Paint and a brew

I've been meaning to paint a header for my blog for months.

I've had this 6x12" cradled board sitting around my studio - I ordered it by mistake so I used it up to paint my header. It's a different brand of gessobord than I usually buy and it was much more absorbent. I had to thin my paint with a lot of medium.

My inspiration for this one was my usual cup of brew (tea or coffee) that I have in more or less constant supply while painting, and a few of my paints. Sums me up I think. Plus I got some great compliments about this painting so I thought I'd continue the theme.

Here's a detail shot. You can see the full header at the top of the blog (unfortunately the header does not show on the mobile version, just the full web version).

You may notice the image of the brush reflected in the cup. I'd love to say that this was a deliberate ploy but I have to admit that it was more of a happy accident.

Anyway, glad I finally got this done so that I can move onto some new stuff.
I've got a million ideas swimming around in my head at the moment.

EDIT:
Having painted the header and having lived with it for a few days, I have decided to remove it. I think it is too distracting from the paintings in the posts.
I do like the painting however, so I've decided instead to just hang it in my studio.

Here's the full version:

Orange Rose Study

This rose is painted on an 8 x 8 inch (20cm x 20cm) panel which is a little larger than I have been using for a single subject, but I like to use a slightly larger brush and find it difficult to get into all the little crevices on roses if I go smaller. I think in future I will do all my rose studies this size. The rose is part of a bunch of beautiful vivid blooms I picked up at my supermarket a few days ago.

I have been making an effort to stay away from white where possible, because I want to keep my colours really saturated and in fact I didn't use any white at all for this painting, as you can see from this picture of the palette I used.

 A while ago I invested in some of the Gamblin radiant colours, after hearing Robert Gamblin himself talk about them on Leslie Saetas podcast, but I haven't been sure what to use them for.
I decided to have a go at using my radiant yellow in this painting and found that it is a great mixer and eliminates the need to use white. Now I know what to use the radiants for!
I mixed so many variations of orange for this painting, that I had to start another clean palette for the stems, leaves and background!


(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on gessobord panel

A bit about value...
I read about and listen to a lot of artists always talking about value. Value in painting terms basically means how much light and how much shade is being cast onto or cast by an object. Artists often say how important it is to learn about value and even that some artists do not understand value. What I'm puzzled by is that to me value is obvious. All objects hit by light are part in light and part in shade. I think everybody knows and understands this, but the trick is finding out how to represent that shade without resorting to just adding black or some dark colour that approximates the body colour of the object you are painting.

Now last night I happened to be reading the book 'Fill your oil paintings with light and colour' by Kevin Macpherson. In it he says this;

"Nature describes itself in full spectrum. Color has three qualities; hue, value and chroma. I will use the term color or color note interchangeably to mean the sum of these quantities. Analyse everything as a particular color note.

If you can learn to see color notes, you do not have to worry about value, because that comes automatically."

Exactly! The trick to representing something three dimensionally in painting is seeing shapes, and the shade as a colour in its own right.

Not that I think that really getting to grips with value makes you a great artist, it just depends on what your intention is. Van Gogh cared little about value in his best work but produced some of the most beautiful paintings. I think finding how to represent value is a good starting point though...

 This painting is available

Stripes, spots, spoons and spatulas.

A bit about brushes...

I have tried a variety of brands of brushes. I started out painting with Silver Briston and Princeton brushes, but I found both brands a little too stiff - I found I was removing almost as much paint as I was putting on. I stopped using these brands when I discovered Robert Simmons Titanium brushes which are much softer and I preferred the strokes I was getting with the paint when using them. Also they are great quality; they don't lose hairs and are great for clean-up.
However, while the Titanium brushes are great for loose strokes, they are not so great for lines or fine detail.
To paint the lines in this painting I reverted back to one of my Princeton brushes. I realised they are fantastic for painting hard edges! Now I don't like too many hard edges in my paintings, but this one required it. Don't ask me how to paint in straight lines because I haven't found a perfect answer. I'm sure there is a secret to it but all I can say is it takes practice and a bit of confidence with your brush.
I also recently purchased some angled Rosemary and Co brushes from the UK - which are great for getting into the little corners.

The painting...'stripes, spots, spoons and spatulas!'... it was only after I finished the painting that I realised it could have this rhythmic title.
I'm not sure how long this painting took, since I had to keep leaving it in stages to go to drop my son off at various soccer matches, but I think it was about 6 or 7 hours painting time and maybe an hour or so settling on the composition first. The still life is set up on my old vintage kitchen dresser.
I found that by dragging the edge of my brush through the paint I could create a few hints of the grain in the old painted wooden boards at the back of the dresser.


