A Sidestreet In Madurai sold

"A Sidestreet In Madurai" was sold last week direct to a buyer in the USA who has now bought at least four paintings over the past twelve months.
This was painted in 2013 after a visit to South India in which I wanted to get across the scruffy charm of a street that really could be anywhere in India with it's typical mix of worn colourfully painted surfaces, interesting street furniture and poor drainage!
A step-by-step process article about this painting featured in Artists & Illustrators magazine the following year.
Oil on board 36" x 18".

Siren's Dawn - stage 2

I just had time this morning to put down some undercolour before leaving the studio for a few days, back on Friday.
With a rag I washed in the beginnings of the sky using mixes of Lemon Yellow, Manganese Blue, Kings Blue Light, Indian Yellow, Permanent Orange and Brilliant Pink, all Michael Harding colours.
Although the foreground will be in cool blues I have washed in a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet over this area as red/browns sit very nicely under blues and violets.

Siren's Dawn - stage 1

At long last I am getting on with another painting after nearly a month of tweaking earlier paintings and sorting out things on my new computer. I am hoping to have this ready to take to Illuxcon but it will be a close thing and probably will be shown unframed if I do take it along.
This painting is really all about the sky and lighting to set the mood and at this first stage it is impossible to see what I envisage. I am hoping to wash in some tone on the foreground as well as the background colours in the sky tomorrow morning, at this point it will hopefully become more apparent as to how it is going to look.
The mermaid/siren has suddenly seen the distant ship on the horizon in the early morning light as she combs her hair. I saw her in my mind viewed from below so that she is silhouetted against the sky. The model was the lovely Naomi Wood.
This stage has been "drawn" up with a thin bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine.

Lack of activity...

Apologies for the current lack of posts, I am still only occasionally in my studio and have been prioritising my time on sorting out my computer. I am planning a mermaid painting as possibly the last painting to take to Illuxcon in October and am hoping to make a start on it next week! 

Midnight Mahal

As part of the current exercise in tweaking some recent pictures I have slightly changed "Midnight Mahal" by putting in an indication of the moon in the sky at near top right as well as putting in a few more moonlit highlights on the Taj itself. The colour is more blue than it appears here but again this is another hard painting to photograph.

Original painting

60,000 page hits

I am pleased to report that my blog has just exceeded 60,000 page hits...

Moonlight In The Seraglio...again

OK OK I've finished tweaking it now! I returned to the studio yesterday and finally realised what was bugging me about the top of the picture, I didn't like the shapes of the dark foreground against the moonlit background. To this end I darkened off the arches and merged them more into the curtains, this added some more contrast which makes it work better spatially and breaks up the awkward way the curtains met the top edge of the picture.

Due to my father having another fall I will be around less in the studio for a while so please understand the relative lack of activity on this blog!