Skyline and Tower of Babel sold

Tower of Babel

 A collector that has quite a few of my paintings already has just bought "Skyline" and "Tower of Babel" both of which were painted a couple of years ago for my "The Big Sky" series... although they could also be included in my "Roadside America" series too. A gallery in Denver CO tried to sell them on an online show last years but no takers...

"Tower of Babel" 30" x 20" oil on linen. "Skyline" 20" x 16" oil on linen.

Skyline

Tera Kumo

 Apologies to Japanese speaking people the title is my clumsy approximate translation of "Cloud Temple" although I have also incorporated some Chinese landscape influences in this too. I quite like the idea of running everything off from the left using the trees to break up the lines. I usually try to find diagonals in landscapes as otherwise they can look lifeless and a bit boring due to all the horizontals and verticals. Most of my current work seems to be based on a moody muted landscape with a single light source somewhere in the picture... as in this one. I actually saw this one in my mind as quite a lot darker but once I had the moon in the sky I realised that I liked the soft glow it has and didn't want to f*** it up by painting it as I originally intended.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Tera Kumo - stage 5

 Painted in the rocks with a dark blue glaze but now not sure about it as it all looks a bit too monochrome. There is some dark green to go in for the trees which should relieve it but I might need to add some opaque highlights as well, no doubt this will be decided over tomorrow morning's breakfast coffee....

Tera Kumo - stage 4

 

Decided over breakfast coffee this morning to base the whole picture round violets (with the complementary yellow going into the temple door when I get round to it) to which end I gave all the rocks a wash of Ultramarine Violet which harmonised the background to the foreground better.. something that was bugging me. Unfortunately I have to wait until tomorrow to get on with the rocks when the wash is dry but I did at least get on with putting in some basic detail into the temple.

The rest of the day was not wasted as I was able to get on with packing up "Shinrin Taisha" ready for shipping tomorrow and organised a number of things online for my upcoming trip to the USA next month including travel insurance and booking a Covid test at Heathrow...

Tera Kumo - stage 3

 After some deliberation I made a start on the first pass of colour on the background which I am basing around a muted violet to contrast with the complementary yellow that will go in the lit window. Everything else will be muted blues although I had a bit of a panic when I thought the preliminary brushwork on the mountains was too blue so I ran a thin wash of the original Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet over it with a stronger wash on the temple which needs to be a slightly different colour to the rocks. Hopefully it will make more sense tomorrow...

Colours used: Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Permanent Orange, Warm White and Zinc White.

Shinrin Taisha sold

 Pleased to report that my last painting "Shinrin Taisha" has just sold although I nearly missed out as I hadn't seen the messages from the buyer but luckily a friend who knows us both told me that he was trying to get in touch with me.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Tera Kumo - stage 2

 As this is going to be based around blue I decided to do the rest of the tonal underpainting with a mix of Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Violet and Permanent Orange as I didn't want it to have a lot of warm colour underneath. I have roughed in some preliminary detail with this mix mainly using a flat brush; the tonal underpainting will be finished tomorrow when I paint a blue glaze over the sky and cloud areas... unless I get a chance later this afternoon if the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix is dry enough.

Tera Kumo - stage 1

 I was just about to start on a small Orientalist painting for next month's slot on Every Day Original when I suddenly got sidetracked by another Japanese themed picture seeing as the previous two got a good reception and indeed may have sold one of them already.

Apologies to Japanese speaking readers of this blog, "Tera Kumo" is my clumsy approximation to trying to title this as "Cloud Temple" for reasons that are obvious. I quite like the compositional device of hanging everything off the left side of the painting with the trees being ideal to break up the lines. I am in fact combining certain Chinese elements into this (the mountain shapes with the trees) but as it's a Fantasy I feel OK to get away with it...

This is just the basic "drawing up" stage with a bit of tone added as due to the warmer temperature in the studio the paint had dried sufficiently to allow me a second coat. I have used the usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with turpentine.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

Shinrin Taisha

 My second Japanese-themed painting in my expanding Orientalist work. I struggled with this one; my original intention was to have the foreground as a dark layer in front of the background as in the Shin Hanga prints that these paintings are influenced by but I just didn't like it so I painted a lot more light coming in. I wanted a rainy evening atmosphere that I'm not sure if I got across, I originally toyed with idea of painting in streaks of rain over the whole painting like the Japanese Shin Hanga artist Kawase Hasui did but decided against it. I think it's come out OK and will continue with the general theme of a solitary light in an evening landscape which started in my Roadside America painting "Station Blue" and has now come across into my Orientalist work.... each informs the other.

Apologies to Japanese speaking people for my bad translation of Forest Shrine into Shinrin Taisha... it's probably wrong but I'm relatively unfamiliar with their culture at the moment.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Shinrin Taisha - stage 7

 Don't know why this one is taking so long but there you go... I have pretty much finished the foreground trees apart from the foliage so I got on with the ground leading up to the shrine and painted in some of the basics on the shrine itself.

This reminds me of The Monkey Forest just outside Ubud in Bali...

Shinrin Taisha - stage 6

 Still relatively slow progress on this one but at least I have painted the trunks of the foreground trees after some deliberation over my breakfast coffee as to how I should proceed. The trunks will be broken up hopefully tomorrow with the branches and leaves which should (hopefully) give it the feel of a Shin Hanga Japanese print. I decided this morning to do the trees first and work towards the shrine which will be painted in last. I like that misty blue/green colour in the ground in front of the shrine so I intend to keep some of that in between the trees and the shrine - maybe some wet highlights seeing as in my mind it is gently raining in the picture.

Shinrin Taisha - stage 5

 Progress has been slow recently partly due to ongoing commitments away from the studio and partly because I couldn't decide on how to paint the foreground and shrine. After trying out a few different colour combinations and then rubbing them off as they didn't work I have settled on using three different glaze colours, the original Sienna/Violet mix, a subdued green/blue mix and a more greener green/blue mix - using one colour for all of it was too monochrome and boring. I have made a start but left it there so that I can ponder over it tomorrow morning over my breakfast coffee and get it all clear in my head as to how to proceed.

Colours used: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Violet. Winsor Violet, Permanent Sap Green, Phthalocyanine Green, Permanent Orange, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White.

Shinrin Taisha - stage 4

 Struggled a bit with the background but happier now after knocking it back with a glaze/scumble of muted blue/green. The rest of it will be painted with more transparent paint like the earlier painting "The Rain Temple of Iro Ki".

Shinrin Taisha - stage 3

 

First colour pass on the background and kind of feeling my way along as I kind of know how it should look but not sure what colours to use to get there. I think it's OK but I'm going to leave it now and reassess things over my breakfast coffee tomorrow morning.

Colours used: Phthalocyanine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Permanent Orange, Lemon Yellow, Zinc White and Warm White.

Shinrin Taisha - stage 2

 This is the preliminary tonal underpainting which I will finish tomorrow. I improvised the background trees first and then painted the rest afterwards. It's a bit messy at the moment but it will sort itself out soon with the lights in the shrine and the lantern at left as the lightest part of the picture.

Colours used: Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet with the colour biased towards the violet as the painting will be in muted blue/greens mainly.