon but the sky is dark enough to see the three moons... well that's the plan any way.

This is kind of halfway through the initial tonal underpainting and plan on getting in the sky with moons and finishing the landscape underpainting tomorrow.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

Working Late

 I won a chance to exhibit in a group show at the Rehs Contemporary Gallery in NewYork in last year's Art Renewal Center's International Salon competition. I spoke to the Gallery Director and he suggested a loose theme of "isolation" for the show which is fine with me! The exhibition will be held in Spring 2026 and he is hoping for 5-6 pieces from each of the ten artists chosen.

This idea (Working Late) came to mind pretty quickly and I thought that I would get on with it so that I would have at least one painting under my belt for the show. I had an idea of a lonely office worker working into the night while everybody else has long gone home and wanted something Hopper-influenced which is appropriate as his paintings are often about the isolation of people in a city environment. I tried a few compositional ideas out and ended up with coming close to the building as the further back I went the idea became weaker with less obvious connection to the title.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Working Late - stage 6

 I worked on the building in the right bottom corner and then made a start on the street below, I need to tidivate some things on that building and finish the street so hoping to get all the background finished tomorrow ready to make a start on the foreground building at right. Glad I got rid of the water tower and prefer just the distant skyscraper in the mist.

Working Late - stage 5

 

Worked more on the buildings in the middle distance and then left them and roughed in some colour on the nearest buildings at left as I hope to get all the city buildings done tomorrow but need to work on them together hence getting everything ready.

Working Late - stage 4

 Worked some more on the background but can't really finish it until the nearer buildings are in so I stopped here and roughed in some colour on the nearer buildings ready for tomorrow - ditched the water tower at right as it was bugging me....

Hard to get a decent photo of this one so only the final scan will show the correct colours and contrast.

Working Late - stage 3

 First colour pass on the background. Not a great pic of it and looks a bit harsh here and not quite the colours I intended but I will have a look at it tomorrow morning and decide how to finish the background. I have also gave the rest of the painting a couple of desaturated blue washes to get it ready for the colour to go on.

Colours used so far: Phthalocyanine Green, Indanthrene Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Manganese Violet, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Warm Light Yellow and Warm White.

Working Late - stage 2

 Well that's the initial tonal underpainting done so I guess tomorrow it's time for a desaturated blue wash and then go to colour... unless I correct the tones in this colour first before the blue wash - to be decided over tomorrow's breakfast coffee.

Working Late - stage 1

 When I entered the Art Renewal Center's International Salon last year I won a prize in that it is an opportunity to exhibit in a group show at the Rehs Contemporary Gallery in New York, the show being the ten winners selected from the entries to the Salon. I spoke to the Gallery Director and he is suggesting the loose theme of "Isolation" for the show which is fine with me! The exhibition will be held in Spring 2026 and he would like to have 5-6 pieces from each artist.

This idea (Working Late) came to mind pretty quickly and I thought that I would get on with painting it so that at least I will have one painting under my belt for the show. I want to have an image of some lonely office worker working late into the night expressed by a light on in an office building that is otherwise dark. I tried a few compositional ideas out and ended up with this one of being quite close to the building as the further back I went the idea became weaker with less obvious connection with the title.

This is halfway through the initial tonal underpainting  which I hope to finish tomorrow and uses the usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and brush.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Rain In The Canyon

 In a way this is the first painting to directly come out of last year's tour of the South West USA National Parks and is a memory of the Grand Canyon which at this time of the year (July) regularly has a rain storm about 4.00 in the afternoon. We had to make a dash for cover with us all trying to get photos as we hurried for shelter. This is really a composite of three different locations along the Rim and I struggled with the foreground quite a lot and in the end I had to get rid of some of the rock and put more vegetation in as the area was originally dominating the picture and I wanted the focus to be on the sun hitting the distant ridges in the canyon.

I have painted this as my submission painting to the International Guild Of Realism exhibition in a gallery in Santa Fe in July and is why I have gone for a slightly more realistic and less imagined painting this time.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Rain In The Canyon - stage 6

 Tweaked the rain and put a bit of warm light on the face of the canyon wall at right before making a start on the foreground.... and then realised that there was too much uninteresting rock in the foreground so I decided to cut into them with some more bushes which has broken them up and made them not so dominant in the composition. Much happier with it now and will finish the foreground tomorrow....

I am painting this as my application piece for an upcoming show by the International Guild Of Realism at a gallery in Santa Fe in July hence it is a bit more photographic than my usual work as the accent on the show is definitely "realism".

