2 New Large Landscapes

So I decided to do a few larger landscapes. The thinking behind this is largely based around the idea that they will be too big to be ignored. I've done 4 so far of which 2 are shown here. They are both 36 x 36 inches, oil on canvas. The late winter picture is from earlier this year when the river had risen to a point where it was almost over the towpath. The autumn painting is from late October this year. I'm reasonably happy with both pictures. They each took about a week to do.

Close up to a painting

How to spot an artist at an art exhibition?

They'll be the ones with their noses about half an inch away from the pictures.

It's not a great way to see a painting but artists want to be able to get that close because then they can see the technique. For the non artist it can be a bit of a shock to see just how crude it all looks when you get near to even the most famous of works. It just becomes a mass of blobs and streaks and you begin to wonder whether you might just have been better to have stuck to looking at them in books. But the painter gains much from such chances. They get to understand how the artist built up the work. What came first? Was it quickly painted, wet paint into wet paint or does it become clear that days elapsed between those various layers. One of the great myths about impressionism is that the pictures were hurriedly executed out in the field, all in a rush. Close inspection soon shows that for most of these pictures it simply wasn't so.

So here's one of my own with some close ups included. Early(ish) on a June morning about a month before the start of the regatta. The new floating grandstand is in place and the pontoons that make up the work platforms are still to be seen.....and it's horribly, horribly splodgy! : )

Take care.......

One week, four paintings

My last blog was about the time it takes for me to produce one painting. This was partly as a result of having so little to paint but bad weather doesn't last forever and so last Saturday a small break occurred and I was able to get back downstream to Marlow (twinned with Marly le Roi it's difficult to resist).

As a result of this trip I seemed to have enough material for 4 paintings and thought it might be interesting to set myself the challenge of getting them all done within a week. Well I started on Sunday and am pleased to say I finished mid morning Friday with a day and a half to spare. Clearly having big skies helped as these don't take long to work up and there's a lot of water as well. I'd like to think that the various views will allow people to piece together at least a part of the town's waterfront layout. The paintings are all oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches.

Given that we're moving into longer days and lots of light the tempting prospect of a picture a day may have to be examined!

And now I think it's time to relax, eat cake and draw a few cows...Annie's been hanging around all morning with a silly hat on!

Take care!

Time and the Artist

There tend to be a fairly standard set of questions that people ask me about the pictures that I paint. What inspires you? Do you sell them? Have you ever considered getting a proper job?

Another regular one is 'How long does it take you to paint a picture?' My usual answer is that I don't really know. This is because, like a lot of artists, I don't paint one picture at a time. I can have everything from about 4 through to 10 pictures on the go and will work on each one for perhaps an hour or so at a time. But now I have a sort of answer, at least for the painting that accompanies this blog.

The winter has been long and hard and as I write this, on the last day of March, there is snow falling up in Scotland. Here it's been dull and rainy for about a week and spring is just creeping in. That's resulted in me having a hard time trying to find things to paint and I've arrived at a situation where it's one painting at a time.

On Sunday the Women's University Boat Race took place here at Henley (there's actually about half a dozen races in all) and the sky cleared for just long enough for me to get 1 good photograph. I therefore started on Monday, just underpainting and blocking in the main features which took maybe about 1-2 hours. I was busy Tuesday morning and so didn't paint until the afternoon. I worked up the picture a bit more, mostly giving the objects rather more definition. Then today I've pushed it through to a finish, working from about 9am until 4pm minus a very generous lunch plus tea and cake breaks and a trip to the post office.

So in conclusion I would think it's taken about 7-8 hours including wandering and nibbles.

Now what am I going to do tomorrow?

Two landscape paintings of Marlow

Wandered downstream from Henley last Friday to the next large town which is Marlow. It took about 2 and a half hours to get there, the ground being a little muddy in places. Saw a bloke painting and so I went and had a chat with him. Turned out to be Roy Connelly, he has an exhibition coming up at Island Fine Art on the Isle of Wight at the end of the month. I've also got some pictures at the same gallery, so it was nice to meet him and talk art for a while. I don't think he minded being interrupted as it gave him an excuse to put the brushes down for a bit.

Anyway as you can see I got a couple of paintings from the trip. They'll be more to do once Spring gets underway and there's a bit of green on the trees.

A larger landscape painting.

It tends to be the case that, after a time, most artists find a size of canvas that they are comfortable with and thereafter the bulk of their work will be to that size. When I started painting about 15 years ago I nearly always worked at 10 x 14 inches. Gradually I've found myself painting larger pictures and now use 16 x 20 inches for nearly all of my landscapes...but every now and again......

I've had this canvas hanging around for about 3 years. Because of it's size it's been stored under the bed, but I knew it was there. All 30 x 40 inches of it!

So how to approach it?

I decided the easiest way was to repaint a 16 x 20 picture that I felt had worked well enough to be scaled up. This made things rather easier and I could have a degree of confidence about it that would not otherwise have been there.

It took about a week to paint. It really is a case of just using larger brushes at the start. There were not really any problems and it compares well enough to the smaller version. Of course the distance that the picture needs to be viewed at is such that I have to open a door a stand halfway up the stairs to get far enough away from it, but I could do with the exercise.

Shall I paint any more large pictures...perhaps...we'll have to wait and see.