My 2014 review April to June

Early summer at Porthcurnick beach
Oils 14" x 18" £995

Welcome to the second part of my 2014 annual review. This blog post begins with lots of colour and sunshine, and ends in a flurry of prizes and exclamation marks! I'm going to be showing you some of my favourite paintings from this second quarter of the year. Now the weather was by and large spectacular throughout this whole time.

In April it was back to Cornwall and this time the weather was like summer, so plenty of plein air painting was achieved, and galleries re-stocked! Then it was a week in France with the family for Easter, where the sun continued to shine.

Here I am painting at St Mawes - what a place and what dazzling light on the water.

Sparkling light at St Mawes
Private Collection

On the slipway, Sennen
Oils 12" x 16" £850

St Michael's Mount
Private Collection

In May I discovered the gorgeous gardens at National Trust property Gunby Hall in Lincolnshire, and fell in love with the pond there. I must get back there this year in May, and perhaps take a model or two with me. (Would a parasol or a bonnet be out of order?)

This favourite below made it to the cover of my 2014 calendar. It was a new enterprise for me and I'm very pleased that the calendars have been so popular. I had 100 printed and I've sold every one apart from the one I kept for myself! So I'll be keeping my eye open for new images for my 2016 calendar next.

Carp pond at Gunby Hall
Oils 12" x 16" £850

Reverie
Private Collection

Crabbing at Brancaster Staithe

St Clements Studio
Private Collection

In June things became even busier because June always starts with the big Patchings Festival. Including the setting up day it's a pretty tiring but busy and fun five days! It's always great to see so many friends there, from all over the country. This year as well as exhibiting in the painters marquee where I painted a portrait demo and painting plein air demos in the courtyard I also did a still life demo in the big St Cuthbert's marquee. 

I went down to London for a day to see the Society of Women Artists exhibition in June, where I had two paintings selected and exhibited.

Flaming June
Private Collection

Demo at Patchings

At the end of June it was up to North Yorkshire to teach a long weekend at the Staithes art school, staying in beautiful cottages by the sea, painting in the day and feasting in the evening with fantastic like minded company. 

By the way we're back on for next year too so if you might like to join us have a look at Staithes Art Gallery and better be quick to book as it's a very popular weekend!

View from Cowbar
Private Collection

And now for a painting you will definitely recognise if you've been following my blog for a while or read The Artist magazine...

Sails up in harbour
24" x 30"
Collection of The Artist Publishing Company

ONE painting with a generously sized red sail and a dash of magic...

FOUR prizes in a matter of days!!!!

First this painting won the Pro Arte Award at The Artist magazine's annual selected exhibition, which was a generous £250 worth of Pro Arte brushes.

Secondly it was selected for The Artist exhibition award which means I am one of ten winning artists to take part in a group exhibition at Patchings art centre in 2015.

Thirdly... drum roll... Ken Howard RA OBE selected it as his favourite piece in the whole exhibition therefore I won The Artist Purchase Prize of £1800 and my painting now goes to hang in the offices at The Artist and Leisure Painter magazines alongside previous winners of this prestigious prize.

Fourthly it then won the 'best water' category in the summer Plein Air Salon, an online painting competition run by the brilliant US Plein Air magazine. Another big surprise!

Think I need to go and lie down in a darkened room after reliving all that excitement again... be back soon with the third instalment, July to September...

My 2014 review January to March

Exhibition portraits January 2014

It's that special time again, time to look back over what I've been up to in 2014, take note of my achievements, remember fun times and travel, see what direction my paintings have grown and yes, pat myself on the back for a job well done before putting it all behind me and forging ahead with the exciting and new!

January 2014 got off to a cracking start with my solo exhibition in Nottingham and a whopping 30 paintings sold and off to new homes. I painted a different portrait in oils each day for ten days of the exhibition, while also handling sales and enquiries and putting the kettle on frequently! I was very grateful to my patient models!

Andrew

Jenny

Painting Ant who also painted me!

The large gallery with about 80 of my paintings hanging

February included a ten day holiday in France with the family, some plein air painting in Norfolk and some coastal studio paintings, plus an article I wrote about gouache painting was published in The Artist magazine.

Crab hut at Brancaster Staithe
Private Collection

Whelk sheds at Brancaster Staithe
Oils 11" x 14"
£650

By the boat sheds, Brancaster Staithe
Oils 16" x 20"
£1095

I was really starting to get somewhere with studio paintings and actually enjoy doing it. I found ways to keep much of the freshness of plein air paintings and yet on a larger scale. I realised I needed as much background information as possible, e.g. paintings and sketches made on site, to help me keep the excitement and inspiration alive. The more I do of studio work, the more possibilities present themselves to me. It could never replace plein air of course, but I feel they both feed off each other. 

Kevin Macpherson describes it so well in his book 'Landscape painting Inside and Out':

"Many outdoor attempts fall short of successful, yet possess qualities that can be improved on into a grander statement in the studio. Each truthful colour note on a plein air study is a priceless seed of information that can transform your studio work to higher levels. Also, in the studio you can practise picture-making principles and experiment in a controlled environment.

