Two Paintings In One

Double Jeopardy

Every now and then I like to create two paintings on the same piece of paper. It saves time, paper and water because I soak my watercolour paper in a water tray before taping it to the board to dry and stretch. It may be a time saver, but working like has risks. I must be very careful to protect the half I am not working on from moisture and paint. Thankfully Scotch Magic Tape is brilliant for masking watercolour paper without overly-damaging the paper underneath. Fortunately the tape also adheres to the plastic sheet I use to mask larger areas, which means I can fix the sheet in place and seal all the edges so there is little chance of water encroaching onto the painting.

This message is not sponsored by Scotch Magic Tape, although I wouldn't mind if it was (they could pay in rolls of tape).

Here are the finished 'The Wind In The Willows' illustrations:

'Walking Through The Village'watercolour and gouache
24 x 31cm

'Heard The News?'
watercolour and gouache
24 x 31cm

'Ratty's House'

'Ratty's House'
watercolour and gouache
24 x 31cm

This little 'The Wind in the Willows' illustration was completed Thursday - as hot of the drawing board as I can get. This is what Mole sees when he reaches the riverbank and claps eyes on Ratty for the first time.

I had lots of fun working on the trees, especially flicking masking fluid around to get the speckled bark effect. I was also quite pleased with the water.

Work in progress detail before whiskers and pinstripes.

The pencil rough

She Guarded The Castle

'She Guarded The Castle' watercolour and gouache, 31 x 24cm

Here's something I finished just before the Easter break. This is my first Grimm's fairytale illustration. The scene is taken from 'Jorinda and Joringel' which features a witch who can take the form of an owl and cat. Her abode is a castle in the woods where she captures maidens, turns them into small songbirds and locks them away in cages (can you spot the key?).

For reference, I was fortunate enough to have a collection of woodland photos I had taken in the rain this winter. The castle is based on Helen's Tower in Northern Ireland, apparently you can stay there! As for the owl, I found a collection of shots on google and took bits from each to fashion my own bird perched on a branch.


Depicting mist can be a tricky business, keeping an eye on distance from the viewer juxtaposed with visible levels of detail can sometimes lead to overworking areas and underworking others. This in turn can ruin the atmospheric perspective I'm hoping to achieve. In the end I washed out lots of detail in the castle and trees, and chose to only fully define the windows and middle-ground tree branches

As I look back on the painting now, I'm very happy with the final result. I tried to imbue the painting with a dark foreboding presence without being a cliché. I think this image would work well in some of the later (and darker) Harry Potter books and also have a similar atmosphere.

My thoughts On 'Supper Arrives'

'Supper Arrives' watercolour and gouache, 31 x 40cm

This is my latest painting for Galerie Daniel Maghen. I finished it last Tuesday, and I'm not sure exactly how long it took to complete other than I felt I spent longer on this piece than anticipated. 

 

The scene is taken from 'The Wind In The Willows', when the carol singing mice are invited into Mole's house for supper. Soon they realise Mole is low on food, so two young mice are sent out with a basket to fetch more vittles for their evening feast. Here you can see the mice have returned and their fellow creatures are excitedly dishing out the basket's contents.

 

Normally I'm very confident when it comes to these cosy interior scenes, however this time I really struggled to keep everything warm and slightly gloomy (if that's the right word), especially when I was painting the blue welsh dresser. If you're not careful, a blue dresser can swiftly turn green when painting in watercolour.

 

The gouache highlights certainly helped to sharpen well lit edges, such as an ear, whisker or ceramic mug. The candlelight was deliberately kept to watercolour and using the white of the paper to create a bright glow. If you try to introduce gouache into something so bright it can look a bit flat and even grey as the opague paint doesn't always reflect natural light as effectively as watercolour paper.

 

Out of interest, most of the items in the kitchen are taken from Avebury Manor in Wiltshire. The kitchen table, dresser and stove are very similar to the ones in this painting. It's always much easier to draw something straight from reality than invent your own objects, and quite often you spot something that you would never have imagined too.

 

 

25% Off All Signed Limited Editions

Happy New Year! To celebrate I'm having a January sale with 25% off all my signed limited edition prints. Visit my online shop to see what is available. Thank you to those of you who have already picked up a print.

