Clementines 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

I was going to call this painting Clementine 03 but since it's a painting of more than one, a herd, flock or gaggle of clementines perhaps, or maybe a collegiate or college of clementines. I may as well call it Clementines. :)

Winter Wonderland

Haven't done so many paintings over Christmas too busy eating chocolate I guess. Although I did paint rather too many Clementines just before Christmas and haven't put them all up since I thought it might look a bit obsessive. However I've also been doing some video and photography over the Christmas period which is another art form I enjoy. I don't normally put my videos in my painting blog. But I was quite pleased with this one of the Winter Wonderland here in Cardiff and I think it kind of relates to some of my painting to.

Clementine (02) 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

This is a painting of a peeled Clementine. I put it on some green sugar paper when I originally photographed it and I think this makes a nice colour contrast with the orange.

I thought this was an interesting fact about Clementines which although they have been available in Europe for many years were only recently introduced into the US since 1997 according to Wikipedia which might also provide a clue as to why the bees are dying.

"Clementines lose their desirable seedless characteristic when bees cross-pollinate them with other fruit. In early 2006 large growers such as Paramount Citrus in California threatened to sue local bee keepers for their bees' trespass into Clementine crop land."

So there you have it could a gang of demented psycho Californian Clementine growers be killing the bees? Who knows? But if people will go to the lengths of attempting to sue Bee keepers for allowing their bees to wander onto there land it is clear that some farmers regard bees as a pest and could very well be killing them. So rather than chemtrails the explanation for the bee problem could be far more mundane. Well it's a thought.

Clementine (01) 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

I bought some Clementines . Of course Clementines are associated with Christmas so I suppose this must because they are in season, and Wikipedia says they are sometimes called the Christmas Orange because they are available from November to January.

Auger Shell 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

I found a couple of shells I had once used as ornaments in the bottom of an old suitcase in the bottom of a cupboard in my bedroom. This according to my research on the Internet is an Auger Shell or Terebridae which is a kind of carnivorous sea mollusc/snail that lives on the bottom of the sea, particularly around coasts and hides in the sand where it lays in wait to kill other poor unsuspecting sea creatures mostly worms with a poisonous barb. Well I'm glad to say it wasn't laying in wait for me in the bottom of my suitcase. I thought this shell would make a nice painting. :)

Apples and Pears Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

Fed 2 Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins

This is another old Camera I bought on eBay, a Soviet Russian Fed 2 Camera from the late 50s early 1960s. Based of course on the Leica and looking just as cool in my opinion even though they were originally sold at a mere fraction of the price of a Leica but nevertheless an amazingly good camera. Well I thought it would make a nice subject for a painting. :)

Fallen London Plane Tree Leaf. Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

I found this leaf outside the Abbey National on Queen Street Cardiff. I thought it was an interesting shape, and also facinating because it hasn't changed colour yet. Actually I have often thought it odd that the leaves on the trees on Queens Street Cardiff don't actually change colour and fall off like one would expect of deciduous trees, but kind of stay green and gradually fall off over the entire course of the winter. I've often put that down to the fact that the Urban environment is usually a few degrees warmer, and I dare say the fact these trees often get bedecked with Christmas lights from like mid November to around February does help keep them cozy on those cold winter nights. Good will to all trees :)

However having done some research to find out what type of leaf this was I discovered it's the leaf of a London Plane tree and according to Wikipedia the London plane tree does have quite tough leaves and fallen leaves can take a year to break down. It also says this type of tree is "very tolerant of atmospheric pollution and root compaction, and for this reason it is a popular urban roadside tree" So that must be why the leaves last so well it's a special indestructible tree specially suited for the Urban environment. Actually these type of trees are found in many cities the World over so are very popular.

It's in the Trees! Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins

When I was doing this painting it kind of reminded me of the opening line the the Hounds of Love by Kate Bush "It's in the trees! It's coming!" Actually trees do kind of resonate to the undulations in the wind and the whooshing sounds of the leaves are almost like the white noise on an FM radio. I suppose if one transmitted a voice in the waves of the wind the trees could pick up the voice and one could make the trees talk, maybe by using a tree downwind as a transmitter and maybe one could make another tree speak in a long breathy whisper, like an Oracle of the Gods, which might I suppose explain the whole thing.

Actually it has also been scientifically proven that plants can pick up human emotions and communicate with each other so maybe they are talking about us behind our backs plotting to take over lol.

