Evening On The Lake WIP

I'm currently working on my third large animal painting. Below you can see the rough sketch and three shots taken with my phone in the studio over 3 days.

The first painting day I finished a very basic underpainting, sepia in the foreground and cobalt blue in the background hills. For days two and three I have been glazing the background very carefully and started to flesh out the local colours in the foreground boats and figures. All the time I'm battling with warm light and cool shadows which is hard enough when painting from life, never mind making it up!!

'Knitting Circle'

Knitting Circle

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

This one was finished over the New Year break (no rest for the wicked). I thought I was going to have an absolute nightmare with making the blanket look woollen but it turns out my continual glazing technique works really well when it comes to soft fuzzy texture. At some stages I even just brushed clean water over the top of the blanket squares just to soften edges when drybrush wasn't working.

'Knitting Circle' WIP

What better way is there to see in the New Year than chatting with friends over a nice cup of tea and some knitting needles?

The first day of painting.

'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.

'Catching Butterflies'

I now realise I have a back log of artwork to post! Firstly I had better tie up the lose end from my previous WIP post. Here is the, now complete, painting called 'Catching Butterflies'

Catching Butterflies
Watercolour & Gouache
24 x 31cm

I used three distinct techniques to paint this whimsical image of a stoat chasing butterflies. The first was to work wet in wet to build up the soft trees in the background, I had to be very careful not to encroach on the hat and net. The second technique was to use masking fluid with a toothbrush to speckle the field with lots of wild flowers and seeds, that way I could easily work up the greens without worrying about losing the bright flowers. The third technique was glaze very thin applications of paint over the shadows on the stoat so even in darker areas there would still be a nice interplay of cold blues and warm greens.

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.

My Art Turned Into Cross Stitch

Paine Free Crafts are converting a selection of my artwork in cross stitch charts and kits! The first image, 'Autumn Scribe' is up for sale. Click here to visit painefreecrafts.com.

Those owls are being stitched up good and proper!

Massive Fantastic Interview

I have recently given a 10 question interview, courtesy of Eric Millen, for his superb blog 'Massive Fantastic. You can read it here.

Make sure to have a browse through the archives, there is an especially good interview with James Gurney where Mr Gurney turns the tables on Eric and asks about the fate of his old brushes, Eric had previously traded new brushes for James' used ones!

'Catching Butterflies' Work In Progress

A shot of what is on my drawing at the moment.

He's going to need a bigger net

A Quarter Past One On Platform Ten Pt .3

For the first part of this post click here, and for the second part click here.

Finally I was up and running with my brushes (not literally, although I do have wheels on my studio chair so the option is there if needed).

Under-paintings and then some.

As is my wont, I began with an under-painting. However, just to be difficult, I began with payne's grey for the station and engine and then moved onto sepia for the characters. This was to re-enforce the difference between the cool station colours and the warmly coloured characters.

After that initial stage, it was a case of blocking in colours to work out the types of clothing. Every now and then I had to grab new reference (thank goodness for Downton Abbey screenshots) but mostly I had a reasonably clear idea of costumes beforehand.

A series of WIP shots taken over a period of 10 days

You'll notice in the 'works in progress' photos I tended to concentrate on the foreground characters more than the background. Traditional thinking would be to do this the opposite way, but I found it easier to focus on the main elements first before I lost enthusiasm with the painting and ended up slacking on my quality control. There's nothing worse than a fantastic scene with a poorly painted character sticking out like a sore thumb. Also there were so many elements that really I'm not sure it mattered where I began so long as I eventually finished it.

Speaking of which here is the final painting.

A Quarter Past One On Platform Ten
Watercolour & Gouache
50 x 92

 

3 weeks work in total and my biggest watercolour painting of this series so far.