The first blooms are out and looking fresh. The natural world is oblivious to viral concerns.
This heat persuades us to do little physically but painting a still life is just as exhausting, if only mentally. But so good to get back to painting flowers.
“Hydrangea” 10″x10″ oil on board
Irvine Harbour
12″x12″ oil on board
Painted on a yellow ground. The yellow unifies the whole by peeking through the gaps in the picture. The enjoyment is in the challenge of where to place the thick or thin parts. It is something that I am looking for, in the process, these days. Why did I decide to put the palette knife blob in the sky over the brushed paint. I have no idea other than at the time I thought it would add an object to break the plain sweep from left to right. Also, as the painting depicts reflections, I had a blob on the water that needed a thing to reflect from.
Slightly more stylised than the last painting, which is based on realistic representation of nature. Which places it weaker in the “Top Trumps – paintings edition”
Back on oils. Back to scrapes, dollops and brush marks.
I much prefer this than acrylic painting, which has it’s advantages, but doesn’t beat the soft, wet feel of oils. My work is disparate and is something I have to get a hold of soon. The paintings will be seen to be improved with consistency. Discarding some styles and subjects will be a positive move in the long run.
I have a series of paintings in mind for this set. View from a train running from Irvine to Glasgow and back again.
The Beast of Bank Street
Autodesk Sketchbook – Microsoft Surfacepro
An optimistic subject, just about to bloom and hopefully bring brighter days ahead.
oil on board 10″x8″
Oil on board 8″x10″
One more flower painting before I go back to portraits.
This series of still lifes is me exploring the mechanics of putting on paint. How far can I push the paint before losing the subject? How can I paint light rather than a thing?
One thing I need to drop is the reliance on the brush to make a brush mark. That might not make sense but…
I mean to paint the shape and size of a bit of the object in front of me and the chances that, in reality, it looks like a brush mark are slim. So how to paint that with a brush? That’s the thing I am struggling with. You can see the petals are too obviously brush marks with the width of a particular size of brush. Oh, the struggles!
That was a short and swift journey through some still life flowers, but this one is the last for a while.
“Flooers Fae The Asda II” 10″x10″ opil on board
A demo for the Thursday group
Oil on board 10″x10″
“Anemone and Ribes”
10″x10″
oil on board
“Hydrangea”
10″x10″
oil on board
David Reid 