Rain In The Canyon

 In a way this is the first painting to directly come out of last year's tour of the South West USA National Parks and is a memory of the Grand Canyon which at this time of the year (July) regularly has a rain storm about 4.00 in the afternoon. We had to make a dash for cover with us all trying to get photos as we hurried for shelter. This is really a composite of three different locations along the Rim and I struggled with the foreground quite a lot and in the end I had to get rid of some of the rock and put more vegetation in as the area was originally dominating the picture and I wanted the focus to be on the sun hitting the distant ridges in the canyon.

I have painted this as my submission painting to the International Guild Of Realism exhibition in a gallery in Santa Fe in July and is why I have gone for a slightly more realistic and less imagined painting this time.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

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

Rain In The Canyon - stage 6

 Tweaked the rain and put a bit of warm light on the face of the canyon wall at right before making a start on the foreground.... and then realised that there was too much uninteresting rock in the foreground so I decided to cut into them with some more bushes which has broken them up and made them not so dominant in the composition. Much happier with it now and will finish the foreground tomorrow....

I am painting this as my application piece for an upcoming show by the International Guild Of Realism at a gallery in Santa Fe in July hence it is a bit more photographic than my usual work as the accent on the show is definitely "realism".

Rain In The Canyon - stage 5

 Worked on the canyon wall at right and faffed around with the rain again. It looks a bit too dark and contrasty here but will adjust tomorrow before starting on the foreground tomorrow.

Rain In The Canyon - stage 4

 Pretty much finished the sky and canyon and making a start on the nearer canyon wall at right tomorrow. I have gave it a blue wash (not shown here) and then stopped as I need to decide on what colours I am going to use here...

Rain In The Canyon - stage 3

 Pretty much finished the sky bar finishing the rain at left that can't be done until the canyon is finished. Have made a start on the canyon today and hope to get the background finished tomorrow including the rain although I'm tempted to have some of the rain falling over the dark canyon wall at right...

New colour used: Warm Light Yellow

Rain In The Canyon - stage 2

 First colour pass on the sky, the idea behind the painting is the screen of grey rain coming in from the right starting to cover the relatively complex shapes of the clouds and the canyon (I start on the canyon tomorrow). It's not as contrasty as it appears on this post...

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

Rain In The Canyon - stage 1

 This is probably the first painting to directly come out of last year's tour round the National Parks in SW USA and is of a memorable time when about 4.00 in the afternoon a rainstorm came down the Grand Canyon towards us and we had to dash for shelter. Apparently at that time of year it pretty much happened every afternoon  (July). All those shots I took of the landscapes I saw didn't really fit the theme of the "Home Land" series as they were too specific to quite famous locations so very little was used of those photos... until now.

I'm painting it as my entry for the annual show organised by the International Guild Of Realism with the exhibition in a gallery in Santa Fe later this year. If it doesn't get in I will put it up for sale on Artfinder, got to hurry up though it's nearing the deadline....

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 a couple of brushes.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

The Snow Palace

 Fancied doing a blue nocturne harking back to my love of blue Edmund Dulacs of which I saw a roomful at the Dulwich Picture Gallery many moons ago. I wasn't going to originally but I changed my mind and put some lights in the windows to give me the complementary as well as to give a bit more variety of colour. Set in an imaginary Central Asia where this is just about possible I tried to make the architecture more like a palace and less like a mosque by leaving out the minarets for instance.

I have painted this for my upcoming February 23 slot on Every Day Original and will post on that site later today.

Oil on fine cotton 12" x 16"

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

Almenara Art Prize Residency

 I woke up this morning to a fantastic surprise, The Almenara Art Prize messaged me on Instagram to say that my application for their artists residency next year had been accepted. This will be a month (or three weeks) staying at a villa outside the town of Montoro near Cordoba where I can paint the landscape (and maybe Cordoba too as it's been on my bucket list for years) along with another artist yet to be revealed. Since painting on the Sky Landscape Artist Of The Year plein air painting seems to be making a comeback in my work as I also have the upcoming artist residency in Pennsylvania this May too. 

This is all fine with me and fits my decision taken a while ago to try and instigate opportunities through my work for new challenges and also to travel to other countries for a purpose and not just a holiday; if I am going to contribute to the pollution of the planet by flying in jets to other countries at least there is a purpose to it!

I stay at the villa for free so have to pay for my travel and food and also have to leave a painting behind as a thank you and as an addition to their collection. It runs from 16 April to 6 May 2026.

Here is a link:

https://www.thealmenaracollection.com/page/40172/art-residencies 

 

The Snow Palace - stage 4

 Finished the sky and mountains bar a few stars to go in and first colour pass on the palace. Hoping to get the rest in tomorrow for a Monday finish. Might only have one window with a light on....to be decided.

The Snow Palace - stage 3

 First colour pass on the sky and mountains, going for blues...

Colours used so far: Phthalo Bue, Phthalo Green, Cobalt Turquoise, Permanent Orange, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Warm White.

