The Sky Palace of Hakim Bey - stage 4

 Struggling with this one, probably because all of it is invented. I think next time I will make more use of reference as to the basic structure of the rocks, I think it will look more convincing. I can probably save this one, just, with another day's work on them, I have now decided to get rid of the foreground tree on the rock and I am going to have some wispy cloud there instead. They can't all turn out alright...

The Sky Palace of Hakim Bey - stage 3

Spent today trying colours out and knocking the rocks into shape a bit before  I go on to finish them hopefully on Saturday - I'm having a day in London tomorrow.

Agharta and The Fall of Fyorlund sold.

 

Agharta

The collector that commissioned "Imrryr" has also bought two other paintings which I will ship to him altogether to Singapore where he lives. He has bought an illustration artwork from the 1980s/90s for a book by Roger Taylor called "The Fall of Fyorlund", an acrylic on board painting and a more recent oil on linen picture called "Agharta" which is handily the same size as "Imrryr" which makes it much simpler to ship.

"The Fall of Fyorlund"  acrylic on board 10" x 17"

"Agharta"  oil on linen  30" x 20"

The Fall of Fyorlund

 

The Sky Palace of Hakim Bey - stage 2

 I have pretty much finished the sky and have made a start on the rocks for which I am trying out some colours to see which ones work best for how I see it in my mind. I am leaving it now and will look at it tomorrow morning over my breakfast coffee and make decisions then.

Colours used: Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Manganese Violet, Winsor Violet, Kings Blue Light, Permanent Orange, Burnt Sienna, Lemon Yellow, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Yellow Lake Deep, Zinc White and Warm White.

The Sky Palace of Hakim Bey - stage 1

 Good to be back painting again with a new pair of working glasses after a recent cataract op that left it hard to focus on details.

This is probably destined for my upcoming slot on Every Day Original later this month and is another Orientalist piece as they seem so popular and I enjoy painting them. I'm aiming for something of a Maxfield Parrish feel to this one but as ever paintings seem to have a mind of their own and might turn out to be different!

This is the tonal underpainting stage using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and applied with brushes and a rag for the clouds.

Oil on linen 16" x 12".

Imrryr

 

Apologies for lack of posts over the past couple of months, I was working on a new book and a private commission that took a long while to paint as I had a cataract op just after I had drawn it up that left me having difficulty in focusing on detail and initially my eyes were getting tired after an hour or so of painting. This has now been remedied by new working glasses and have already started on a new painting, posts to follow. I have waited until the buyer has seen the finished painting and is happy (very) with it before posting on this blog and social media as I think they should see it first.

He asked me to reinterpret a painting I did in the 1980s for a Paper Tiger book called "Realms Of Fantasy" of Imrryr the main city on Melniboné in Michael Moorcock's Elric books which was also used for the cover. He understood that I don't paint the way I did in the 1980s (hard edge acrylics) and was happy for me paint it in oils in the softer more atmospheric way I do today.

I kept the light source in the same place behind the city but made it more atmospheric by lighting the whole picture in a misty morning light with the sun hitting the tops of the towers in the city and the surrounding battlements that come round to the foreground, the rest is in shadow. This helped me separate the foreground tower bathed in morning sun from the bottom of the cliff where the maze walls are with a ship passing out of them to aid the sense of scale. I actually kept the basic structure of the original, the main difference being changing most of the straight lines into curves and the lighting into morning light.

The buyer is very happy with it and indeed has bought two more, an old book cover painting and a more recent oil painting details of which I will post up separately in a later post.

Oil on linen 30" x 20".

Jalan Jalan

 Concurrent with working on a commission (with some difficulty) which I will be posting about very soon I have put together a book of my photographs of Bali from the 80s and 90s. 

I went to a lot of effort and expense in those days to get them as I was pretty much obsessed with the island and it's culture, managing to get there six times overall so I thought why not put them together in a book as self publishing is so easy these days. Neither "The Magic Sky" nor this one are intended to be money-making exercises, just a way of getting this stuff out there instead of languishing in folders on my computer.

There have been a million photos taken of Bali including a lot better than mine but in this book I have tried to avoid the obvious pictures that every tourist takes when they are there and instead have focused on things I saw that I went to a lot of trouble to get to and would not be things that tourists would get to see such as ceremonies and festivals. It has been written for people that have some knowledge of the island and it's culture and I have included Balinese names and terms when appropriate. It might also appeal to people that want to see Bali as it was in those days before the development that has occurred since the 90s although it could be said that these are also photos of the timeless Bali that never really changes and is all there if you go looking for it.

The seven chapters cover the landscape, people, offerings and ceremonies with a small section at the end of my paintings and drawings that resulted from those trips. It has 84 A4 pages printed in colour throughout with the books arriving from the printers next week.

It looks like the book will cost £15.00 plus packing and postage and will be advertised on this blog, Facebook and Instagram.

For anybody interested in buying one it looks like these will be the prices including postage and packing:

UK £20.00

EU £24.00

USA £33.00

Australia £31.00

Indonesia £32.00