Started a couple of new pieces

I started painting the background on 'Pastures new' the other day but forgot to seal the gold first, so I need to wait for the oil to dry before I can move forward with that one. I’ve started a couple of other new pieces this week ‘Conversations’ and ‘One of us is going in the wrong direction’, just starting on the underpainting on both of those, but thought I’d post them anyway :)

I’m going to have an exhibition over at the gallery from 27th Nov to 18th Dec so they’ll be lots of work to do between now and then, hopefully finishing some of these new gold pieces as well as some new watercolour swirls…fingers crossed :)

Lino Cutting Class

I taught the first of the ‘Introduction to Lino Cutting’ classes last Friday, all went very well with everyone enjoying themselves and producing some wonderful prints. The next class is on Friday November 19th, if you’re interested in coming along more details can be found HERE :)

The Stag and The Moon - Outline Print

I’ve been doing some work on one of the ‘Stag’ linocuts today. Here you can see where I’ve refined the lines of the drawing, transferred it onto the block, carved the block and finally a test print. There’ll be another block for the background colour, more of that later :)

Pastures New - Just started

I’ve started a new piece today called ‘Pastures New’. As you can see I’ve done the under painting for the ‘figures’ and gilded the relevant areas. I’m planning on doing a more complex sky on this one too.

I’m teaching a lino cutting class starting next Friday, so I’m planning on doing some work on the stag linocuts tomorrow...as well as building some cutting boards… If you’re interested in future classes have a look HERE for further information :)

Dreams 01 - Finished

I’ve finished ‘Dreams 01’, just working over the flesh, sharpening things up, adding more contrast etc. I’m really glad I settled on keeping it grey rather than flesh coloured I don’t think it would be half as interesting if I hadn’t done it this way.
I’ve also started a new piece today of two sheep…I’ve sealed the drawing with acrylic, so you can’t really see it that clearly in a photo, so I haven’t bothered posting it yet. I’m going to paint the sheep in grey, the sky in blue and everything else in gold, so it’ll be another experiment to see how far I can push things but it feels like I’m getting close to a style I can run with now :)
Once again many thanks to Mary for posing for the ‘Dreams’ painting, and Jack and Mary for ‘Awake’ hope you like them…more to follow :)

Happy Jack - Underpainting and Gilding

I started a new piece today, ‘Happy Jack’. This one is a bit of an experiment to see how small I can paint a full figure, I want to get on and paint the more complex ‘woodland’ paintings soon and I need to keep the scale of those under control. Partly due to the time involved, but also the cost of the gold I’ll need…so the smaller I can do a figure, in some ways, the better.
I’ve done the under painting using acrylic on this as it’ll dry nice and quickly and I find it a little easier to control at this stage, I’ve also gilded the background using silver on this one. I’m leaving the slight gaps between the sheets of silver as I quite like the effect and I think/hope it’ll leave an interesting texture once I’ve painted over the top.
The gilding will need a few days to dry so I’ll try and finish the ‘Dreaming’ painting tomorrow…
As you can see the winter winds have started to blow so the fire has been lit and Bryn in making the most of it :)