Golden Hair...

Golden hair done, just need to do the flower in Chloe's hair & work over Ruby's top :)

Chloe & Ruby (Matthew & Meagan)

Drawn out Chloe & Ruby & now working on thickening the lines and filling in the darker areas on this one and the one of Matthew & Meagan, more work to do on both…

Matthew & Meagan - Part 1

Well August was a quiet month on the blog wasn’t it. Holidays & decorating took up most of the month, but I’ve also been pausing a bit while I wait for some feedback from Meller about the paintings. I think they’ll be moving from Witney to Oxford for a little bit during September, so if you haven’t had a chance to take a look at them yet, that’ll be the place to go, again, give Ewan a call first to check their whereabouts :)

I’ve got a few portraits to work on this month, I should be able to post progress on a couple of them as I go. The other has been commissioned as a surprise for a birthday, so that’ll have to remain hidden for a while :)

This is the first, a double portrait of Mr & Mrs Rice (or my little brother and his gorgeous wife Meagan, if you prefer). I’m going to do this in a slightly different style to the recent paintings, I want to paint the clothes more fully, rather than in the ‘printed’ style I’ve been using, still monochromatic, but more realistically done. Also, I ‘think’ I’m going to leave the Gold off this one & I’m going to varnish it with a regular gloss varnish, rather than the spray matt varnish that I used on the other paintings. Anyway, this is most of the drawing stage done on the figures, just the ‘ring’ hands to go in :)

Drawing someone drawing someone...

Here’s a drawing I did as a Christmas present for Susan. It’s her daughter, who upon seeing it said, she liked it, but I hadn’t finished it as it wasn’t coloured in…which made me laugh, lol :) Children can be tough critics ;)

I hadn’t done a detailed drawing like this for a while, so it was really enjoyable. Think I may do a little series along similar lines in 2010.

Oh dear...

I’ve been sat in the Bartholomew Rooms today, invigilating in the current art exhibition…very quiet…I was going to take in some paints and work on my next swirling watercolour, but there’s a limited amount of table space and I couldn’t be bother to take in all the bits I needed. So, again inspired by Lorna, I decided to take in a pencil, paper and a small mirror and have a go at a self portrait…how very out of practice I am lol. This makes me look like my grandmother…and lovely as she is, I’m not sure it’s a look I want to cultivate. However it was a fun exercise for a few hours :)…swirling watercolours tomorrow though I think :)

Thursdays efforts

Here's todays work on the portrait. Added lots more modelling in the faces, did a bit of work on the clothes, changed the background...basically added more paint to everything :) still needs more, I haven't got the balance of skin tones quite right yet, but it's going in the right direction. As the paint has built up I've been able to used some stronger brushstrokes, these are starting to come together nicely. The new background works much better, the previous green one was too strong, the painting is quite 'in your face' with the style of skin tone and brushstrokes and the green was just fighting too much. I've also worked a bit of framing into the background with a roughly painted black border, it's a minor graphical element but adds a nice little touch I think. All in all this is turning out to be a very useful experiment.

blocking in....

Blocking in a bit more form tonight...some bits going well...some bits need more work...but generally a reasonable evenings work. I'm trying to pull the likenesses together as I go and they're certainly better today....

Acrylic Portrait part 2

Did a bit on this acrylic portrait the other day. Sploshing in the colours and playing with the brushstrokes atm...I've lost a bit of the likenesses while doing this, but the whole point of this particular painting was to experiment and see what happens, so I'm not going to worry about that, will just keep on playing until it looks okay :)

Varnishing...

Didn’t manage any painting this weekend as the day job is encroaching on painting time as we wrap up our current project…still, nearly done :) Anyway, I collected a few old friends together…and varnished them…it was quite interesting to see them together as a group…I must do some more portraits once work is out of the way…:)

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 :)