Infected By Art

 

Palace Sunsets

I have just learnt that I have had two paintings selected for inclusion in Infected By Art 13, "Palace Sunsets" and "The Portal" both oil on fine cotton 16" x 12". This is the tenth time in a row that I have had work selected...thank you Jurors!

The Portal

 

The Snow Palace - stage 2

 Finished the tonal underpainting and have now gave it a blue wash (not shown here) ready for starting the colour tomorrow.

The underpainting is a mix of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and applied with a rag and brush.

The Snow Palace - stage 1

 This one is intended for my upcoming slot on Every Day Original on 23 February - should have it finished by then!

I return to a nocturne theme of a Central Asian palace in the snow under a moonlit night with the moon being just out of sight on the right. The whole painting will be in blues apart from one window in the palace with an orange light so that I can get the complementary in and relieve the dominance of blue. This is halfway through the tonal underpainting which I will finish tomorrow when it should all come together. Spent a long time faffing around with the shape of the large cypress tree at right....

Oil on fine cotton 12" x 16".

Llanberis

 This is the painting that I had four hours to work on in the Sky Landscape Artist Of The Year competition. I was asking a lot of myself to complete a tonal underpainting before going to colour and indeed towards the end I had to rush the bottom half of the painting hence it's somewhat minimal look. It did it's job though and makes the finished painting relatively coherent to be judged at the end. I was quite surprised that I made it to the last three as I find my work doesn't really connect with the Fine Art market in the UK especially as one of the judges couldn't get past me painting it as nighttime.... 

I had a long chat in front of camera with Tai-Shan Schierenberg at the beginning when I explained what and why I was going to do and he was intrigued... but all that got edited out! Kate Bryan actually never spoke to me but my friend Rich Newman who was also there said that she spent a long time looking at the finished painting so maybe she liked it after all. She may have seen the underpainting stage and didn't realise that I was going to add the colour later and thought it was too boring to talk about!

Anyway I was somewhat relieved to not win the heat as the dates for the follow up semi final etc were running way too close to my tour of the National Parks in the South West USA which was booked for late July.

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

Solo Show

 Here is the second batch of five paintings in my "Home Land" series just before I box them up to ship to the Abend Gallery in Denver CO for my solo show in late March.

All oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

There are four left to ship and that will be fifteen paintings for the show.

Out Of Town

 Finally finished the last in my "Home Land" series destined for my solo show at the Abend Gallery, Denver CO in late March this year. This one is set in a notional swampland somewhere in Louisiana and is a follow on from an earlier painting "The Outsider" which has a strip of city lights running along the painting but this time with no buildings showing. Again in a way this is another outsider living in a shack in the swamps away from the bright lights of human occupation.... I suppose there is an echo of recent USA forest fires in the distance too....

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

There is virtually no step-by-step progress through this painting on the blog because I lost access to it for about a month while Google messed around with new EU regulations on cookies!

Out Of Town and an apology

 I am very sorry but for the past month or so I have been unable to post anything on this blog after Google messed around with settings for EU cookies regulations. It seems that it has been resolved!

This is around stage 6 in the progress for the last painting in the series "Home Land" destined for my solo show at the Abend Gallery Denver CO in late March. This one is set somewhere in Louisiana in the swamps with the lights of a town or city in the far distance. At this point I have roughed in the water reflections and and cypress tree stumps ready for a final pass tomorrow.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12",

Last Light

 The first painting of '25 and the next in my "Home Land" series. This one is set in Wyoming sort of (at least that is a version of the Tetons in the background) as I try to vary the landscape locations in this series. I felt that I should stop painting in lonely farmhouses and think of a variation on the theme and came up with a lonely car traveling through a vast landscape instead which I quite like as it gives me other possibilities and will lead on to the next painting that will have a lonesome car in it too. The metaphor of the home and the car within a vast landscape both hold up within the general theme behind this series so that is a handy development in terms of variation of content. The lighting is influenced by what I saw on my recent tour of US National Parks in the South West.

This the eleventh painting that I'm happy with of the fifteen I want to paint for my solo show "Home Land" coming up at the end of March at the Abend Gallery, Denver CO.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2" x 12".

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

Last Light - stage 6

 Still tinkering with the light on the mountains which is getting better but will be able to tell when the rest of the snow on the landscape is painted in. Didn't get a lot done today as I had an unexpected lunch with a friend that made a large hole in the afternoon so as the light was fading I decided to leave it until tomorrow.

Last Light - stage 5

 Still trying to get the mountains right and painted in a darker shadow area at the base to try and make the top of the mountains to glow a bit more. Need to look at it over tomorrow.s breakfast coffee and see if I am there yet before proceeding to paint in the land at the bottom.

Last Light - stage 4

 

I have made a start on the mountains and stopped  leaving the left side unpainted for the moment. There is something I feel I need to tweak on the areas that I painted today and I'm not sure what it is yet so I'm leaving it here and will have a look with fresh eyes over tomorrow morning's breakfast coffee. 

New colour used: Quinacridone Red.