Here's a change, not a November painting of the allotments but one of my very favourite paintings from late spring. Quite a difference looking at those fresh spring greens now. I had a fantastic session painting this one, I was so happy there with the hens in the sunshine listening to the radio and summer stretching out before us.
Rather a special one this, and so I saved it for the Royal Institute of Oil painters exhibition. It's one of three that I'll have on show with the ROI at the Mall Galleries. The exhibition is open from the 30th November to the 11th December and I will be painting in the gallery on the 2nd December. I'd love to see you there :-)
A different location today and an extremely difficult day for plein air painting - barely tolerating the cold wind and drizzle I had to retreat to the car when the rain poured down. Luckily the car was very near. Although I had a warm hat and gloves I got very, very cold painting this one. I was so happy to get home and warm up and not leave the house again for the rest of the day!
And I must say, a few cups of coffee and the favourable reaction to this painting from my Instagram followers cheered me up no end :-)
The next day couldn't have been more different, as we entered November. Dark, drizzly, grey and cold, but I headed out to the allotments to see what I could find.
The light was flat and uninspiring but the smoke from a bonfire caught my eye. I knew it would be a good challenge for me because the values were all very close and the colours desaturated. So I decided to embrace the greys and knuckle down to work, and was cheered to see a couple of chickens move into view.
I love painting on the high street here. It's very very busy so it's hard to get out of the way, but I have a sympathetic shop owner who is happy for me to stand in front. In fact he asked me to mind the shop for ten minutes today while he nipped out!
I'm here with a group of painter friends from the UK, plus we have met with some American artists - one of whom I was already friends with on good ole Facebook. We managed to get eleven of us together one evening for a delicious seafood dinner so that was fun.
It's that time of year again for my end of year review, so I'll be taking a few days to look back over all of my artistic events of this year before starting to focus on what's coming next. If you only joined me part way through the year I hope you'll find something of interest here and if you've been with me all the way through I hope you won't mind taking a recap with me. It's been another busy year of fun and travels and opportunity, and being able to spend time with lots of great people who share this passion of mine.
The year began with generous amounts of snowfall in January which meant I was able to get outside a lot to paint one of my favourite subjects - snow! The painting above is definitely one of my top favourites of the year, and was painted in challenging conditions with quite a blizzard at times! The chickens and ducks disappeared and hid whenever the snowfall was heavy.
Painting at Galley Hill allotments
Belton House formal gardens
North Heath lane in snow
SOLD
I even tackled something I never had before, painting moving figures sledging and playing in the snow, and I loved it! I wanted the snow to stay for longer but I didn't get a chance to paint those sledgers again this year. There is a little video on YouTube of me painting there that you might enjoy.
In February I was a guest artist giving workshops at the SAA 'Its All About Art' event in Manchester and took part in a group exhibition in London on the subject of Venice. I ran a workshop on painting cats in acrylics, and gave demos to local art societies.
In this period I had a couple of articles published in The Artist magazine including one about 'finding your own style' which also became the theme for a couple of workshops.
I was proud of these two self portraits that I painted in early spring, and both were pre-selected for the Royal Society of Portrait painters exhibition in February. I need to paint more portraits, it's something I love to do.
Self portrait with warm backlighting
Self portrait with iPhone
In March came the trip of a lifetime - painting in Essaouira, Morocco, with Ken Howard RA. In my opinion Ken is the top of the tops here in the UK, and it was such a privilege to be able to get to know him. I didn't spend very much painting time with him because I was so excited by the new surroundings and wanted to choose my own subjects, particularly in the harbour area. We had wonderful group get-togethers in the evening though, and Ken was happy to look over our work while we had the pleasure of viewing all of his work. I only hope I have his energy and stamina when I am in my eighties.
The days are too short and too dark at the moment, and now we have 70mph gales! On Tuesday our heating stopped working but luckily it was fixed yesterday. Then today we've had a power cut lasting most of the afternoon, but fortunately it's back on just in time for darkness falling. Amazing what you miss without electricity ... heating, wifi, phone and coffee to name just a few!
Anyway here's a cheery scene, a glowing watercolour that I painted recently. There's no actual snow here yet but they're saying blizzards are on their way so watch this space...
I started with wet into wet watercolour for the yellow and orange glow, and while this wash was still damp I used a darker warm colour to start to describe the background tree shapes.
Closer trees and a little bit of fence went in next...
Establishing the darkest darks is tricky to get right in watercolour, remember it dries a lot lighter than it looks when you put it on. It's a good idea to have a little test sheet nearby to try out your colours on.
Some purple shadow washes and the addition of a few chickens in watercolour, and then I finished off in gouache putting some warm whites back into the sunlit snow.
If you're in Scotland, Wales, the north of England or East Anglia, especially by the coast, I hope you manage ok tonight with the storms.
This is yesterday's painting, produced during constant snowfall. I'm quite pleased with it now that I see it again, and the conditions were pretty challenging! My friend suggested I use it as next year's Christmas card design which I think is a brilliant idea! Also, if I get around to producing a calendar for 2014, this could be January :-)
Today was very different as no new snow fell here, and in fact yesterday's snow thawed a lot throughout the day. We have a lot less now and need a top up!
I managed two paintings today and both featured snow and animals. I'll show you those next.
I can't paint tomorrow as I'm going to London to see the famous new Royal portrait and then Ken Howard's new exhibition at the Richard Green gallery. How exciting! I will miss painting in the snow but am looking forward to catching up with painter friends.
Will hopefully get a few words with Ken Howard too although I expect he will be surrounded at all times!
