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RIVERSIDE (oil)

After a year's absence, I rejoined my local art-club and took my oils with me to have a play. Did this one on an 8x6" panel and didn't finish it, but I'm just going to leave it as it is. I didn't learn anything from it, so I'll just leave it there and move on. It was a nice relaxing evening and nice to see some friendly, familiar faces.

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THE MEADOW (watercolour)

Decided to have another stab at the meadow painting but in watercolour (pen and wash). Lots of people preferred this to my oil attempt and it is now owned by a lovely lady in Wales.

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THE MEADOW

Wahaay!! An oil painting at last. I saw something like this on the internet and thought I'd have a stab at painting a flowery meadow myself. It didn't come out as I wanted, but when I posted this on FaceBook, it received an unexpectedly good amount of praise and my sister "claimed" it for her house.

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GLENCOYNE

Here's a monotone study that I think turned out pretty good for a change. Nothing special, but I do like it.

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COTTAGE WINDOW

Another watercolour - because my sister asked specifically for this one for her birthday, so I thought I'd show it here.

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MONOTONE STUDY

Oops!! Another watercolour :-(  Never mind, for every watercolour on this oil-painting blog, I'll add another oil later, lol.

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SKETCHBOOK PAINTING
This is a quick "Pen & Wash" sketch taken from (yes, you guessed it) my sketchbook. It's not an oil, but at least it means I'm still keeping a hand in one way or the other.

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3 COLOUR PALETTE

I painted this last night after watching a painting DVD. I used a 3-colour palette and really enjoyed it. I'm gonna stick with it because it certainly makes you think more about colour-mixing!

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MOORED FOR THE NIGHT


This is a 24"x12" oil painting which I did as a "quickie" for a bit of fun, after seeing a demonstrator at the local art-club.

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WHITE CLIFFS
 
Another 20"x16" painting! I'm getting into these bigger paintings - they seem easier to do than fiddly 8x6's. Here's the outline for my next....

And here is the finished thing. I did a brush painting which was, in my opinion, a complete disaster and then I "rescued" it by turning it into a palette-knife painting.

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DERBY ST, WESTPORT
This 20"x16" oil is what I did as an entry for the "Virtual Paintout" blog which is run by Bill Guffey. Basically, each month Bill chooses a new location from which you can paint using Google Street Maps. It's a great idea and half the fun is finding a suitable picture! Again, this painting hasn't worked out anything like I wanted, but I enjoyed doing it.

I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this one so much is that I moved all my painting gear out to the garage, where I don't have to worry about splashing smelly thinners all over, plus, there's a lot more space.

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WINTER SUNRISE
I know, I know - another watercolour! Well it's better than not painting at all isn't it?

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ORANGE MACRO

This was just a quickie with a palette-knife and then a wee brush up. Nothing serious, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

COBRA WATER-BASED OILS

COBRA WATER MIXABLE

Just bought a set of Cobra Water-Based oils after hearing really good things said about them. Originally, they were sold under the Van Gogh brand name, but now they've recently been rebadged for whatever reason. According to users, these paints have a much more "buttery" consistency than the Artisan range.

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DUNSCAR DUSK

This was done with an 8x6" pochade and a palette knife. Paints used were Artisan Oils. I must admit to liking this and I have, in fact, mounted and framed it. The original looks FAR better than this photo.

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GLASS APPLE

Did this one at the art-club last Friday. First time I've been there for AGES! Used a palette knife. Not very good, but at least I painted something!

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SUNFLOWERS

Another "palette-knife" painting - ands it's pretty horrible. I did it at the art-club and wished I'd not bothered. I'm sticking to brushes in future!

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VILLENEUVE FLOWERS

Not painted anything for AGES but tonight I went to the Art Club and messed around with this little thing using my pochade box.

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QIANG's RUBY RED

Here we go again with another Qiang painting. Can't help myself! I find his paintings so inspiring and whenever I'm off to the art-club on a Friday night, I print one off and have a go at it.

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WINTER COTTAGE

Here's another watercolour. I feel bad about not keeping with the oils, but at least I'm doing something to keep me going :-)

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SLIPPERY SLOPE

Sorry, but I tried and tried to carry on with the oils, but I just can't seem to get any satisfaction or success with it right now. So rather than stop painting, I've jumped back to watercolours to see if I can keep my brushes wet at least! This is a copy of a much bigger version I did a while ago. I sold it for £150 in an exhibition.

