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.

Bananas. Oil on Board. 4.5ins x 6ins

My Mother came to visit me last Thursday and brought these two wonderful bannanas, I thought they'd make a nice subject for a painting. Actually they do also kind of remind me of dolphins and I did wonder in a moment of Surrealism whether "The Dolphins have gone Bananas" would make a better title. of course it would probably sound even more Surreal in French. Perhaps Ce n'est pas un poisson (this is not a fish) would work better :)

This painting is 4.5ins x 6ins and painted Oil on Board.

Pink Ladies. Oil on Board, 4.5ins x 6ins

I hadn't come across Pink Lady apples before, well I don't buy apples very often mainly because there seemed to be a period in the 80s where some of the Apple varieties like Golden Delicious went through a phase of tasting like wet polystyrene, as if they had been so over bred to look good on the supermarket shelf, but in the process they destroyed all the flavour. However I'm pleased to say these Apples were very nice, firm, juicy and sweet and tasted like real apples. So not only look good, taste good to. Maybe the perfect apple? :)

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

The Crystal Ears. 4ins x 6ins, oil on Board

I met up with some friends the other week outside one of the pubs in the Café quarter in town. One guy I know who is a performance artist was showing another friend of mine these amazing crystal ears he had bought. I think they originally came from a shop display of a company that used to sell hearing aids. Well I thought they looked so unusual they'd make an excellent subject for one of my daily paintings. So I asked if I could take a few photos. Well it was a bit impromptu but luckily I managed to photograph them for a couple of angles and found one image suitable for a painting.

This painting is 4ins x 6ins and painted oil on board.