Then of course there are mobile phone masts in the US disguised as plastic tree's and when we all have the chips implanted the government will be watching us and tracking our every move with the fake plastic trees (see: Andre's Blog) It's in the trees! It's coming! :)

See Video: Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Basmati Rice. 4.5ins x 6ins, Oil on Board.

I was cooking some Basmati rice to have with a curry and it was boiling away very nicely with lots of steam rising from it, I thought it would make a nice subject for a painting. :)

Rose. 4.5ins x 6ins, Oil on Board.

This is a rose I saw in Cathays Park, Cardiff, back towards the end of the summer. Of course all the roses are gone now, so what better time to paint one. :)

Tree and Roof in Winter 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

This is a painting of a tree I can see growing above the houses from my front window, well it's actually to the side, but I have a sort of window bay and I can see this tree as I write this entry in my Blog, I dare say it's on Richmond Road.

Sometimes you get a really nice sky behind this tree. I loved the way there was a mixture of cool blue, purple and this mad yellow blue which would be a totally impossible colour if it were not seen in context. I mean it looks yellow and it looks blue and it doesn't look green. It's a colour that could only exist in a sky, or a painting of a sky. Almost like a new colour that seems to break all the rules of colour theory, quite amazing when you think about it a contradiction that just should not be, and yet there it is just like magic. :)

Mushrooms 03 Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

Mushrooms 02 Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

Mushrooms 01 Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

Well I said I was doing mushrooms last week and here they are :) Actually I did three paintings of mushrooms hence the title Mushrooms 01 I shall upload the other ones over the next few days. It was quite fun painting these lots of different shades of white and grey.

Eight Fruits. Oil on Board. 4.5ins x 6.5ins.

I thought these apples looked so nice all lined up in their box. The label (right) said "8 Fruits" So what better title for the painting. It also says they are Golden Delicious and come from Italy. I didn't used to like the Golden Delicious and probably wouldn't have bought these if I had been able to decipher the label in the shop, but actually these apples were quite nice and made a nice subject for a still-life.

Evening on Eastern Avenue II 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on board

This is another painting of Eastern Avenue, another one of my 70mph paintings, I wasn't driving I might add, being the UK the car is of course RHD :)

Yellow Pepper 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

This painting took me a little longer than usual. I wanted to capture the yellow in all it's glory. I found the only way to do that was to do an underpainting and do a couple of layers before I could get the yellow to sing. I think I got there in the end :)

Autumn at Gorsedd Gardens Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins

This is another little painting of Gorsedd Gardens (The small park by the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff).

Tree at Gorsedd Gardens. Oil on Board 6ins x 4.5ins

Gorsedd Gardens is a little park in front of the National Museum of Wales which is not far from where I live. Actually I didn't even know it was called Gorsedd Gardens until I looked it up on Google Maps and researched it on the Internet and I would doubt many local people would know it's name. However although it is only a small park and perhaps taken for granted in some ways ironically it has more foot traffic than any other park in Cardiff. It also has it's own little stone circle which is now in a little round fenced off part and is minus it's alter, since this was a magnet for drunken prancing LOL as one Website puts it. The little shed in the painting seems to be a little hotdog ice cream stall.

Green Apples, 6 ins x 4.5ins Oil on board

This is a little still-life of some green apples which I did the other week. I quite like the storks on these apples, and the way they kind of stick out in different directions according to the way they were hanging on the tree.

River Stones (2) 6ins x 4.5ins Oil on board

This is another painting of river stones on the banks of the River Taff in Bute Park Cardiff. Actually I did this painting a day before the one I uploaded yesterday so technically it should be River Stones (1) but numbering paintings like that can get confusing, so maybe I should give them all the same title and think of them as a series.

River Stones 6ins x 4.5ins Oil on board

This is a painting of some river stones I found on the bank of the River Taff, a natural rock garden. I like painting these kind of subjects, although the stones have fallen together by a seeming randomness you do get quite an interesting natural order.

Reading in the Park. 6ins x 4.5ins Oil on Board

I saw this woman reading in the park back in the summer. I don't know what she was reading but it was obviously quite a good book she didn't notice me at all.

Actually I've never been big on reading outdoors myself, I often find the white paper hurts my eyes in the sun, I get distracted by something, or I feel I should be doing something else, so my attention span outdoors is fairly short. Actually I also took a lot of photographs of flowers on the same day as I saw this woman reading and wondered whether I had been a honey bee in a former life. :)

Trees in Autumn. 6ins x 4.5ins Oil on board

This is a painting of some tree trunks near the the entrance to Bute park at just after 4 pm on an October afternoon. This was about the last of the sun I got that day.

