Mud bath

Mud bath
20" x 30"
SOLD

My exhibition in Putney with Paul Curtis NEAC is finished now but was a great success. I was so busy with the house move that I didn't get a chance to blog about it so I'll try to make up for that now and show you some of the work from the show. 

This is one of the large studio cow paintings that sold. I found I couldn't get a good photo of this piece but it gives you an idea anyway. It excites me the way the cows become a part of the mud, and the light catches the wet surfaces with little glimpses here and there in the darkness. I look forward to returning to this subject, I just need to find a local dairy farm willing to help out an artist.

Graze
20" x 24"
SOLD

Where in the world...

English summer pasture
12" x 16"

This is my second painting as part of the Illume Gallery's 'Where in the world is plein air' event. For three days over a hundred artists took part from all over the world and made short videos to accompany their paintings.

It is so much fun watching the videos and fascinating to see where everybody has been painting this week. You can see my videos here and then click on 'artists' to choose which other videos you'd like to see.

I was amazed what I heard Lori Putnam say when she was filming for day one, about the passers by who stopped to chat!

Now all the finished paintings are for sale with the Illume Gallery of Fine Art in Salt Lake City in Utah, so I will be wrapping mine up and posting them off there. 

The team involved has done an incredible job co-ordinating all the artists and uploading the videos, and now they have a big exhibition to organise! 

'Down on the farm' - just needed a piece of straw to chew on!

Poppies everywhere!

Flaming June
8" x 16"
Buy it now

They are here for only a short while and when you come across a field of poppies in June they are so magical. This seems to be a good year for poppies in Lincolnshire, and these ones are only about a mile from where I live so I simply couldn't resist. 

This was one of those that almost painted itself, tripping off the brush so fluently, and in under an hour and a half my work here was done.

By the way the sky looks a much more subtle blue in the real painting than it looks in this version on my screen, and possibly on your screen too. Looks better in the progress shots below.

I took a couple of photos as I went along, as I know that many of you like to see the stages.

Sketched in with the brush, then placing of greens

A touch of red so I could see it in situ, then blocked the sky in 

Great studio for the morning :-)

Making a mark awards

Leek pickers in Lincolnshire

In between all the festive feasting and socialising I got out with the paints for a couple of hours. This was exactly the subject I was looking for and the weather was kind plus I had permission to paint here. All favourable conditions but I could have done with more time. Maybe I'll get another chance but not today, the weather has turned pretty wild again.

I'm honoured to have been nominated again in the Making a Mark awards 2013, for best landscape picture on an art blog during 2013. There are four categories for best artwork - landscape, nature, portrait/figure and still life. The deadline for voting is tonight at 11.00pm GMT and you can vote for your favourites quite simply by clicking here. Katherine Tyrrell explains the annual awards and the reasons behind her choices plus shares her thoughts on art blogs and as always it makes for interesting reading.

Galley hill allotments in snow
the painting nominated for the award

More hay bales!

Hay bales in Lincolnshire
Oils on Arches huile paper

No I'm not showing you the same painting again, I was actually revisiting the motif. This is a small and simplified version of the plein air painting that I showed you a couple of days ago.

Usually my studio paintings are L-A-R-G-E-R versions of my plein air paintings. This is the other way round. Hey-ho!

I like the way it's turned out. I like the brevity of it. I also like working on the white paper. I like to ring the changes :-)