The Exit To San Breta - stage 4

I have painted in the first stage of the sky to get an idea of placement of clouds etc. I will paint in darker clouds tomorrow when it should be ready for the first glaze. I have also added more darks to the tonal underpainting for the landscape and road so we are now getting an idea as to how the finished painting will look. The tonal underpainting used a mix of Burnt Sienna and Manganese Violet thinned with Liquin. The sky has mixes of Lemon Yellow and Kings Blue Light with touches of Prussian Blue and Permanent Orange, the Orange being used to temper the saturation.

The Exit To San Breta - stage 3

I got back to the studio this afternoon and managed to put in some darker tone washes into the landscape and put some pale blue/yellow into the sky.
As far as I can ascertain there is nowhere called San Breta in Arizona...

The Exit To San Breta - stage 2

Using a rag I have washed in a tonal underpainting with a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine. I will now have to leave it until I am back in the studio on Sunday.

The Exit To San Breta - stage 1

This is a private commission for a buyer that wants a painting centred around the short story by George R.R. Martin called "The Exit To San Breta". A white Ford Edsel is parked in a gas station forecourt somewhere in the vast expanse of the Arizona desert. The gas station and car are illuminated by a few lights in an otherwise fairly dark landscape seen in the dusk, a sign for the San Breta turnoff is at the right of the picture near a small wooden white cross. The road in the right foreground is in poor condition with weeds growing in the cracks of the tarmac but the road becomes pristine in condition as it nears the gas station and highway lights. The composition is based on Thirds with the skyline and placement of the gas station and road sign at intervals of a third from the edges of the painting. The colours will be more subdued than recent paintings based on a blue/green - red/orange complementary colour axis. The San Breta sign is red and will probably be the most saturated part of the picture in terms of colour. The particular mood of the painting will be carried by the sky which I intend to be at a particular time of dusk when there is still daylight in the sky and the landscape isn't too dark.
This stage was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine.

Seven paintings sold

At The End Of The Day

A nice lady in New York has just bought the following seven paintings through Artfinder:
"At The End Of The Day"
"Berts"
"Drive Thru"
"Lucky Dogs"
"Mardi Gras World"
"Siren's Cove"
"Tram Stop"

"Lucky Dogs" and "Mardi Gras World" are paintings of New Orleans based on shots I took  in 1994 when I was there for a World Fantasy convention. ""Tram Stop" is of an imaginary city somewhere in Europe in an undetermined decade. "Drive Thru" is based on reference photos I took in Chicago in 1991 when attending a World Science Fiction convention. "Siren's Cove" and "At The End Of The Day" are completely works from the imagination, "At The End Of The Day" being used on the cover of my latest book "Dreamland". "Drive Thru" was a finalist in the 2016 Artists Of The Year exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London organised by Artists & Illustrators magazine and won a prize of £500 worth of digital printing by Gemini Digital Colour.

Berts

Drive Thru

Lucky Dogs

Mardi Gras World

Siren's Cove

Tram Stop

Elen

Finally finished the follow-up picture to "Faeral" with the lovely Naomi Wood modelling her horned head dress again. This time it is of Elen, Goddess Of The Ways who rules over amongst other things, paths in forests. Although the painting is full of detail the composition is very simple being based on two unevenly sized blocks of the complementary colours yellow and violet.
I was originally going to have her reaching across a snow-covered path but changed my mind halfway through and changed it to falling water. I had to resist the temptation many times to keep the two blocks of colour separate by not introducing yellow and orange highlights into the foreground branches etc as this would compromise my original intention of the simple composition. Another painting that is hard to photograph, the original isn't quite so so contrasty and saturated as it appears here...
This will probably be a painting heading for this year's IlluxCon in Reading PA.
Oil on linen 20" x 30".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Elen - stage 11

Couldn't quite finish it this session so there just remains to tweak the figure, put in the flowers and horns on the head dress and get the branches that her left hand is holding finished off.