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Did this one at the art-club on Friday. I didn't have anything to paint, so I copied an image that the guy next to me was painting. He did his with a palette knife and it was brilliant. Mine's errrrr... not. LOL

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QIANG's GO GREEN

Yet another copy of a Qiang Painting. I'm beginning to get a little more comfortable with the oil paints now. Not yet confident, but certainly comfortable. I found this one to be a little tougher because I had some trouble (as you can see) finding a suitable green mix with my fixed palette of six colours.

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QIANG'S GLASS OF APPLE

Here's another one of Qiang's great paintings - sorry - I mean my version of Qiang's great painting :-) I really struggled with this one but it was still a lot of fun (and good practise).

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QIANG'S IRON BOWL

I'm always thrilled to receive my daily painting (via email) from Qiang Huang. His paintings are IMHO the best out there. Needless to say, I subscribe to many other great daily painters, but Qiang's are my favourites. The painting below is my poor attempt at one of Qiang's works and although it hasn't turned out as well as I'd hoped, I thoroughly enjoyed painting it.

NEWSFLASH ~ I WON !!!

HORWICH ART SOCIETY

Went to the Horwich Art Society Annual Exhibition "Preview Evening" last night, over at the Library and was delighted to find that I was the overall winner, taking the Jack Birchall Memorial Trophy home! Couldn't believe it!

Painting is called "The Arrangement" and is full imperial size.

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STAITHES

And here's another. My friend gave me a beautiful painting of this scene and it's one of my most treasured posessions, so I thought I'd have a go at painting it. Doesn't even come remotely close to doing his painting justice, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Please note that I did a quick "indoors snap" of this, so the colours are a little lost in the translation to a digital image. I'll try and redo it when I get time.

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VILLAGE ON'THILL


This was done at the art-club last Friday. Started off quite promising and quickly spiralled. Not to worry!

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MOUNTAIN SCENE


Okay, so this one isn't 8x6", but I'm still counting it as one of my paintings toward the goal. It's actually 20 inches wide and started off looking pretty damned good, but as I progressed, I got kinda muddled and it went completely the opposite way that I wanted it to. Never mind - it was another learning step.

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CLINTON, MISSOURI.

Tonight I went to a friend's house to paint outdoors in the garden and took a book with me that I'd recently bought called Painting Missouri by Billyo O'Donnell. If you like Plein Air painting books, you simply MUST buy this one! Anyway, I chose a painting from the book and had a go. Really enjoyed doing it but it's a far cry from Billyo's original.

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FLOWERS IN VASE
Because I did so little painting whilst on holiday, I decided to push myself and rattle off a quickie at home tonight, so I put on a favourite LP, sat back and painted this during side one of the album.

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MISTY MORNING

This is the only other painting that I did in Spain and it hasn't turned out at all well. I did say that I would post them though - warts and all.

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THE FRUIT SHELF

While holidaying in Spain, I had the intention of doing a great deal of painting but the intense heat (103) just left me with little interest in doing anything other than sunbathing and drinking ice-cold Coca Cola by the bucket load. Anyway, one day I decided to sit under the parasol in the shade and did this painting.

ON HOLIDAY!

GONE TO SPAIN!

Will be in Spain (Moraira) until 14th July. Have packed my pochade and a load of 8x6 panels, so I'll hopefully have something to show when I return.

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MARSH FARM
This is the second panel of the two which I did at the club tonight. To be honest, they actually look better "in the flesh" than they do on here.

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MYSTIC MOUNTAIN
Went to the Art Club tonight and knocked out a couple of 8x6's to try and play catch-up. I really must try to paint more regularly. As with the others, I have made no real attempts to do anything worthwhile here - it's merely to get me started and used to painting with this new medium. Quick, carefree brushstrokes and careless aim. Just noticed how daft that lone tree looks. Ah well!

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AFRICAN SUN

Well, I'm not doing very well at this am I? Eleven days between paintings isn't very productive and will certainly not teach me anything. Tonight I forced myself to go to the art-club and took out my palette-knife to see what horrors I could create. And here it is. After I finished mauling this 8x6 panel, I began work on another one.

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WELSH VALLEY

Well, I said I'd do it, so here's the first pathetic attempt at oil painting. Boy, I really struggled to post this! I was gonna keep painting until I got something I wasn't ashamed of, but that's not the idea of this blog, so look and laugh.