86x8x6 LEARNING TO PAINT: July 2008

28 July, 2008

#9 of 86

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.

22 July, 2008

#8 of 86

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.

16 July, 2008

#7 of 86

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.

#6 of 86

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.

#5 of 86

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.

02 July, 2008

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.

Our Own Art-Club!

Each Friday we go to the local Art-Club in Horwich. It's a thriving club with a broad range of people of all ages and skill-levels. Apart from the regular painting sessions, we have many professional artists visiting us to demonstrate their skills and to run workshops.

But sometimes, it's nice when just a few friends get together mid-week too, and so here we are in Simon's "studio", benefitting from the skill and experience of his father, Brian Waddington. It looks a bit cramped in there, but we were just huddled together to fit in the photo frame :-)

And you can drink beer in this club! :-)

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for visiting my blog! It's my intention to post each of my paintings here as I go through the learning process. As you will soon discover, I am pretty damned awful at painting, but I am, at least, determined to get better. Hopefully, my work will show improvement over the coming months.

Originally, this blog was just about learning to paint in oils, and I was going to do 86 paintings in quick succession on 8"x6" panels using my Jullian pochade box. But that didn't quite workout, so I'm now going to make it about oils, watercolours, acrylics, whatever!

The oil-paints I use are either Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyds which are quick drying, or Cobra Water-Mixable oils. I am seeking to develop a very loose and impressionistic style as I go along. To me, detail is the enemy!

Some of the paintings will be copies of someone elses work (ie from books), but as I improve, I hope to do a lot of plein air painting instead. Luckily, I live close to many well known beauty-spots.

UPDATE :
Since starting this blog, I've bought some W&N Artisan Oil paints which are water-based. They seem no different at all from the Griffin Alkyds and are far easier to work with in terms of cleaning up afterwards. Only down-side of course is that they're not dry with 24hrs like the Griffins.

UPDATE :

Bought a 12"x 10" OpenBox M Pochade setup to compliment my tiny Jullian. After using it with a 10x8 oil-panel, I must admit - it seems far easier to paint bigger than smaller! This kit, by the way, is a cracking pochade box. A bit on the expensive side, but luckily, I got mine on Ebay very cheaply. It will take panels or canvases up to 18 inches wide which is extremely versatile.

I've recently become interested in Digital Painting and have started to post those too. I normally use ArtRage on the iPad and PC but have just started to learn Corel Painter 2019 which I have installed on my Microsoft Surface Pro 5.

If you like any of my Digital Paintings, you can always contact me on tommcquiggan@gmail.com and ask for a FREE COPY of the image. I will send you a copy of the file via email and you can then have it printed onto canvas (or photo-paper) at your local Tesco, etc, to the size that suits you.

Please note that some of my earlier attempts at digital painting were done at low-resolution, so they may not be suitable for large scale canvases.