Indoor and outdoor painting are complementary experiences. As memories of nature breathe life into your studio work, the disciplined approaches and principles you practise indoors will enable you to attack the canvas outdoors in new ways."

End of a perfect day, Sennen beach
Private Collection

In March I had two trips - first to Cornwall and then to Essaouira in Morocco with a group of painter friends. In Cornwall the weather was a bit disappointing but I managed to get some plein air work done and also enjoyed a fishy still life when it was pouring with rain outside.

Fairmaids of Mousehole
Private Collection

Towards St Michael's mount from Mousehole
Private Collection

Silver light, Mousehole
Private Collection

In contrast the weather in Morocco was dry, warm and idyllic for plein air painting, and I had a fabulous time. The locals were on the whole very interested and kind, and several remembered me from the year before. We even got invited to the private view of an art exhibition with an artist friend who I'd met while painting the year before and kept in contact with via Facebook, and I made some lovely new friends too. Plus of course the enormous benefit of having artist friends painting at the same time there from the UK, USA and Spain. What a great trip! 

One of my Essaouira friends, Monsieur Bouabid

Butchers shop Essaouira - poultry
Oils 10" x 12" £550

Butchers shop Essaouira - mutton and veal
Oils 11" x 14" £595

Boys diving into harbour
Private Collection

I'll finish this first quarter of the year with this bobby dazzler, companion painting to the one you know well that you'll be seeing again in the next instalment, when I take a walk back through April, May and June. I warn you now it might be a long blog post with a lot of excitement and exclamation marks!

Heading out of harbour
Private collection

Christmas market at dusk

Christmas market series no 3 - market at dusk

I love this one, it's got such mood and expression and again that economy of strokes which is what I'm always striving for - how to say more with less.

This is such a good time of year to reflect on where your work has been and where it might be heading in the year ahead. I'll certainly be giving some thought in the next few days to personal objectives and projects in the year ahead.

My biggest project in 2015, which I'm very excited to tell you about, is that I'm going to be writing a book about oil painting and I'm going to be starting on that very soon. I'm so excited! I'd love your help with that, if there is anything you struggle with or think should be included in the book then now is a great time to let me know as I'm only just beginning with ideas of topics to cover. Although the book will be written specifically about oil painting I want it to be full of painting advice that you can take to any subject and other mediums also. 

And very soon on my blog I'll be doing my annual review, as I find it really helpful to look back over the year past before making plans for the new year ahead. So in the meantime I can only say that I wish you a happy, healthy and fulfilling new year, and I look forward to seeing you in 2015 :-)

A holiday snow day!

Snow over Wilsford
12" x 16" Oils

In between the fun and feasting and visits I was able to get out locally and paint the snow that had fallen overnight - such excitement after not having had snow here for at least 20 months!

I didn't have a suitable board prepared with an under colour, so I had to start with a white surface for this one which I don't really like to do. So I used some glaze medium mixed in with the paint and turps for the first stages adding thinned blues and purples, very much like a watercolour technique. 

This was dry enough to add thicker lighter paint on top within the hour, without any difficulties.

 

Painting in situ

A Boxing Day sketch, family watching TV

Merry Christmas

Christmas market no 4 Lincoln castle

Merry Christmas to all my friends!
I hope that you have a wonderful festive season and enjoy time spent with loved ones.
Another here in my Lincoln Christmas market series. It wasn't really snowing, I was just having fun and getting carried away! Snow, I miss you! It's been at least 20 months since we've had any here, so I had to be inventive!
Have a good time everyone xx

Mulled wine and hot chocolate

Mulled wine - hot chocolate
Christmas market no 2
24 x 30 cms

Continuing on with the Christmas market theme, this one concentrates on the action within the mulled wine stall. I particularly was after the warmth, the bright lights and the distorting effects of the steam. Again I tried very much to stick to big shapes apart from the odd bits of interest. I loved it in it's fairly abstract stages, shown below. I was very tempted to leave it at stage two but I do like people to be able to recognise the figurative subject matter and so I felt it didn't say enough about it yet. I don't know, maybe there's an abstract artist within me trying to burst through!

The mostly warm colour palette offset by those lavender/grey blues, and small touches of hot red, pleased me no end. I think when a painting speaks to you in this way, you just know that something about it will affect something you work on in the future at some point, like having a new arrow in your quiver. You don't need to be conscious about it, or try too hard, it will just infuse and develop within your repertoire. 

Stage 1 - darks

Stage 2 - large shapes - could have stopped here

Lovely blog readers, I need to ask your help with something. I've decided to rename this blog in the new year. At the moment it's called 'ma vie en couleurs' which seemed appropriate when I started as I was living in France at the time. Well I've been back in England three years and I need a new title. Don't worry, everything else about the blog stays the same.

But here's where I need you... can you think of a couple of words or a short phrase that describes me and my work and my usual blog content? Please drop me a line or even better leave a comment on this blog post so that others can see your ideas too. If you are reading this in your email inbox, you can redirect to my blog here. Thanks so much for taking the time :-)

Sketching the sketcher

Adebanji Alade

Last night was the Royal Institute of Oil painters (ROI) annual painting evening event, when anyone can paint from portrait models alongside many members of the ROI. There is always a great atmosphere of camaraderie amongst the artists taking part. Not to mention the wine and enormous mince pies which provided sustenance throughout the three hour event. 

