Evening

I finally decided to get the top portrait style oil painting framed and it made such a difference to the finished look of it. I really am amazed at how much a frame can transform a painting. Both paintings have now sold and found a home together which is always so nice to hear. Bought by a nice lady who also owns a gallery.


I am getting paintings ready for a group exhibition it is always difficult to know which paintings to get framed for such an occasion so I choose the ones that to me are a series of works that were my winter paintings. I will share some of those with you later. I am also trying to write about moorlands and wetlands and found a fine extract from the book 'the woman in black' which is a fine book. I was sad to see that Hammer films got their hands on this one and changed it so it has now lost it's fragile and beautiful message. I really liked the book very much it has an old world feel about it as if Dickins or someone similar could have written it. Easily read in an evening too!

Northerly gale

Another find from the art store! this one is 18 x 24 inches. The paint is on the canvas quite thinly and I believe it could do with having much more paint thickly applied. Somehow the wild northerly gale is muted with the glazes. Seems to me that glazes work beautifully with the more gentle peaceful scenes and thicker paint works so well with the more expressive expression. Best of all with a palette knife. I will pop this one into a frame tomorrow and see how it looks again. Could be one to rework or work from. I am getting paintings ready for a group exhibition and will be putting in eight paintings. seems a lot to me I wonder how I used to do an exhibition with thirty paintings many years ago! We had snow flurries today I hope it doesn't stay as I want to travel down to Deeside again on Monday and it is always much colder in that area. The snow drop bulbs are out in the garden a sign of an early spring hopefully on it's way soon.

Homeland reworked with Viridian

I am captivated by the Gamblin Viridian colour. It is beautifully transparent and wonderful for glazes. I liked the way it goes over the warm areas I had before in this painting. Let me explain the painting originally had a lot of the green in it, then I wanted to try warmer colours in the sky which you can see in the last post. Yet I wasn't happy with it, it did look nice enough but it wasn't the feel I was trying to get. Placing now the viridian back into the painting yet over the warm bluff areas has given the colour a new life. The painting is 60 x 60cm and I was wondering if it looked like a shore or a moorland to you?