Moonlit Square Eynsham - Drawing

I’ve started on a new watercolour of the square in Eynsham today. Just at the drawing stage at the moment, but it’s going to be a night time scene, hopefully with some interesting lighting coming from the doorways of the church and Bartholomew Rooms.
Posters for the Winter Exhibition starting to go up today (16 days to go…) and website beginning it’s overhaul, so all in all a busy day :)

St Peter's Church Eynsham - Finished

Finished this autumnal view of St Peter's today for the Winter Eynsham Arts Group exhibition.

The Stag and the Moon - Finished

Here’s a final print of ‘The Stag and the Moon’ and a drawing stage photo of a new watercolour ‘St Peter’s Church Eynsham’.
I’ve used silver and aluminium leaf on the stag prints which was an interesting experience…printing with gilding size is a sticky business…:)

Artweeks 2010 (2)

Here’s the latest swirling painting “Bartholomew School”. It’ll be on show in the Bartholomew Rooms from Sat 22nd May to Mon 31st May 2010 as part of the Eynsham Art Group Spring exhibition.

Several other pieces (including the Primary School painting) are on show at the same time at Arts Inc as part of the Artsweeks exhibition :)

New cards

I’ve had three new cards printed up for the next Eynsham Art Group Exhibition

Saturday 21st November – Sunday 29th November
10:00 - 4:00 (Sunday 2:00 – 4:00)
At the Bartholomew Rooms in Eynsham.

The cards are of the following paintings…

Eynsham Primary School Through The Trees
Woodstock at Night
Eynsham Square 3:25 June 1st

Just need to get some actual paintings ready now…;)

Postcards from Prague

Am just back from a short break in Prague, took a few photos so you may see some Czech swirling landscapes or linocuts over the next couple of months ;) Only managed 3 postcards while I was there, so apologies if you didn’t get one this time around…seems like a good excuse for me to take longer holidays doesn’t it :)

Pen and wash again, but a lot more detail than the last Welsh ones. Two from the hotel garden where I was staying and one from a small café. The Café one has a bit of a Prague feel to it but the other two could be in the Med. Will aim to get much more of a Czech flavour into anything I develop from the photos and general experience later on :) Be warned there maybe a flying nun linocut on the way ;)

Welsh Postcards

Am finally back from my travels in the Welsh mountains. Weather as you might expect, so had plenty of reading and drawing time. I did a couple of figurative designs for lino cuts or paintings (haven’t decided which yet…possibly both…) will post those soon, but for now, here are the postcards from this adventure, simple pen and wash this time, just trying to capture things as quickly as possible 4-5 minutes each and then onwards :)

Welsh Postcards 2

Welsh Postcards 3

Fishing boats in Boscastle harbour - Finished

Finished the fishing boats.

Fishing boats in Boscastle harbour - Painting part 1

Added the first layer of paint today…in between, cooking, cleaning and entertaining the boy…don’t you just love the summer holidays :)

Fishing boats in Boscastle harbour - Drawing

Working on another Cornish swirling painting today. Some fishing boats in Boscastle harbour, just finished the drawing so I thought I’d do a quick post here. Boats are hard enough to draw normally, playing around with this slightly warped perspective has taken a while ;) lol…time to throw some masking fluid on…:)

Eynsham Primary School through the trees

Drew this out last week and finally got around to the painting today :) Time for a beer me thinks :)

Cards of Eynsham

I’ve had some cards of the three swirling Eynsham paintings printed up and they arrived this morning…they’ve come out really well, so I’m very pleased with them :) They’ll be on sale at the summer exhibition in the Bartholomew Rooms 4th – 12th July. £2.50 each. If you can’t get to the exhibition but would like some just drop me an email.

Right, off to paint another ;)

The Rollright Stones

Ahhh, better late than never, here are the Rollright Stones on a cold wintry afternoon...Not much to say today, so I’ll stop there…:)

Just up the road from Lornas picture...

Well another long gap between pictures…better late than never… I’ve always done things at glacially slow speed…but I usually get there in the end…stick with me :)

Anyway, this is the third new Eynsham one, so I’ve got a full set for the autumn exhibition in the Bartholomew Rooms 22nd -30th November.

Alas the Woodstock painting didn’t win any prizes, but it did get sold…twice…which was quite impressive for an exhibition where it wasn’t actually for sale…so I must be doing something right…I guess there’s hope for me yet…?

Eynsham Square in the Sunshine

Eynsham Square in the Sunshine…and what a lot of sunshine…;)

Allotmenting and general chores have been taking up a lot of time lately…hence the lack of two paintings a week…but the weather should turn awful pretty soon, so I’ll have more painting time then… so there’s a positive in everything.

Missed out on my beer time this evening to get this done, but I’d been in and out all day doing little bits of it in between other jobs and I really wanted to get it finished.

Obviously I’ve pushed the colours a bit further on this one, It’ll be interesting to see what people think of it…overall I’m pleased with the final result, plenty of movement…:)

It seems like next months Eynsham Art Group exhibition will have lots of local flavours, Lorna, Sue and I have all been focusing on similar themes of late, should be a good exhibition, I know I’m really looking forward to seeing their pieces in the flesh...fascinating to see how we’re all interpreting the same subjects…

News!…I’ve got a couple of paintings in the Oxford Open show on at Saïd at the moment, so if you’re in town and fancy seeing them, pop in and take a look, or better still, take your cheque book ;)

Woodstock at night

I've painted this one for a competition in Woodstock which has the theme of 'Illumination'...Hence a view of Woodstock, at night, lit by the moon and windows. It's taken AGES to paint :) (Well, about 13 hours...) balancing the flowing, swirly lines with reasonably accurately rendered buildings was...a challenge...lots of drawing to start with and then lots of masking fluid...and then lots of water in with the paint...in lots of layers...hence, I've been working on this all day...However, I'm quite pleased with the results, it's got the kind of look I had in my head...anyway, It's entered into the competition, so we'll see how it does...off to sleep now...very tired :)

Land of the Sheep...

A proud and noble sheep...:)

If you zoom in you should be able to see that I've softened some of the lines by painting into them once the masking fluid has been removed. On some of the stones at the base of the picture I've done this in such a way that they still have a white highlight on the top. This has given them an interesting 3D feel...something to explore further at some point :)

Llyn Llydaw - The Miners' Track - Snowdonia

Allotmenting yesterday, but pulled my finger out and painted today...(after painting the raised bed I built yesterday...but that wasn't my best work, so I won't bother blogging it :)) ... This is Llyn Llydaw, one of the lakes on the Miners track on the way up Snowdon. Initially I'd drawn the mountains in the background, but I decided to extend them up a bit and do away with the sky altogether...I think this maybe the first time I've painted a landscape without a sky...anyway I liked the way the light hit the hills and wanted a darker background...so up went the mountains :)...I've actually painted them in a slightly different way...laying on lots of colour and then lifting off the markings on the cliff. I'm quite pleased with the way thats worked out, the slight blur gives a sense of depth and adds a nice contrast to the sharp lines of the masking fluid...all in all, not too bad :)

A quick update on the oil experiment...oil is still wet...I may have to rethink this ;)