Right, I'll be entering this one into the ROI. The photo isn't very good but it gives an idea of what I've been trying to acheive. It's 20x30 inches, quite big for me, and the paint is fairly thick in parts (I've tried to keep the darks much thinner so they don't go dead). You don't get so much of the colours in this shot (for example, the camera has bleached out the colours in the sky etc).

Much of it was done on location over sucessive evenings. After a while though I found that I needed to pull everything together rather than merely try and reproduce what was in front of me. Getting the balance of tones and colours was very tricky as there's not much for the eye to latch onto. The abstract, sweeping curves pierced by the glowing light were what orginially attracted me to this scene and I wanted to see if I could construct a piece using these elements as the main players. The last thing I wanted to end up with was a 'chocolate boxy winding country lane' so if was important not to get too distracted from those original intentions. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on it.

Not so many paintings produced this year but still managed to get a few together to put into the ROI (Royal Institute of Oil Painters). A couple of tiny fruit studies, the torso self portrait (I think I'll call it 'Overcast'), one of Trebarwith Strand in Cornwall and one of the poplar trees in Campbell Park (not sure how that one will go down...it's quite different to my normal stuff). Here's the fruit and another daily sketch (quite a scary one actually). I'll try and get a shot of the Campbell Park painting up when I can take a decent shot of it.




(The orange and purple seem to sit quite nicely alongside eachother)


(a bit rough round the edges but these sort of drawings at least help keep the art brain alive!)

For me, life drawing can be a little bit like golf (although I'm much worse at golf). You can be on top of your game for one drawing and then finding the heavy rough with another. I just try to keep going, accepting the bad shots along the way and trying to learn from them in some way. If anything, an unsatisfactory effort spurs me to try again and resolve where things went wrong. This one, from last week, was a short study (25 minutes or so) but I seemed to nail it and hit the fairway.

I'm hoping that one of my Campbell Park paintings will work well enough for the upcoming ROI show in October/November at the Mall Galleries. I've not been happy with the quality of light but it's improved in the last couple of sessions. Notably, I've found working on the painting in the new house a completely different experience. No bothersome noise and the north light is perfect. It makes such a difference to have a comfortable space to work in.

I've got some new paintings planned out and have done some preliminary charcoals based on my sketches/pochades. I'm quite excited about a couple of them and looking forward to taking them on in either acrylics (or possibly watercolour + gouache which I've not used a great deal) or oils. I'm still trying to do a small drawing each day and it's really helping tune the visual senses and it helps building confidence. It also fits into the working week quite nicely. I went down to Stony this morning and sketched one of the houses on the high street. Nice bit of fresh air and got chatting to some friendly folk. Anyway, a recent little daily drawing and a watercolour (done in the car as it was raining!)....


(I know, 'don't frown' I hear you say!)

A few more sketches to show how I try to keep the creative embers burning...including one or two recent life studies from the weekly evening class (sorry the shots aren't great but hopefully give a flavour)

It's been a tough period recently and the painting hasn't been flowing. To counter this, I've been keeping the right brain ticking over by squeezing in some short and regualr drawing sessions. I'm enjoying the simplicity of heading out with nothing more than a pencil and paper to make a direct connection with something. After a while, it becomes quite addictive. I think it's important for any artist to accept that things don't always pan out as you intended but it's equally important to keep the passion alive. These drawings aren't anything special and have no grand purpose other than recording my attempts to engage with what's around me. The sketchbooks vary in size from pocket/thumb size to A4. Thought you might like to see a few...including the foot studies (phew!)