Actually I was going to go to the park today, because the sun was out earlier in the afternoon then it clouded over and is quite dull now. Well I wanted to take some photographs of all the autumn leaves, but they don't look so vivid when the sun goes in. Well I guess the sun is going to be a bit elusive here for the next 6 months.

Taxi! 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

This is a painting of a fairly typical black and white Cardiff taxi coming around the corner at about 10pm, near where I live on Salisbury Road, Cardiff. An abondoned beer can sits on the pavement.

Red, Yellow and Green Peppers 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

I have been trying to paint more exotic fruits or vegetables but I had kind of forgotten peppers. Probably because I don't really consider them particularly exotic. In saying that there was a time when I was a child when they didn't seem to be readily available. Mind my parents were brought up in the war so probably didn't know what they were. Actually they do look interesting as fruits go. I often like some slices of peppers in my melted cheese and Salami toasted sandwiches. Makes it taste like Pizza. Yum :)

How Cool is Cool? Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins

I saw this girl crossing the road late one sunny Sunday afternoon just as the sun was casting long shadows down the road. I thought she just looked so cool even her shadow is cool. I bet she drinks that soda without even getting her lips wet. :)

Evening on Eastern Avenue 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on board

Went to a Classic motorbike show in Ponthir with a friend last week, then afterwards we went to see my Mother in Cwmbran. On the way back I took some pictures and some video out the window whilst travelling into Cardiff on Eastern Avenue. The car is a 1979 Volvo so is also a bit of a classic I wasn't driving it at the time I might add :) Actually there seemed to be a lot of braking going on at this spot and later noticed the white van on the bridge, possibly a speed trap. :)

Vine Ripened Tomatos 6ins x 4.5ins Oil on board

I actually did this paint a couple of weeks ago now. However I have been busy scanning some of my older paintings as high resolution images and uploaded them to my Zazzle.com gallery so I haven't had so much opportunity to paint.

Featured Product at Zazzle: Mythical Willow Pattern Card

Well I just had another one of my products awarded with a Todays Best Award on Zazzle.com I seem to be making a habbit of this :) Saying that I do have a small folio of designs which I originally did for greetings cards etc so I've been going through that and uploading the best designs.

I also uploaded this car design called VROOM!! Which I suppose is somewhat reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein. The car design is something I made up I kind of based it on a 57 Chevy, but kind of crossed with a Ford Anglia, though there is a little bit of red Corvette thrown in for good measure :)

I wish they still made cars with fins, perhaps I should get in touch with Volkswagon and get this made up :)

Featured Product at Zazzle: Herd of Elephants Postage

I just got a message from the people at Zazzle telling me this custom postage stamp "Herd of Elephants Postage" which I created today with one of my paintings has been awarded as one of today's best designs :) Which means it will be featured on the today's best page and appear in the featured products as one of the best on Zazzle :)

I do like doing designs for these custom stamps. It's a pity there isn't a UK version though. However I also have this picture available as a greetings card.

It can be seen on Zazzle.com here: Herd of Elephants Postage

Simon the Cat. 5¾ ins x 6¼ ins, Oil on Acetate.

I did this little painting quite some years ago now. Simon was a cat we owned back in the 1980s along with another cat called Jasper. Unfortunately Simon became very ill and had to be put down. We don't know what happened really there wasn't any marks on him to show he had been in any sort of accident but the vet said it looked like he had been either crushed or maybe someone had kicked him :( It was very sad to lose him like that. our other cat Jasper also missed him to, they were very close and I suppose he must have wondered where Simon had gone.

I originally started this painting just wanting to paint a cat, but it ended up as a portrait of Simon. I think I did this painting to have something to remember him in happier times, wide eyed and bushy tailed and perhaps still stalking the birds in kitty Heaven. :) But I do kind of think cats are immortal and sometimes an aspect of immortality seems to exist in my own paintings, at least to me, fooled by my own art, perhaps? But I suppose it's like a memory made flesh and maybe that is all we are at the end of the day.

Smoking Robot on Mars. 18ins x 14ins, Acrylic on Canvas

This is another painting that I did a while back, 2004 to be precise, so not quite so early as yesterday's painting, but a few years old. I went though a bit of a phase of being interested in retro toy robots and even bought one on eBay which I have an an ornament in my living room. This is a painting of the classic "Smoking Robot" which I put in an imaginary Martian landscape . Of course we now know the sky is actually blue on Mars, but even NASA have been known to practice a bit of artistic licence, they call it science LOL. But a bright red sky does look quite striking I think.

