Mermaid's Storm - stage 2

Have painted mainly transparent colour washes over the monochrome underpainting today.

Mermaid's Storm - stage 1

As a nice change from the rigid uprights and horizontals of the last two cityscape paintings I have decided to paint another Mermaid picture that concentrates on sky and sea which gives me the chance to paint more natural forms that are conducive to a freer painting style. The lighting is late afternoon with approaching storm clouds, the whole picture will be rich in colour by the use of transparent layers of colour over this stage that was put in with a rag using my usual mixture of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and turpentine. The composition changed radically from my initial sketch that had the sky area only occupying the top quarter of the painting but I was unhappy with the composition and gave much more emphasis to the sky in the final design. The title might just be a working title, we will see as I go along if I think of something better.

Dream Street

Another upright panorama format painting this time as part of my strand of work I loosely call "Figurative" on my website. A Hopper-ish view looking down on a solitary figure walking up a deserted street, early morning sunlight streaming in from the left. I am trying (hence the title) to get a dreamlike quality to the picture by keeping finicky detail to a minimum so that it doesn't have the appearance of a real street and together with the lighting I hope that this atmosphere gets across. I may take this to Illuxcon as I feel that there should be work there that is Imaginative Realism in it's wider context and I think that this painting could fit into that category. Oil on canvas 11 3/4" x 11 1/2". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in earlier posts in this blog.

Dream Street - stage 5

More work all over the painting today, maybe finish it tomorrow?

Dream Street - stage 4

Worked all over the picture today including making a start on the sunlight coming in from the left, the shadow areas and some detail on the buildings. I still need to remember to keep it fairly simple as regards to detail, if it gets too busy it won't have the atmosphere that I am after.

Dream Street - stage 3

I didn't go to London today so I got on with putting down some transparent colour; I am basing it around a red/green complementary-ish colour axis at the moment although the sunlight coming in from the left will be a lot warmer and brighter than it appears at the moment. I presume that I will have to introduce some violet/purples into some of the shadow areas.

Dream Street - stage 2

Managed to finish off the tonal block-in this morning. I think that I need to keep the painting simple and not too fussy with detail to get across the mood that I am looking for, I suppose a bit like the way Edward Hopper painted his street scenes. Won't get anything done on this tomorrow as I will be in London for the day.