Tatooine Sunsets - stage 1

 This is probably the last painting that I will finish in time to take to IX later this month. It is in fact the third Star Wars themed painting I have done recently but the first two were snapped up very quickly by collector friends in the USA so I thought that it would be nice to do one for IX as nobody has actually seen the first two (although one of them will hopefully be published in the upcoming Art Renewal Center International Salon book if it gets accepted as a Finalist). The move across from my Orientalist inspired work to Star Wars is not as much of a stretch as you might think - Tatooine is a desert-like planet and they used Tunisia (?) to film the Tatooine scenes with some of the architectural styles melded with the futuristic. Indeed the buildings in this one on a desert mesa are very similar to my mosques etc in desert locations in earlier paintings. Hopefully there is a bit of Ralph McQuarrie in there too....

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 brushes.

Oil on fine cotton 16" x 12".

The Somnambulist sold

 "The Somnambulist" has just sold through Abend Gallery Denver CO. A painting from my "The Sleeping City" series. I wanted a sort of dream/nightmare feel to this one, actually for all in this series come to think of it. Compositionally everything hangs off the central axis of the moon and figure but in an asymmetric way as a counterpoint.

Oil on linen 16" x 12".

International Artist Magazine

 "Steeltown" has been published in the new October/November issue of International Artist magazine as a Finalist in the Cityscapes Challenge. It remains unsold and is currently available at Abend Gallery in Denver CO. Oil on linen 22" x 16".

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda

 This painting follows on from the previous one in that I decided to develop the warmly lit areas and expand it to be the main focus of the picture for this one. Once I was on that track it quickly occurred to me that fire could be a good subject and from that I thought about fire temples which actually do exist in one of the oldest religions on earth, Zoroastianism (Parsi in India). This is however a fire temple on number 11 and very much a Fantasy image so apologies at this point to any Zoroastrians who may see this! Ahura Mazda incidentally is a kind of godhead in this religion and a name I have loved and wanted to use in a title for many years!

This painting proved to be very tricky firstly because I wanted the brightest points of the picture to be the canvas white itself so I had to plan in advance where they were going to be which slowed me down in drawing it up... and secondly it was far more difficult than I first realised to translate the lighting of the previous street market scene into this scenario and it took longer than it really should have to paint the fires around the temple. I guess that lighting is ideal for market scenes at night!

This might be the last painting that I can finish in time to take to IX in Reading PA later this month... maybe time for another small one...

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 8

 This has been a real slog sorting out the lower level of the temple. I had originally conceived it like the market scene in the previous painting and assumed that I could replicate the effect in this one... wrong. At least you could say that I have learnt from this if nothing else. I have had to take it very slowly as I try to work out how it is going look ( i.e. not like the market scene) and finally think I have come up with something of a compromise which I will finish off hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully it comes out good enough to take to IX next month....

The Fire Temple Of Ahura Mazda - stage 7

 You can't tell much in the pic but I have been working on the temple and probably ready to start on the ground level tomorrow. I haven't put any figures in yet to give it a sense of scale, these will go in tomorrow. Lots to resolve in this area...

Dream Street sold

 "Dream Street" has just sold to a buyer in the USA through Artfinder. Oil on canvas 12" x 31".