Actually the reason I put this painting up today is because I have just made a high resolution image of it, which is now available as a print from Zazzle.com It can a purchased as a full size print as a small poster (which is quite reasonable in price) or you can also have it printed on canvas and framed in your choice of frame.

Actually I think it looks rather nice in a simple wooden frame and probably doesn't need an inner mount (matting) Bearing in mind the original is on stretched canvas. But it also looks nice with a white mount. Though obviously the more one adds the more pricey it gets :)

The Dolphin and the Crab were Friends

I did this painting as an illustration for a children's book around 1992. Being intended as an illustration it was painted on clear acetate over a pencil sketch, which proves layers were not invented by Adobe. :)

Well it's bit different than my usual work, but I thought I'd put it in my daily painting blog since it's interesting to put something different in, and because I haven't been doing quite so many paintings lately because I have been busy making some of my designs, illustrations and paintings available on various products including Posters, framed prints, greetings cards on a new custom products site called Zazzle.com

So that's another reason why I hunted out this illustration. I thought it would make a nice greetings card So I have made it available both as a greetings card and as a small print

The picture on the left is how it might look as a framed print. Although there are millions of other ways to frame it. :)

Trees, Bute Park. 4.5ins x 6ins. Oil on Board

Another painting of Bute park. I decided to do some park landscapes, mainly because I went for a few walks in the park and partly because I needed a change from still-lifes.

I originally wanted to do this painting an alla prima style but I wasn't happy with the initial results so I wiped it all off and started it again. The second time I did an under painting in raw umber and white and let that dry for a day or so before using colour in the over painting stage this worked very well.

Of course doing underpaintings does tend to make paintings take a bit longer so isn't that practical if one is trying to do a painting a day. That said of course I could have have used acrylics in the under painting which means you can work on the over painting fairly soon since acrylics dry quicker than oils. However I do prefer using oils even in the under painting stages.

Red Path 4.5ins x 6ins Oil on Board

This is a painting of a path not far from the River Taff in Bute park. Its 4.5ins x 6ins and painted Oil on Board.

Mangoes. 4ins x 6ins, oil on board

This is a painting of some mangoes that were in a box in my local supermarket. I thought they looked interesting in the box like this so I managed to snap a quick photo.

Actually I'm always a bit wary of taking pictures in shops, having once been asked to leave a branch of Sainsburys for taking photos. Though given I was using a 35mm SLR at the time I suppose it looked a bit conspicuous. However I dare say these days with mobile phones and small digital cameras many of which are quite sophisticated as camera's go and perfectly capable of taking indoor shots, photography in shops is not as unusual as it once was.

Stairway. 4.5ins x 6ins, Oil on board

I was thinking of calling this painting "The Institution". However it is actually a view of one of the stairways in the small low rise block of flats I live in, so I didn't really want to give people the impression they have carted me off to an institution just yet LOL.

Actually one reason it has chairs on the landings is because it was originally intended for people over 55 and although they dropped the age limit to 45+ in more recent years obviously there are still one or two more senior tenents. Of course I suppose one reason they dropped the age limit is precisely because of the stairs. Why they thought building accommodation originally intended for senior citizens with stairs, no lifts and no wheelchair access boggles the mind. Not that I'm complaining I'm very pleased to have got a flat in such a nice building. :)

Anyway I noticed the sun was shining in through the window one day after going out to check my electricity meter and what with the 1970s style vintage chair, empty but as if someone may have just got up from it and the sunlight casting beams and shadows down the wall I thought the scene would make a lovely painting and is perhaps somewhat reminiscent of Edward Hopper, who has to be the most influential realist painters ever, given that I find it difficult to look at anything without thinking I've seen it in a Hopper painting. Arrgh! Though not such a bad thing really I do love realist painting of that style and never tire of looking at paintings like that, in fact I managed to see most of Hoppers major original works in a big exhibition in London back in the late 1970s when I was in Art College so I guess he was pretty influential in my development as an artist :)

Pears. 4.5ins x 6ins, Oil on Board

I did this painting of pears last week, it took a little longer than I had expected. Actually it's surprising how challenging pears are to paint if you want to get all the detail of their texture in.