(10 x 10 inches)
25.4 x 25.4 cm
Oil on Gessobord



Not for sale

Sunlit Brunch

Following on from my earlier small painting Marmalade in the Sun, I wanted to try to capture the sunlight hitting this jar of marmalade again, so I decided to try it as part of a larger still life.
Full sunlight doesn't actually start making it's way through this window until around midday, so I didn't feel I could call this 'breakfast'. Although I like the cool simple labelling on the French Bonne Maman jars, I played around around a lot with the composition and finally settled on this one, so the label can only just be seen. As I was fiddling with the composition I noticed the light shining through the jar and casting this red/orange glow onto the knife, so I thought I'd see if I could capture that.
Half way through painting this, I decided to change some of the details; the objects were originally sitting on a white and blue striped teatowel but I soon realised that the pattern was fighting with the shadows cast from the window so I decided to scrape the painting back and re-paint it without the teatowel. I'm happy I did that. The painting works so much better. Very often, less is more.

When I'm painting I nearly always listen to some podcast or other. One of the shows I listen to regularly is 'The Savvy Painter' and I have listened to Duane Keiser's interview maybe 6 or 7 times to date.
I like to listen to these podcasts a number of times, because I find I nearly pick up some new nugget of information each time. In this case I was interested to hear Duane talk about how he 'aggresses' through a painting. In other words he attacks a problem full-on until he solves it. This might mean scraping a painting back a number of times until he has solved the problem. I loved that and thought it was very inspirational. It's easy to get too precious about a painting you are working on and not want to make changes, but if you can improve on some aspect of it, you should.
I like alla prima oil painting for this reason. I've learned that I really do prefer to pretty much complete a painting in one session, save maybe a few details I might notice with fresh eyes the next day. I like the paint to stay really wet and creamy so that if you need to make changes, you can without having to paint over a texture that has already dried.


(10 x 10 inches)
25.4 x 25.4 cm
Oil on Gessobord

Ready, Steady, Bake.

If you already haven't encountered the TV baking phenomenon 'The Great British Bake Off' then you have almost missed it, since they have just announced that this will be the last official series, since the makers of the series are moving channels.
Since I'm a big fan of the series then I guess subconsciously this was my inspiration, although I didn't think of it at the time.  'Ready, Steady, Bake' seemed like an appropriate title though.
I kinda like the eggs reflected in the yellow and blue bowls, but I most proud of the metal fastener on the jar. It took me AGES but I really wanted to take my time with it and get it right.

This took about 6 hours to paint and quite a bit longer to come up with the initial composition. Square panels are not always an easy fit for a composition, so sometimes it takes a while to decide what works. I have decided to slow things right down and take my time over some compositions for larger panels. The little 6x6 inch panels are great for studies but I do prefer painting larger.

This one is 10 x 10 inches.
I'm working on more ideas for paintings this size.

(10 x 10 inches)
25.4 x 25.4 cm
Oil on Gessobord

This painting is now SOLD

UPDATE: This painting has been accepted for 'The Rye Arts Center' juried show and will be on display there between November 2nd - December 3rd 2016.

Here's a link:
The Rye Arts Center Small Works Exhibition

Marmalade in the Sun

One of my favorite things to eat for breakfast is marmalade on toast, so we absolutely always have it in the house. The other day the sun shone in through the window and hit the back of my marmalade jar giving the whole jar this sunny glow. I immediately wanted to see if I could capture that glow. So the next sunny day I got to work.

I spent a really long time mixing the colours for this. I wanted to get them exactly right.
You may have noticed from my other paintings that my colours end up being quite vibrant. This is not necessarily a deliberate thing; I'm not looking to produce a really bright, colourful painting but I have a bit of an obsession with not producing 'mud', so I guess that's the way they turn out.
My brush strokes are not as loose as I'd like them to be but I'm working on it.

I'm very proud of this painting. Definitely my favourite so far. I'm not putting this one up for sale just yet as I'm thinking about entering it for a local show, or using it as reference for another painting.
I may sell it at a later date.

(6 x 6 inches)
15 x 15cm
Oil on Gessobord

UPDATE: I will be selling this painting on 'Daily Paintworks' soon. Stay posted.