Still Life No. 01

7" x 10"

In reading Eric Fortune's blog I came across a passage that said something along the lines of 'doing a still life painting helps to improve your technique.' Good idea I thought, so here's my first ever still life in watercolour! Inbetween my other projects I hope to keep this up, I reckon by choosing a wide variety of objects it should help me depict an array of surfaces more convincingly.

ArtOrder Challenge 'Rust'

12 x 15 1/2

FINISHED!! Still not sure if I like it or not but I did enjoy painting it so maybe I do!? I'm happy with the text border mainly because I got to try out the massive lightbox I was given by a friend - cheers Richard.

ArtOrder Challenge, Progress Shots

An illustration to accompany the quote, "A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust."

Below are the initial compositional sketch, final drawing on stretched paper and then a days painting at the bottom:
The background is close to finished, but I might add a suggestion of golden light seeping through the mist. I'm wanting to make the crows, leaves and sword spade combo really punchy!

This is probably bad luck...

This little fella featured on the Christmas cards I sent out last month (yes I know!). Even though we are well into the new year I still thought I should post this.

Note to self: No walking under ladders, avoid cracks in the pavement and definitely no umbrella opening indoors.

The Unfortunate Career Of Stede Bonnet, 1688-1718

10"x 23"

This watercolour has been used as the artwork for the debut album by The Shudders. I'm very pleased with it, some good reference definitely helped, so much so I've posted it to the Spectrum to be considered for annual 17. It's my first entry so fingers crossed! I've also attached the working drawing so you can my original composition. I pretty much went from the drawing to getting reference and starting on the final piece. Some of the highlights and pastel colours were worked back in with gouache at the final stage.

A Sneaky Peak

Here's a small sample of a painting I was working on in the last few days. Its actually part of the artwork for the new album by The Shudders. Once again the scan doesn't quite do it justice (I've got to find a scanning service in Swindon) and there's also a bit of a peculiar twist to the image which I guess will be revealed on the launch night next month.

More News:

Its official, I'm on Wikipedia!* I didn't write about myself in a drunken fit of egotism, honest, it's all down to the man who bought my Percy Vear painting last week. Unbelievably the grandson of Percy Vear (who is also called Percy Vear... is this getting confusing? ) walked into the gallery and purchased the watercolour, since then I've been in contact with Percy and he offered to link me into the Percy Vear page on wikipedia.

*Sadly the page was removed because I'm not a person of note which is very true. However the administrator accused me of authoring the article which is not true and then went on to insult me. Does his/her action deserve my response? No.

Even More News:

I was delighted last month to work on my first BBC Audiobooks cover. The piece was designed imitate the style of the previous cover illustrations - I will post the image when I can.

Progress Photo

13 hours of painting goodness yesterday. Hoping to get most of this piece done today.

Raymond Ching

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted something so apologies :-(

It seems a bit odd to have the first post in such a long time be about another artist's work but I have been meaning to show some photos for ages. Quite a while back me and Suzanne visited Bradford-On-Avon to see Aesop's Kiwi Fables by New Zealand born artist Raymond Ching. What an experience - 19 large luminous oil paintings accompanied by a fable set in a beautiful Barn in a stunning town on an amazing day! Have a look...

'Sea Of Ideas' Reworked

I decided quite recently that I would try and sell some of my experimental/personal pieces through the art shop I work at. However after scrabbling around I realised I'd lost the pencil drawing part for my degree piece 'Sea Of Ideas.' The piece used to show a nautical scene sprouting from my work desk but having lost that I quickly got down to coming up with something different. Shaun Tan was the inspiration, especially his 'Tales From Outer Suburbia' cover (the whole book is sublime, not just the cover). I prefer the retro television set, hopefully you do too?

Finally Finished 'Michael's Room.'

20" x 15"

A while back I posted a work in progress which was a pencil line drawing with acrylic wash. The idea being the acrylic would act as an under-painting as I applied reasonably heavy watercolour washes. With previous paintings my initial pencil work has disappeared when wet so the acrylic was there to hold the figures together and it worked! After the watercolour I then worked up the shadows and highlights with gouache.

I wonder if Michael's little sister managed to get Dolly's head back? (You don't ask that question everyday)