I don't buy pears very often, but one thing I did learn is they seem to taste best when they look like they are beginning to go over, so you can leave them a week before eating them at which point they go beautifully soft sweet and juicy and seem to have tons of flavour, whereas if you eat them too early they often seem not to have much taste. So one can afford to take a bit of extra time with a still-life painting and still enjoy the pear at it's best. :)

Sacha. 9ins x 12ins, Oil on Canvas

This painting isn't one of my usual daily paintings but a portrait commission I did a couple of weeks back, so this one is already reserved. However I thought I'd take a good photo of it before I part with it and put it up on my blog.

I must admit I'm not usually that big on portraits, but I quite enjoyed doing this painting.

Actually this painting was amazingly difficult to photograph it has quite a broad range of detail in both the shadows and the highlight areas which means one has to get the exposure pretty close because there isn't much scope for adjusting the levels, or the brightness and contrast, without losing detail in wither the shadow or highlight areas.

Actually although the images of the paintings I put on the Web are fairly small I scan all my smaller paintings at 300 ppi, and anything I can't fit in the scanner I photograph with my digital camera at maximum resolution, which at present is 7 MPs. Well I think it's a good idea to do that because if you have a high quality scan or high resolution photograph of a painting you always have the option to make it available as a print.

River Taff. 4ins x 6ins Oil on board

This is a painting of the River Taff as it courses it's way through Bute Park in Cardiff.

Actually I did this painting last Thursday the same day as the one I put up yesterday. I must have been on a bit of a roll.

That said I've been busy doing other things since and haven't felt so inspired to paint. I wonder sometimes whether a lot of artist have a slighly bi-polar moods when it comes to inspiration. Or maybe I needed a rest from painting fruit, hence the landscapes. :)

Saying that I have done a bit of painting every day and have a painting of some pears to put up soon, I did it over a week ago, but when I scanned it I noticed it needed a bit more work. It's funny how some paintings that look quite simple sometimes present more problems than something that looks really detailed.

This painting is 4ins x 6ins and is painted oil on board (Masonite)

Traffic Island Tree. Oil on board 4.5ins x 6ins

This is a painting of a tree on a little traffic island not far from where I live. Quite an amazing tree really, it's almost symmetrical and has a shape which I suppose kind of makes it look like it has teddy bear ears, or even reminds one of a love heart. I don't know why it has grown in this shape, I wonder whether it's because of the CO2 from the car exhasts, trees love CO2 Never mind global warming, so are just the thing to drive past in your SUV. In fact there's a Landrover Discovery in the background :)

I'm quite pleased with this painting. I wanted to keep it lose and fresh and use an alla prima impressionist technique rather than work it all out in a monochrome underpainting like I often do, particularly with very detailed paintings. So once I'd sorted out the initial drawing this painting was completed in about 2 to 3 hrs whilst listening to Coast to Coast AM where I think they were talking about global warming strangely enough.

This painting is 4.5ins x 6ins and painted oil on board (masonite).

Call me the Love Apple. Oil on Board 6ins x 4.5ins

I bought these apples last week along with some vine ripened tomatoes. I thought the colours went together beautifully. Of course its very convenient tomatoes are also called love apples. This little Love Apple obviouly lives up to the name. :)

This painting is 6ins x 4.5ins and painted oil on board.

Sea Salted Tomato Eighths. Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins

I bought some nice vine ripened tomatoes last week. Well vine tomatoes. apart from having a nice smell to them (although you do wonder whether that comes in an aerosol can) always look more interesting for painting still attached together with a vine. So I bought a nice little bunch of them all joined together. Unfortunately all but one fell off the vine by the time I got home, in spite of the fact I was careful in how I wrapped them. Drat! Still never mind some of them still had their little crowns on which was nice and I managed to take a few photos of them in various still-life arrangements. At the end of the photo session I chopped one up into eighths, salted them with ground sea salt and ate them with Mature cheddar, very nice :)

Bid for or buy this painting.

Pink Ladies II. 4.5" x 6". Oil on Board

This is another version of the Pink Lady apples.

This painting is 4½ins x 6ins and painted Oil on board.

Roll Your Own. Oil on Board, 4.5ins x 6ins

Actually it took me a lot longer to learn how to hand roll a cigarette with a filter than it took me to learn how to paint. These papers are called Zig-Zags which I dare say refers to the way they are packed into the little carton rather than the composition of my painting. This painting is 4.5ins x 6ins and is painted Oil on board.