Moonlight In The Seraglio

Although I thought that I had finished repainting "Moonlight In The Seraglio" yesterday I was looking at it this morning and I realised that I could improve it by darkening the interior. To this end I painted a Violet/Blue glaze over all of the mid-ground interior and over the shadows of the buildings on the background. This I think separates the interior from the outside and gives a bit more of an interesting tonal design to the picture by accentuating the shape of the area lit by moonlight in the  background.
This is a hard painting to photograph so you will have to wait until Illuxcon to see what it actually looks like!
I will be away from the studio now until Thursday although due to my father having another fall yesterday, things are more uncertain...

Moonlight In The Seraglio repainted

Something has bugged me about this painting for some time and I decided that if it was to be of a good enough standard to take to Illuxcon I needed to do something about it. I finally realised that it was the perspective in the foreground and the awkward space of carpet between the figure and the immediate foreground. The area that she occupied in space was wrong and it looked as though the divan was at some crazy angle to the floor. I didn't want to repaint the whole figure so I resolved to try and sort it out so that although it wouldn't be perfect at least it would make more sense, to which end I positioned her on a different divan that was at a different angle to the floor. I then added some other details such as an incense burner and a cushion and slightly repainted the figure.
I hope that this has resolved the situation!
Oil on linen 18" x 24".

Original painting

Moonlight In The Seraglio/Midnight Bay

Original painting

I have carried on with tweaking these two paintings to get them ready for Illuxcon with "Midnight Bay" now finished. I gave it two glazes of a green/blue (Winsor Green and Prussian Blue) to darken areas and strengthen the contrast.
Due to the extensive reworking of the foreground in "Moonlight In The Seraglio" I am still working on this one, hopefully finishing it tomorrow morning before I leave the studio for a few days, back on Saturday.

Reworked painting

 

 

 

Moonlight In The Seraglio

New Version

In order to get some paintings to a state that I am happy with to take to Illuxcon I am repainting or adjusting a number of paintings including "Midnight Mahal", "Midnight Bay"and "Moonlight In The Seraglio".
With "Moonlight In The Seraglio" there has been something bugging me about it for some time and have finally realised what it was, the perspective in the foreground. With that in mind I have made a start on correcting it by placing the figure on a different divan and at a different angle. I have also repainted the foreground pillar perspective so that the different components of the foreground will make more sense in terms of the space they occupy.

Original painting

 

Midnight Keep

This is the last of the five nocturnes all with the word "Midnight" in the title. I wanted to get away from the more monochromatic blues of the previous four and decided to go for a warmer and more varied palette based on a red/orange - green/blue complementary colour axis. I decided to do a painting mixing the influences of the Hudson River School in terms of scale and grandeur and Atkinson Grimshaw for it's moonlit lighting and colour.
The composition is loosely based on the Rule Of Thirds making sure that the landscape features were asymmetrical to offset the centrally placed figure although I wasn't sure whether to include a figure at the outset - the lovely Naomi Wood was the model as usual! This will be a painting that I intend to show at Illuxcon in October.
Oil on canvas 39" x 16". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Midnight Keep - stage 15

Not really a stage, it just shows the work I managed to get done this morning on the moonlit foreground sand and water before I packed up to leave the studio, back on Wednesday/Thursday to finish off the painting.

Spirit Of The Falls sold

"Spirit Of The Falls" has just sold through Asgard Arts. It was painted for exhibition at Illuxcon in 2014. Oil on canvas 39.5" x 16".