Chocolate Cake Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

This is a painting of the chocolate cake I had for my birthday on the 2nd of January. It's been in my studio for a while so I thought it was about time I scanned it and put it up on my Blog. I didn't make the cake myself I bought it in Tesco. It was a very nice cake though, and the first slice fuelled the creative process. :)

This painting is so far also available as a greetings card and a bag on Zazzle.com, I shall probably add a few more products as well, though so far I've been too much of an art snob to make them into mouse mats, maybe I should paint some cheese, now that's an idea.

Clementine Sements. Oil on Board 4.5ins x 6ins.

Well I have only just stated doing some more painting I hadn't done any since just after Christmas. Actually I did this painting over Christmas so it's been in my studio for some time waiting for me to get back into the paintings and carry on with my blog.

Actually the main reason I haven't been doing so much painting lately is I have decided to change my strategy a bit and have been busy with another project. One reason I started this daily painting blog was to also sell my daily paintings on eBay. Unfortunately this didn't really take off. So given I was just wasting money on listing fees and given it can be difficult to get a realisitic price for paintings on eBay in any case. I thought there had to be a better way.

So instead of listing my original paintings on eBay I now scan them and make them into various products on Cafepress and Zazzle :) Actually I found the new Zazzle site good because unlike Cafepress they offer you a free shop and don't restrict the number of designs per product so basically you can make products from everything. So amongst other things I have made all these new products with designs based on many of my daily paintings
http://www.zazzle.com/artberry/search/painting

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)