In the meantime, here's some new artwork I finished last week:

'Leaving The Wild Wood' watercolour and gouache, 24 x 31cm

'Air Mail'

Still catching up with my art back log. Here's another painting for you:

Air Mail
Watercolour / Gouache
24 x 31cm

Again these two characters feature in 'A Quarter Past One On Platform Ten' in the top left swooping under the arched station roof. I'd like to think there are different birds used to deliver post depending on the destination, maybe seagulls for the coast, an albatross for long over sea journeys (especially in the North) and an owl for night dispatch. Ravens and crows are without doubt the early morning delivery fleet.

Cheese Delivery

Cheese Delivery
Watercolour / Gouache
24 x 31cm

My latest painting, 'Cheese Delivery,' was challenge to paint because I decided to use a very restricted range of colours or, as James Gurney would say, a narrow colour gamut. My influence behind colour mixing was 'Saying Grace' by Norman Rockwell. I leant heavily on yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber and sepia throughout the whole process and only went to ultramarine, prussian blue and cadmium reds halfway through and even then they were always mixed with a brown.

Hopefully the whimsical story of the smelly cheese being delivered by an otter, with a peg on his nose, has come across in the finished painting. Nevertheless I had a lot of fun painting the crazed mice, especially the two young mice raiding the new cheese delivery.

By the way, Stenson (shop name) and Hartley (delivery van) are two surnames that feature in my family.

Pied Piper

 Pied Piper

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Here's 'Pied Piper' finished, he seems to be playing a jaunty little number to go with his outlandish get-up.

Again this was another challenge for me, to date I have never completed a satisfactory medieval street. I can only guess the multiple storeys each one overlapping the one below is the main architectural detail I tend to struggle depicting. However reference is key and I managed to use a few old illustrations for guidance and a photograph of St John's alley in Devizes which I took years ago.

Lots of gouache went into the chickens to help define their features and bring the wing forward on the front hen. I was also pleased with the shadow being cast over the brood of chickens in the middle-ground which contrasts nicely with the birds farther back in bright sunlight (but also a lighter tonal range to suggest atmospheric perspective).

Retreat From The Windmills

Here is another painting I finished last month and a bit of the process behind it.

I started off with a few thumbnails that I eventually worked up into a more rounded rough (see previous post). Then I did the usual sizing up and transferring onto stretched watercolour paper but this time I only did a slight underpainting on the background, leaving the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in white. The main reasoning was to let the local colours of the figures be a bit more punchy, I didn't want a sepia underpainting to mute them.

I started with the sky first but quickly realised I was never going to to get a smooth finish in watercolour. I generally try to stay away from masking things because you tend to get some nasty hard edges and tide marks that can be really difficult to lift out with the brush after the masking fluid is taken away. I decided to move onto the rest of the painting and then come back to the sky at the end with some gouache.

Above you can see the majority of the watercolour work finished. Note the painting is sharing a the stretched watercolour paper with another painting but don't worry I've protected that one with acetate (top tip!).

On to the gouache sky:

Hmmmm, not great. I was going for a flat graphic look but the challenge I had set myself was to make the background the lightest tone, the sky the mid tone and the characters the darkest tone. However because the background is not actually that light I had to compensate by darkening the blue sky more than I would have liked which then challenged the darker characters for supremacy. It was an epic battle and it wasn't resolved until my client said 'lighten up'. So I did, I lightened the sky on the horizon with white gouache.

Retreat From The Windmills

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

It was really hard to go back into a dried flat sky, rework the bottom half and keep an even transition with the top half. Next time I'm putting clouds in.

'Bedtime Story' Finished

Bedtime Story

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

A few weeks back I finished 'Bedtime Story', I'm sorry it has taken me so long to post the final image. This scene is the type of thing I will hopefully be experiencing with my son very soon and therefore this painting is already dear to my heart. Having said that hopefully his bedroom won't have tree roots built into the walls.

As a quick aside, the lamp is real and it's on a sideboard illuminating my keyboard as I type this post. I've been meaning to get it into a painting since we bought it 3 years ago.

To see this painting in progress click here.

To see the original sketch click here.

Quick Getaway

I have only just realised I never posted this finished painting on the blog.

  Quick Getaway

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

This painting was partly inspired by the moonlit paintings of Atkinson Grimshaw and with any good night-time scene you have to have the moon silhouetting the branches of a gnarled tree in winter - it's the law.

The pub which the sly fox is running away from is base on the Wagon & Horses at Beckhampton which is about 7miles from where I live. It has the most fantastic thatched roof and stonework, much better than anything I could have imagined.

This painting as ties in with 'The Card Game' which I recently finished. Thankfully the fox managed to escape the nasty looking stoats at the end of their game, however you can see the chase has only just begun.

