The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 6

 Gradually working my way around the temple adjusting as I go along. Hopefully I can sort out the platform at the foot of the large door tomorrow....

New colour used: Cadmium Red Medium.

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 5

 Working my way down the temple now, the next tricky bit will be the transition of the detail on the temple from the dark at the top to the fiery areas at the bottom . The pic makes it all look a bit harsher than it is....

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 4

 

Finished the background and sky and have started on the temple - long way to go yet!

New colour used: Yellow Lake Deep

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 2 & 3

Stage 2

 Got caught up in doing my tax books yesterday and forgot to post the progress...

Stage 2 shows the finished tonal underpainting and stage 3 shows the first colour pass on the sky and background. The painting will be based on a green/blue - red/orange colour complementary and have realised that I have to make sure there is some colour variation particularly in the fiery areas.

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

Stage 3

 

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 1

 Another painting for IX next month this one follows on from the last painting in that I am developing the warmly lit areas of the street market and expanding it into areas of fires, smoke and people in front of a fire temple at night. The temple is very loosely based on the Zoroastrian temples of Iran and India (called Parsi) where fire is associated with the kind of godhead called Ahura Mazda, a name I have loved for many years and finally get to use in a painting title.

It has actually been tricky to draw up because I am leaving the brightest areas of the painting where the flames are as the white canvas and then painting around them. This entails working out where all the fires are going to be and therefore not so much room for improvisation as everything has to be composed first (there will be a chance for improvisation when it comes to painting all the figures and smaller fires). This is halfway through the initial tonal underpainting after the basic drawing up is finished and hope to finish that stage tomorrow.

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

Art Renewal Center

 Pleased to see that five of my paintings have been accepted for the Semi Final stage of the 17th International Salon competeition. Now I'm hoping that they all make it to the Final! The paintings are "Binary Sunset", "Home Sweet Home", The Night Owl", "Homeward Bound" and "The Safe House".

Red Lantern Street

 Kind of a first for me, a Chinese-themed painting which is a combination of memories of Chinatown in London at Chinese New Year and imagination. I love the colour red but find it hard to use as it is tonally quite dark so I set the lanterns in the darkest parts of the painting but then that introduced a new problem of incorporating them with the lighting in the street. I proceeded quite slowly and gradually it came together. This painting will be shown at IX next month in Reading PA.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

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