Rain In The Canyon - stage 5

 Worked on the canyon wall at right and faffed around with the rain again. It looks a bit too dark and contrasty here but will adjust tomorrow before starting on the foreground tomorrow.

Rain In The Canyon - stage 4

 Pretty much finished the sky and canyon and making a start on the nearer canyon wall at right tomorrow. I have gave it a blue wash (not shown here) and then stopped as I need to decide on what colours I am going to use here...

Rain In The Canyon - stage 3

 Pretty much finished the sky bar finishing the rain at left that can't be done until the canyon is finished. Have made a start on the canyon today and hope to get the background finished tomorrow including the rain although I'm tempted to have some of the rain falling over the dark canyon wall at right...

New colour used: Warm Light Yellow

Rain In The Canyon - stage 2

 First colour pass on the sky, the idea behind the painting is the screen of grey rain coming in from the right starting to cover the relatively complex shapes of the clouds and the canyon (I start on the canyon tomorrow). It's not as contrasty as it appears on this post...

Colours used so far:  Phthalocyanine Blue, Manganese Blue Hue, Dioxazine Purple, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Orange, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Warm White.

Rain In The Canyon - stage 1

 This is probably the first painting to directly come out of last year's tour round the National Parks in SW USA and is of a memorable time when about 4.00 in the afternoon a rainstorm came down the Grand Canyon towards us and we had to dash for shelter. Apparently at that time of year it pretty much happened every afternoon  (July). All those shots I took of the landscapes I saw didn't really fit the theme of the "Home Land" series as they were too specific to quite famous locations so very little was used of those photos... until now.

I'm painting it as my entry for the annual show organised by the International Guild Of Realism with the exhibition in a gallery in Santa Fe later this year. If it doesn't get in I will put it up for sale on Artfinder, got to hurry up though it's nearing the deadline....

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

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

The Snow Palace

 Fancied doing a blue nocturne harking back to my love of blue Edmund Dulacs of which I saw a roomful at the Dulwich Picture Gallery many moons ago. I wasn't going to originally but I changed my mind and put some lights in the windows to give me the complementary as well as to give a bit more variety of colour. Set in an imaginary Central Asia where this is just about possible I tried to make the architecture more like a palace and less like a mosque by leaving out the minarets for instance.

I have painted this for my upcoming February 23 slot on Every Day Original and will post on that site later today.

Oil on fine cotton 12" x 16"

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

Almenara Art Prize Residency

 I woke up this morning to a fantastic surprise, The Almenara Art Prize messaged me on Instagram to say that my application for their artists residency next year had been accepted. This will be a month (or three weeks) staying at a villa outside the town of Montoro near Cordoba where I can paint the landscape (and maybe Cordoba too as it's been on my bucket list for years) along with another artist yet to be revealed. Since painting on the Sky Landscape Artist Of The Year plein air painting seems to be making a comeback in my work as I also have the upcoming artist residency in Pennsylvania this May too. 

This is all fine with me and fits my decision taken a while ago to try and instigate opportunities through my work for new challenges and also to travel to other countries for a purpose and not just a holiday; if I am going to contribute to the pollution of the planet by flying in jets to other countries at least there is a purpose to it!

I stay at the villa for free so have to pay for my travel and food and also have to leave a painting behind as a thank you and as an addition to their collection. It runs from 16 April to 6 May 2026.

Here is a link:

https://www.thealmenaracollection.com/page/40172/art-residencies 

 

The Snow Palace - stage 4

 Finished the sky and mountains bar a few stars to go in and first colour pass on the palace. Hoping to get the rest in tomorrow for a Monday finish. Might only have one window with a light on....to be decided.

The Snow Palace - stage 3

 First colour pass on the sky and mountains, going for blues...

Colours used so far: Phthalo Bue, Phthalo Green, Cobalt Turquoise, Permanent Orange, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Warm White.

Infected By Art

 

Palace Sunsets

I have just learnt that I have had two paintings selected for inclusion in Infected By Art 13, "Palace Sunsets" and "The Portal" both oil on fine cotton 16" x 12". This is the tenth time in a row that I have had work selected...thank you Jurors!

The Portal

 

The Snow Palace - stage 2

 Finished the tonal underpainting and have now gave it a blue wash (not shown here) ready for starting the colour tomorrow.

The underpainting is a mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and brush.

The Snow Palace - stage 1

 This one is intended for my upcoming slot on Every Day Original on 23 February - should have it finished by then!