Thank you to the lovely lady watching who kept getting orange juice for me :-)

And look who my model was this time! My friend and fellow artist Adebanji Alade AROI whose blog will be familiar to many of you. He was very good at sitting still actually, which helps!

I'm really pleased with the looseness of this because I think that a painted face or person should look as though it could move at any second. I also love sketchiness because I like to see evidence of the 'workings out' or the process that the artist has undertaken. And I like illusion of depth balanced with 'look, this is just a painting' brush marks. I suppose that last statement is a strong guiding theme for me. 

Adebanji modelling in the gallery

Just to remind you that if you are in London you have until lunchtime on Sunday to see the ROI exhibition at the Mall Galleries, and there are many brilliant paintings still available for sale. One of my very favourites is only £500. See if you can spot it.

And here's mine in the exhibition -

Last hour on the beach SOLD

Christmas market

Christmas market no 1 - mulled wine stall
10" x 12"

I loved the lights, colour and busyness of the Lincoln Christmas market that I visited a couple of weeks ago. I did find a place to set up and paint but it was away from where I wanted to be and I got very cold! After a couple of hours of painting followed by a warm up in a cafe I decided to walk around taking photos on my phone if anything caught my eye. It was very busy by then and day was turning into dusk which was the very best time for me.  I find it magical when the artificial lights start to take over from the light from the sky.

Since that day I've been developing the theme in the studio, and trying some new approaches. In many ways this is easier to do in the studio than en plein air, when it's best to get the job done as quickly as you can (especially in this weather!).

With this one I really wanted to keep the drawing quite fluid, so I started with painting large shapes and masses rather than a linear or drawn approach. If you imagine screwing your eyes up so that you can only see a blurred vision of the subject, that's how I began. 

I carried on with large shapes and then assessed which places needed more definition and which didn't.

I wanted to describe a little more the two central figures and the lights and decoration of the stall, but to leave the background group of figures as loose marks and large shapes. I think it's best this way as the figures look as though they are moving and populate the scene without dominating it.

You can probably tell I really enjoyed the whole process, I think it shows in the juicy paintwork!

Detail

Detail showing broad treatment of figures

June Mendoza ROI

June getting started 

I've had a wonderful two days at the Mall galleries in London. Tuesday was the private view of the Royal Institute of Oil painters exhibition, and I am fortunate to have work included in this wonderful exhibition again this year. It was brilliant as ever to catch up with friends, and I was tempted by many of the paintings. Unfortunately I've blown the painting budget already this year, and I must keep some money aside for tax - yuk! 

June with the sitters, Ian Cryer ROI President and his fiancé Felicity

Yesterday I watched all day as June Mendoza (surely one of our country's finest portrait painters) painted a dual portrait. June explained that she would normally take around five two hour sessions with each sitter separately, so the day would serve to provide a glimpse into her working methods although nothing like a completed painting.

 

What a fascinating glimpse it was to be able to watch somebody so skilled with eye and hand as the painting developed and the sitters came to life on the canvas.

The demo in the middle of the gallery

There are other events happening during the course of the exhibition that you might be interested in getting to. On Tuesday 16th December there is a tour of the exhibition at 3pm with the President Ian Cryer (the portrait subject in these pictures) and then from 6 - 9pm on the same day it's the Painting Event evening. This is a great chance to paint from the model alongside ROI members or just come along to enjoy the spectacle with a mince pie and a glass of wine. For painting or spectating you need to book tickets by calling 020 7930 6844.

You can see Bill Dean ROI painting in the gallery on Wednesday 17th December from 2 - 4pm, and Tim Benson VPROI working in the gallery on Thursday 18th December from 2 - 4pm.

The exhibition finishes on Sunday 21st December at 1pm and you can get a flavour of the exhibition here. 

The portrait at the end of the day

Christmas cards

Chicken huts in the snow
SOLD

I have been so busy with Christmas things as I like to really leave it until December to get started. Hence a few weeks of present buying, house decorating, food ordering, socialising... I haven't started to write any Christmas cards yet. And as for wrapping, well... 

I've also been working on my website developing the store items so that books and greetings cards can now be purchased easily online direct from my studio, including this new winter card 'Chicken huts in the snow'. I've added about a dozen paintings to the site also, it's worth checking back from time to time to see new ones which become available. My calendars have been so popular that I only have two left as well as one for me out of the 100 I had printed. Be quick if you want one!

I've also been out painting and taking photos at the Christmas market in Lincoln so I hope to show you a few of those paintings very soon! 

Tomorrow I'm off to London for the Royal Institute of Oil painters exhibition, so it will be great to catch up with many friends there, and that will be my first visit of three to the exhibition which ends on Sunday 21st December at 1pm. You can see many of the paintings in the exhibition online if you can't make it to the Mall Galleries. Click here to see the works.

Winter collection of ten cards, two designs

Collectors pack, assorted designs

A peek inside Volume 2 Paintings of light and colour

Take a look at my cards and calendars here :-)