Click here to see the initial sketch  

'Captain Seadog' Is Ship-Shape

I finished my latest animal painting last week, 'Captain Seadog'. He's now fully rigged and ready to set sail and aim cannon against 'Captain Ratbeard'.

Captain Seadog

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

I found this piece challenging because there is not a lot of fussy detail and lots of open spaces in the composition. I kept going back to N.C Wyeth's treasure island paintings as I worked trying to grasp his wonderful sense of design and colour. It might not be up to his lofty standards but at least I successfully framed the otter's head with a light sail behind a dark hat and cast shadow over the eyes.

Captain Ratbeard

Captain Ratbeard

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

Ahoy m'hearties! Shiver m'timbers and host the main sail (blimey I don't I'll keep this pirate talk going), if it isn't Captain Ratbeard and his pi-rat-ical crew (get it?). I nearly had as much fun painting the Captain as writing this blog post. Here is one of those few examples of when the finished piece is very similar to the fleeting image I had in my mind's eye.

The sea spray was achieved by flicking masking fluid with a toothbrush and a lot of the glossy highlights were with prussian blue and white gouache. I struggled with the wet deck but by studying lots of Wyeth and Howard Pyle pirate paintings I eventually found a simple way of suggesting a thin layer of water. 

Cheetah Chase (Past The Finish Line)

I recently finished two paintings, here's the first.

Cheetah Chase

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

I had a right old time trying to get just the right colour in the stonework, I think I painted the column about 4 times. I have always struggled with lighter values in watercolour because there is so little room for manoeuvre when you use the white of the paper to act as your pastel white. Darker values are much easier as you can keep applying lots of layers until you get it right but lighter values are often a one hit wonder.

Overall I am pleased with the result, the cheetah has some nice reflected light on his chest (not that you can see it at this jpeg quality) and the dust cloud spurting from his hind leg was very enjoyable to paint. I'm also satisfied with the amount of characters and their facial details I managed to fit in such a small painting.

Next post... the other painting, brace yourselves!

The Orator

 The Orator

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Hot off the easel, watercolour painting finished and scanned this morning! 

I had a bit of trouble with the values in this painting. I have attempted to increase them on Mr Toad while letting the background level out slightly in the hope that the main character will stand out sufficiently. Now, that's not easy to do when you have an open fireplace crackling merrily in the background as it forces you to develop contrasts so the flame look suitably bright. A lesson learned I think.

In terms of process I did the usual sepia watercolour under-painting, glazed local colour then worked the values in watercolour. Finally I added mostly highlights with gouache but I did darken his velvet lapels with a deep brown umber gouache paint.

Freddie's Patrol

Here we have a painting I finished today. 'Freddie's Patrol' is the final painting of a set of three pieces, 'King Louie' and 'Lovely Day For It'. I enjoyed painting the dog's slobbery mouth although I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it if he licked my face.

Freddie's Patrol

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Masterchef

I have just put the finishing touches to 'Masterchef' this morning. You can see the odd highlight on whiskers and fur with gouache but the vast majority of the painting is water colour.

Masterchef

Water Colour / Gouache 

 31 x 24cm

Hopefully the narrative in the painting is very clear. I wanted to bring across a nice homely feel to this image which be in a contrast to some of the other ideas I have down the line for this series of work.

King Louie

King Louie

24 x 31cm

Watercolour / Gouache

I put the final touches to my private commission 'King Louie' on Friday at the opening of the Guildhall Arts Centre in Bristol. I was one of the artists demonstrating their craft in the gallery spaces as visitors manoeuvred around us. Unfortunately the scan above was done just before I took the painting Bristol so their are a few things missing which can be seen in the original (which is not in my possession). The original has a slightly more detailed tapestry and the contrasts in the kings skirt (if that's what it's called) are heightened.

As usual with this type of piece I produced a sepia under-painting and then began glazing colours but maintaining the details underneath. As a finishing touch I added gouache on the smoke from the brazier and the odd highlight on the fur, throne, hats and silver egg.

'Settling In' & 'A Winter's Guest'

Finished, scanned and packed all ready to be shipped.

A Winter's Guest

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Settling In

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm 

The Alchemist

 The Alchemist

Watercolour & Gouache

31 x 24cm

Completed this morning, and I'm reasonably happy with the final product, especially the lighting. To help me along I created a very simple set with elaborate lighting (a lamp minus the shade) in my living room, put the camera on a timer, threw a blanket over my shoulders and posed inside ten seconds. Going the extra mile for reference can make a huge difference and save time in the long run because you can be confident throughout the painting process.