The Hills are Alive...

Woodstock Church seen from over the lake in the grounds of Blenheim Palace.

Blenheim 07

Column of Victory, seen over the water, Blenheim number 07. I’ve two more Blenheim sketches in my little book, so perhaps I’ll get those done over the weekend. Then there are a couple of Burford sketches, with lots of curvy flowing buildings and giant lollypop trees, then a Cornish sea view waiting to be done…I should stop typing and get a move on :)

Blenheim Palace over the lake

Blenheim 06, the Palace viewed from over the lake…

Giant Bulrushes

Blenheim 05. Giant bulrushes…Have been playing around with perspective again, flattening the architecture while letting ‘nature’ run wild. Am also building up a number of different ways of applying the masking fluid which are starting to give nice flowing lines (not that easy with masking fluid…) All in all, I’m very pleased with the way these are going…

I got lots of sketches for paintings done while invigilating during Artweeks, this being the first of those…Am increasingly enjoying changing the views to make a better picture, rather than being a slave to the accuracy of the scene…which I’ve been doing for FAR to long :)

Sheep...

Blenheim 04...now with added Sheep!...

Straight(ish) edges

Blenheim 03…playing around with some square shapes and straight edges in this one…trying to balance the presence of the building in the background.

It's a Miracle...

Miracles will never cease…I actually did some painting today! NOTHING done in April…will hang my head in shame. Still, today is the 1^st of May and here is a new Blenheim watercolour, number 2….lets see how much inspiration strikes this month :)

Where is Morph I hear you ask...

Trying something new today…I’ve videoed this painting as its developed…Hopefully you’ll be able to play it back (not sure about you Mac people…let me know ;)) anyway, this is about 3 hours work compressed into 3 minutes…surprising how little of that time the brush is actually on the paper, lots of drying time, a bit of drawing and masking time…then general tea drinking and dancing around the place…luckily you can’t see that :)

I think this works MUCH better than the live TV concept, which was…

a: DULL.

b: didn’t work very well.

c: Distracting from my point of view

So I’ll try and improve the framing, lighting, general quality and keep doing things in this format from now on :)

As for the picture itself, I thought I’d do a small series of Blenheim Palace watercolours. Took a few photos there yesterday as the weather was so nice…though strangely I ended up doing this painting with a very grey sky…am enjoying being MUCH less ridged with my photographic source material, not something I’ve naturally done in the passed, but a lot of fun once you get into it…Anyway, I think I’ll put this into the Oxford Art Society exhibition at Woodstock Museum, hopefully it’ll be selected :)

And finally…One of the Lake District paintings is on show as part of Oxfringe next week, see their website for further details. :)

Well that’s it for today…nearly beer time :)