A couple of portraits in oil

Here are a couple of the oil portraits I’ve done this year. All have been small, 6x8 inches.

I’m increasingly trying to work as much texture as possible into the pictures, drawing heavily on Freud, whose work I greatly admire.

I really want to try and push the oils I do next year, further in this direction, moving away from a smooth “finished” look to something much more relaxed and painterly. I think this makes for much more interesting final artwork…but it’s incredibly hard to paint something that looks relaxed and spontaneous…and like your subject matter…at least, I find it incredibly difficult.

Now I’ve got a few images from this year up here, I want to go onto explore ideas for some new work. I’d like to do a larger portrait of Sheila, pushing the texture further. I’ve got an idea for a couple of portraits of my grandfathers, who are sadly now both deceased, so I want to build the “portraits”, from meaningful objects and locations... I’m thinking of doing a small series of paintings of people in my local pub (The Queens Head). I need to put together a couple of pictures for an exhibition at a nearby reservoir. And there’s the possibility of a nice portrait commission next year too…So plenty to keep me busy…more details to follow :)

A couple of images

Here are a couple of the watercolours I've done this year. Both were painted on the Herbridean Isle of Eigg. (Learn more about Eigg here )
The first is a view of Rum. Painted from the Bay of Laig on Eigg...I painted all these Eigg pictures by resting a board on whatever was around - in this case, a sand dune. I've found this forced me to views that weren't necessarily the most obvious ones... with all the watercolours I've done recently, I've just wanted to paint in a very pure way...not getting caught up in subject or composition too much,simply enjoying painting whatever was in front of me. The downside to propping a board on whatever's around, is that it can be very uncomfortable on the back...so I'm using an easel more often now...still, it's something I'd recommend doing every now and then as a good exercise.

This second image is of the Sgurr, as seen from Kildonnan, where we were staying (Highly recommended! say hi to Marie if you go).

The swirling lines within both these pictures have developed over the past 18 months or so. I like the way they define the shapes, while adding a slightly abstract/impressionistic/fun element to the pictures. I've taken this a bit further by using masking fluid in a couple of pictures, this gives an interesting effect, but the fluid doesn't flow like paint, so gives a more chunky effect...interesting when washed over though...I'll post those ones soon...Wow, two posts in two days, it'll never last...;)

posting number one...

So, this is my first blog posting. So far, so good it seems. My plan for this page is to post images and gibberings about whatever artwork I'm working on...and by putting this up in a public(ish) place like this, guilt myself into actually producing a bit more artwork, rather than vegetating in front of the TV night after night...I guess time will tell if this actually works...

I've managed to produce a reasonable number of watercolours this year (2006) - I'll post some here...soon/eventually. And I'd like to continue with these in 2007, but what I really feel a need to do is return to working in oils. I managed to get 4 small portraits done this year, but I think I need to work on larger canvases and bring more allegorical elements back into my work. I'll get some snaps of the portraits and some earlier larger oils on here too.

Well, I guess this will do for an opening...seems to have a nice earthy, chaotic feel to it... Hope you eventually find something of interest on here :) G