Newly finished: Woodland Path II

Just finished this woodland path in oils. It'll be up for sale once dried.

First marks

I've made a start on something new. 12" square canvas board.

The story of a painting.

About 20 years ago, whilst at the Artist and Illustrator Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington I made a rash decision to buy a large stretched canvas (70cm x 50cm) Don't ask me why. I didn't even paint in those days, I did small (15cm squared) highly detailed pen drawings on watercolour paper. But something happened that day to prompt me to buy a canvas.

When I got home (it isn't easy to carry a large canvas on a busy tube is it) I had a think about what I wanted to use this canvas for - something abstract maybe. But I never got round to actually starting anything and the canvas (still wrapped) was put in my parents loft until I needed it.

19 years later I remembered this canvas and, seeing as by that time I had done some small acrylic landscapes, decided to make the plunge and start a large Lakeland landscape in oils (never used them at that time - I'm always making rash decisions).

I did the underpainting in acrylic then oils on top. Looked great... for a while. Then I realised I wasn't happy with it - maybe it was the oils. Eventually I decided to get a tub of gesso and paint over it (there you go, another rash decision) and re-use the canvas for acrylics, a medium with which I've had some previous success.

Covering with gesso

Now, all you artists out there will be tutting and saying 'You can't gesso over oil paints. The oils will seep through giving a ghosted image of the painting underneath'. I soon discovered this myself. So, rather than wasting this canvas, I decided to give oils another chance and start a woodland scene in darker colours in case the old painting still came through.

I started with a blue acrylic underpainting then oil pastels to sketch out my landscape. 

Blue acrylic underpainting

Sketching out in with oil pastels

Within a couple of sessions I was getting really excited about the results I was now achieving.

At the time of writing, it's not quite finished, but I'm really pleased with it and have now developed a love for oil paints.

The (almost) finished painting

Another new one...

 

Summit

Oil on board

200 x 200mm

New painting...

Just finished this oil painting of one of the footpaths at The Naze nature reserve, Walton, Essex

Oil on board 40x40cm

RSPB Rainham Marshes

I'm lucky to live about 5 minutes from the RSPB reserve at Rainham Marshes, so when I heard they had some nesting kingfishers over there I decided to visit.

I took my camera, partly to try to get a snap of these electric blue and orange birds and partly to take some landscape photographs that I could paint at a later date.

Being so close to home, I've been to the reserve many times but usually during the winter months. Today was a beautiful sunny spring day.

The kingfishers were the highlight of the day and I did indeed get a couple of nice photographs of the male perched on a branch outside the nest. I also took some landscapes which (once at home) I loaded into one of the several photo apps on my phone to play around with filters.

I do this because I'm not that familiar with my new camera and the images looked a bit flat. Also I wanted an idea of how an oil painting might look with brighter, more saturated colours.

First post in a while

The other day I picked up my brushes for the first time this year. I didn't know what to paint so I just made it up as I went along, limiting myself to just 1 hour.

Halfway through, I remembered I had a new tube of magenta acrylic I haven't tried before so the landscape turned into a heather clad moor.