This is a larger piece which I am hugely enjoying. Beginning to pull it together now and making the composition work. Because of its size (80 x 80 cm) which is large for me for an oil painting, I am breaking it down into four quarters and working one quarter at a time. In an orderly clockwise direction. Or at least that was the intention ….. What REALLY happens is that I start mixing some fabulous pink or blue or vivid red paint on my palette, begin putting it on said quarter and then my eye is drawn to a completely different area where I think that colour would work as well. So off I go, and my neat plan is screwed. However, the advantage of this is that the colours are really drawing the picture together and if you are looking at one part of the painting, your eye is then automatically drawn to another, different part of the work. Clever stuff, eh?! This piece, as mentioned in the last blog, is for the gallery in Cape Town (see previous blog for details) and I am now gearing up to paint similar works for the Bristol gallery (again see…
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As I am painting a much larger work, 80 x 80 cm, I can’t really post work in progress each week as not of a lot of progress would be shown. So for this week I show a bit of close up detail for those of you interested in seeing how I work. It has been interesting painting a larger work, as it enables me to paint in a looser style which I am much enjoying. I can also be more experimental with colour and am looking forward to trying out jewel bright pinks and oranges on the red paint of the gallery building and blues and pinks elsewhere. This particular painting is for the gallery in Cape Town http://stateoftheart-gallery.com which incidentally is the red building shown there. Hopefully, it will be one of a series and I am now excited about painting a similar series with a Bristol vein for http://greatwhiteart.com in the UK. I remain, as always, committed to painting the female form, but I like the idea of local, recognisable buildings in the background to add interest to the piece. Time will tell! If you are in the New York area, please come along to ArtExpo at…
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My apologies for no blog for a couple of weeks. I have ongoing back problems which are affecting my ability to paint as much as I did. I was also away in Cape Town on a working holiday and have come back inspired by the colours, warmth and enthusiasm of Africa as always. Cape Town is a vibrant melting pot of art, and I met some wonderful talented artists on my trip. I have a mass of photos to work from and the first is shown here. It is larger than previous works (80 x 80cm) and I am painting it for the gallery in Cape Town that takes my work, State Of The Art, http://stateoftheart-gallery.com. It is mainly a successful online gallery but now has a physical presence on Shortmarket Street. If you are in CT, go in and have a look at the great work on show there, a lot of figurative art which is always good to see. This photo is taken from the gallery looking across to the local cafe opposite called House of Machines. There will be more reflections in the window of the cafe as I work the painting up. The woman in…
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