I return to a nocturne theme of a Central Asian palace in the snow under a moonlit night with the moon being just out of sight on the right. The whole painting will be in blues apart from one window in the palace with an orange light so that I can get the complementary in and relieve the dominance of blue. This is halfway through the tonal underpainting which I will finish tomorrow when it should all come together. Spent a long time faffing around with the shape of the large cypress tree at right....

Oil on fine cotton 12" x 16".

Llanberis

 This is the painting that I had four hours to work on in the Sky Landscape Artist Of The Year competition. I was asking a lot of myself to complete a tonal underpainting before going to colour and indeed towards the end I had to rush the bottom half of the painting hence it's somewhat minimal look. It did it's job though and makes the finished painting relatively coherent to be judged at the end. I was quite surprised that I made it to the last three as I find my work doesn't really connect with the Fine Art market in the UK especially as one of the judges couldn't get past me painting it as nighttime.... 

I had a long chat in front of camera with Tai-Shan Schierenberg at the beginning when I explained what and why I was going to do and he was intrigued... but all that got edited out! Kate Bryan actually never spoke to me but my friend Rich Newman who was also there said that she spent a long time looking at the finished painting so maybe she liked it after all. She may have seen the underpainting stage and didn't realise that I was going to add the colour later and thought it was too boring to talk about!

Anyway I was somewhat relieved to not win the heat as the dates for the follow up semi final etc were running way too close to my tour of the National Parks in the South West USA which was booked for late July.

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

Solo Show

 Here is the second batch of five paintings in my "Home Land" series just before I box them up to ship to the Abend Gallery in Denver CO for my solo show in late March.

All oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

There are four left to ship and that will be fifteen paintings for the show.

Out Of Town

 Finally finished the last in my "Home Land" series destined for my solo show at the Abend Gallery, Denver CO in late March this year. This one is set in a notional swampland somewhere in Louisiana and is a follow on from an earlier painting "The Outsider" which has a strip of city lights running along the painting but this time with no buildings showing. Again in a way this is another outsider living in a shack in the swamps away from the bright lights of human occupation.... I suppose there is an echo of recent USA forest fires in the distance too....

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

There is virtually no step-by-step progress through this painting on the blog because I lost access to it for about a month while Google messed around with new EU regulations on cookies!

Out Of Town and an apology

 I am very sorry but for the past month or so I have been unable to post anything on this blog after Google messed around with settings for EU cookies regulations. It seems that it has been resolved!

This is around stage 6 in the progress for the last painting in the series "Home Land" destined for my solo show at the Abend Gallery Denver CO in late March. This one is set somewhere in Louisiana in the swamps with the lights of a town or city in the far distance. At this point I have roughed in the water reflections and and cypress tree stumps ready for a final pass tomorrow.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12",

Last Light

 The first painting of '25 and the next in my "Home Land" series. This one is set in Wyoming sort of (at least that is a version of the Tetons in the background) as I try to vary the landscape locations in this series. I felt that I should stop painting in lonely farmhouses and think of a variation on the theme and came up with a lonely car traveling through a vast landscape instead which I quite like as it gives me other possibilities and will lead on to the next painting that will have a lonesome car in it too. The metaphor of the home and the car within a vast landscape both hold up within the general theme behind this series so that is a handy development in terms of variation of content. The lighting is influenced by what I saw on my recent tour of US National Parks in the South West.

This the eleventh painting that I'm happy with of the fifteen I want to paint for my solo show "Home Land" coming up at the end of March at the Abend Gallery, Denver CO.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

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

Last Light - stage 6

 Still tinkering with the light on the mountains which is getting better but will be able to tell when the rest of the snow on the landscape is painted in. Didn't get a lot done today as I had an unexpected lunch with a friend that made a large hole in the afternoon so as the light was fading I decided to leave it until tomorrow.

Last Light - stage 5

 Still trying to get the mountains right and painted in a darker shadow area at the base to try and make the top of the mountains to glow a bit more. Need to look at it over tomorrow.s breakfast coffee and see if I am there yet before proceeding to paint in the land at the bottom.

Last Light - stage 4

 

I have made a start on the mountains and stopped  leaving the left side unpainted for the moment. There is something I feel I need to tweak on the areas that I painted today and I'm not sure what it is yet so I'm leaving it here and will have a look with fresh eyes over tomorrow morning's breakfast coffee. 

New colour used: Quinacridone Red.