Moroccan Dry Dock

Watercolour 10" x 10"

Tuscan Farm Buildings

Watercolour 12" x 9"

House by Canal

Burnt Umber Monochrome Watercolour - 12" x 9"

Countryside sketch

Burnt Umber Monochrome Watercolour - 10" x 8"

Tuscany Landscape

Another sketch.. just getting back into painting...

stage 1

stage 2

Tree and Hills

Just a quick sketch to get back into painting...

stage 1

stage 2

Estuary

A quick sketch of an estuary, not sure where this is but the general theory is 'somewhere in Scotland' :-) I really like the colours in this sketch and I really enjoy this palette. Its the same palette used by Ron Ranson and Steve Cronin: Ultramarine Blue, Light Red, Raw Sienna, Lemon Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber and Paynes Gray. (Burnt Umber not used in this painting but it's part of my 7 colour palette).

Having said that I've been experimenting with Prussian Blue, Phthalo Blue and Cerulean Blue recently as I'd like to do some semi-abstracts of The Blue City in Morocco. You can view the Google Image Search here: http://bit.ly/1siQwyo

I'm going to try this one again today, maybe on larger paper and I'm going to try and be really aware of some great advice from Steve Cronin: "Never paint over the same are twice unless you have a specific reason to do so". It's really good advice. My aim is to lay down confident brush strokes and don't work over them - just leave them! :-) Anyway, we'll see how it goes...

Estuary. 12" x 9" Watercolour.

Shetland Cottages

If you read my last post you'll remember I mentioned about an exercise in mixing greens but I got side tracked by a photo of a small group of cottages in Shetland. In this painting I used a slightly different palette swapping out Ultramarine Blue for Prussian Blue. I think the greens mixed using Prussian Blue are really nice. In a way this was a small exercise in green mixing but the main thing that's happened in this painting, which is quite a big deal for me, is the semi-abstract foreground. It's a new style for me - bold strokes that dry with hard edges and very little detail in the foreground. It's given me a sense of freedom from the shackles of naff foregrounds consisting of a few tufts of grass or reeds in the bottom corners. I really want to try lots more semi-abstract paintings, maybe just in the foreground and mid ground or maybe the whole painting could be semi-abstract. We'll see how it goes... One other thing about the semi-abstract foreground is the expression and a feeling of more genuine art in my paintings. That's got to be a good thing!

Lots more to come soon. Thanks for reading.

Reference Photo

"Shetland Cottages" Watercolour 14" x 11"

Simple Landscape in Acrylic

Sunlit Field. 12" x 10" Acrylic.

Somewhere in America

Here's an acrylic painting of somewhere in America. This painting started off as an exercise in mixing very pale neutral colours such as those in the background of this painting. It's surprising how neutral a colour is in nature or a photograph. The yellows, greens and oranges in the background of the photo are very neutral, virtually grey. In the painting the colours are a bit too saturated and overall you lose the hazy distant feel to the painting. Anyway, I still like it and I gave the painting to my Mum for her 75th birthday! :-)

Somewhere in America. 14" x 10" Acrylic.

Reference Photo

Woodbury Castle #2

Another painting taken from the Woodbury Castle photo set. I'm really happy with most of this painting, although I could have done a fair few things slightly different to make it a lot better. Silly error placing the two blue-grey trees right in the middle of the painting that stand out and are too central. I think the main problem is there's not enough tonal contrast between the foreground and the middle ground but I'm not over critical or negative and I really enjoyed painting this one and am on a fairly good road of practise and learning. I always think "I'll do another version of this one tomorrow and it'll be a lot better as I will know what mistakes to avoid" but I never do; I always go on to a different photo to paint...! Anyway, you never know, there may be a version two! p.s. Lots of sandpaper used to create the sparkle of light on the trunks and ground and a brand new Stanley blade used to scratch out some of the white grasses. Thanks for reading and see you next time.

"Woodbury Castle #2" - 14" x 11" Watercolour.

Reference photo.

Woodbury Castle #1 - A freeform improvised painting

Tonight I fancied painting some trees from photos I took last weekend at Woodbury Castle in Devon, UK. You can see the full set of photos here:

http://ianinglisphotos.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/woodbury-castle.html

I used one of these photos for general reference. The top half of the painting was copied from one of the photos and the further down the painting I went, the less I used the photo. In fact most of the bottom half is from imagination (using the photos for just a bit of inspiration really). The painting is a bit messy but that's okay. I learnt a lot from doing this painting and will do a whole set of Woodbury Castle paintings, learning from the previous attempts... looking forward to it :-)