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.

 

 

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The Wind In The Willows

Over the past 3 months, and in-between other jobs, I have been working on a collection of 30 watercolour illustrations for 'The Wind In The Willows', to be published by Guomai in China.

Mole's house is getting a bit of TLC

It's a dream job for me, Kenneth Grahame's book has been a rich source of inspiration over the years. I just wish I had more time available to me to produce large illustrations instead of mainly spots. I think I will keep adding to this image bank in the hope I can get another book published in the future containing even more artwork.

Ratty sets out in the winter air to find his friend

You can see many more of these illustrations on my new website - click here

Picnic By The Lighthouse WIP

Day One: Drawn up, masked and wet in wet blue sky

Day Two: Defining clouds, more masking fluid on the grass and blocking in

This is the sister painting to 'Rescue From The Storm'. The same lighthouse from a different angle and much more pleasant weather conditions.

I'm hoping to pick up my brush again on Saturday, which seems like an age away!

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.

'Valkyrie'

 Valkyrie
Watercolour / Gouache
24 x 31cm

I can honestly say this is the first time I've painted a badger singing at the opera. No matter how serious I make her expression I still can't help but laugh at her absurd appearance (don't tell her I said that).

In terms of technique I did the usual sepia under-painting then masked everything except the backdrop using tape and cellophane in order to pull out some big brushes and work wet in wet with blues, violets and blacks. (See previous post).

After the damage was done I removed the cellophane and got to work laying in the colours on everything that was left blank, being careful to suggest a warm up-light and blue in the shadows. When I had taken the watercolour as dark as it would go, white and yellow ochre gouache came into play on the extreme highlights (metal specular highlights, skirt, claws, fur etc.) and then gently glazed around the footlights to suggest mist creeping across the stage.

'Feast' Work In Progress

Here are a couple of shots taken on my phone as I'm working on my latest painting.

I'm now slowly making my way anti clockwise around the painting by concentrating on each character in turn. Once I've done the badger then I will take a look at the table and then the background. After that it's a case of pushing the values.

'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.

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

Lovely Day For It

Just in case you ever wanted to know what a group of snails having a picnic in the rain looks like. I learnt a heck of a lot doing this one such as I've got to be really careful with the paper when wet. Suddenly out of nowhere marks started to appear as I painted which means I must have scratched it when I was stretching it or maybe let the paper get too wet and therefore vulnerable to the slightest indentation.

Lovely Day For It

Water Colour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Number two of three for a private commission. The first was King Louie, the brief being the painting had to show lions and puffins. 'Lovely Day For It' was a barn owl and snails and the last painting will be depicting a basset hound and mice (see below).

 

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.

More new paintings...

Below you can see two paintings I am working on right now, even as I type this my other hand is holding a paintbrush, one eye is on the screen and the other eye is overseeing my brushwork. I'm also playing 'The Entertainer' on an old upright piano I have in the corner of my studio, I really hope the wind doesn't change or I'm stuck like this forever.

In order of appearance, sepia underpainting and corresponding initial sketch below.