‘Cecily’, against Vobster Green

I have been painting… with real paint! This is the first swimmer painting that hasn’t been digital, but it’s been something I’ve been pondering for a while, whether to plunge into watercolour with the swimmers. So this isn’t a commission, just an experiment of my own. Actually it’s mostly gouache (watercolour with ‘body’, which makes it more opaque, in theory, though the actual pigments I am using here are mostly very translucent), and embellished with gold leaf. The idea of using gold leaf where the water sparkled was irresistible, but I think it did a little over-embellishing at the start…

The Fairy Barge

I have been doing a lot of painting and rather less updating of the blog lately, getting a collection of paintings together for my Ilminster Exhibition – ‘A Westcountry Bestiary’. Another one I finished early this year and have yet to show you is this: “The Fairy Barge”. Don’t ask where this odd little group sprang from, I couldn’t tell you, I simply started off with the idea of a barge (as in a flat-bottomed boat suitable for shallow waterways) travelling along the drainage ditches and rivers of The Levels. Of course they are not usually spotted, because they are…

‘Three’s a Crowd’

Finished artwork in pencil and gold leaf. This is a relatively simple piece, expanding on the series of ‘gold fairies’ I have been drawing. I am rather aware that Somerset Arts Weeks is fast approaching, so it is not the time to get started on a long complex piece of work that will not be finished in time. Now, in this lovely summer weather, it seems a good idea to fill gaps in the gallery walls with some simple gilded glamour. Of course, my pictures are never THAT simple, but I am doing my best to get a few new…

How to apply gold leaf to paper – part 1

I took some step-by-step photos of this ‘gold fairy’ as I did her. Couldn’t say I’m an expert gilder, but I have had a bit of practice by now and I’ve learnt one or two things, so I thought I’d write a little explanation for anyone interested. Here (below) is the outline drawing. The circle is to be entirely gilded. To gild on paper you need to stick the gold on with something. ‘Gold size’ is what the proper glue is called that the gold leaf is stuck on with, but the actual sort of gold size you use depends…

A sudden swarm of Gold Fairies

Printmaking has ceased until October, and in theory this gives me the summer to concentrate on painting and drawing. Time, however, keeps running away from me! Here are six gold fairies though, which I hope will make enticing little pictures for visitors to Somerset Arts Weeks (or just passing people, in need of a picture!). It’s been some years since I drew the last Gold Fairy, and they have always been popular. I love drawing the human form (even if I have to make it up – I just can’t seem to get the models to hover in mid air…

The Naked Masquerade: part 4 (finished!)

The Naked Masquerade is finished. Apologies for making you wait! I have been on holiday, and then I had some catching up to do… Here – finally – are a heap of photos. Usually a scan shows off my paintings better, but the scanner, while it’s great for showing detail in the painting, flattens out the gold leaf and does not do it justice. So, I apologise for the lack of sharpness in the details, I shall get this on the scanner and then on my website, one day… in the mean time, isn’t the gold shiny? 🙂 Painting in…

The Naked Masquerade: part 3

Work continues… all in Prussian Blue. There is not much more to say at this point, but I thought you might like to see a couple of photos:

The Naked Masquerade: part 2

Gilding and some extreme stopping out…. I have begun The Naked Masquerade (which may not be its final title) in earnest. I recall saying last time when I showed you the sketch that I had not quite decided how I was going to approach it – whether as a painting or an etching. Well the next day common sense sunk in and the bit of my brain that is in charge of delivering the message ‘You Have Got To Be Joking!’ as regards particularly stupid ideas, pointed out the sheer horror of undertaking All Of That as an etching. It…

Finally February arrives…

The final piece of my 2013 calendar is complete!  Not without slight mishap, I might add. I might have called this post ‘try to make each mistake only once’! First of all here is the drawing: I thought I would give it the same gold-and-silhouette treatment as the September one, partly because two drawings amongst a sea of paintings seemed better than one lonely one on its own, and partly because the drawing for March (coming after this one, as you would expect), has very pale figures with a dark background, so I thought it would be a nice contrast….

Finished Painting: “Vis-à-vis”… a masquerade in gold and orange

So, I finally finished the latest Masquerade painting: This painting is an absolute so-and-so to photograph in order to give you any idea of what it looks like in real life. So I have done my best with a lot of close-ups, but clicking on the images will also bring them up bigger so you can see them better. The colours are very subtle, which is hard to capture, but the main problem is that as you move, or the painting does, or the light source does, the gold leaf springs to life, sometimes much darker than the figures, sometimes…