Summer evening, Bréhat

Summer evening, Bréhat
8" x 12"

I am rather happy with this one, the delicate colour shifts in the sky from pink, through orange, gold, lavender and blue. The soft diaphanous rolling clouds that mark this summer evening. 

And I love, just love, that juicy green pebble shaped stroke.

  

End of day

End of day
8" x 12"

I made an attempt this week at capturing that elusive, fast changing time of day. Trying to catch those warm and cool colour shifts in the clouds. The sun going down in a final blaze of glory.

Carousel

Carousel
Oils 8" x 10"

Another in my Christmas market series. I'm really happy with the feel of light and movement, that time of day when the electric lights start to take over from the sun. I will probably seek out a fairground for further studies this year. And some of these will undoubtedly be a starting off point for larger studio paintings.

Magic and bubbles

Bubble stall, Christmas market no 6

Back to the Christmas market theme, which I can't get enough of at the moment, my favourite part was the bubble stall.  I will definitely be painting a studio version of this subject because it was a 'coup de coeur' moment, I knew it instantly. The red and white of the awnings against the dark stonework and dusking sky, the life and movement provided by the figures and the fun - oh the FUN - given by the vapour and bubbles moving upwards and out towards the sky!

So what I'm really enjoying at the moment is working these small (around 10" x 12") studies on Arches 'huile' paper. It's like a very lovely watercolour paper but it's oil primed and I love using it. The paintings can still be framed without glass, you just attach the paper to a board and varnish as usual.

Anyway, I will perhaps work on half a dozen small studies of this very subject, while exploring ideas about colour and composition for the larger painting. I find it very freeing, this way of working. The big challenge will be retaining the freshness on a larger scale. We'll worry about that later though :-)