oil on canvas 20″x 30″

I am working with a variation on a theme! Stole one boy out of my group portrait and placed him in an abstract setting. I love the ambivalance of his expression and the containment of his pose. Painting a smiling or laughing face is far more difficult than a serious one (not getting the expression pefectly can make the sitter look deranged or diabolical!) and a serious expression allows a viewer to see something different every time. But sometimes a smile says it all!

oil on canvas 36″ x 48″

This is the final version of the painting. It has been a joy to work on something as demanding as this one. Three very different personalities and a complex composition – lots of different textures and pictoral elements. Paintings really become children after a while and I shall be sorry to lose this one.

oil on canvas 48″x 36″

Driving down the road, I was struck by the wonderful interplay between the deep purplish hues of the road at dusk and the brilliant oranges and yellows of the safety vests worn by the riders. Horses and riders are common sights in our area – a perfect combination of rural and urban.

oil on wood 40″ x 24″

This self-portrait is in my loose style – an exercise in visual memory as, of course, I couldn’t draw and hold a cup at the same time! The shape of the pink gown reminds me of an ice cream cone with the feet a couple of wafers (albeit small ones!) balanced on top. The physicality of the figure with its exaggerrated foreshortening is in contrast to the flat geometric pattern of the background, the straight lines complimenting the curves in the gown and cup.

oil on canvas 36″ x 48″

This portrait is not quite finished – a bit of tweaking to do. However, it has been so much fun capturing the personalities involved and painting another dog - who is quite the powerful little person herself! I have tried to keep the colour scheme harmonious with minimal attention paid to the  clothing of the boys – the focus being on their characters as portrayed through expression and gesture. The light, of course, is the star of the show!

oil on weathered shutter 9.5′ x 42′

This is a fun decorative piece that I did after Christmas – a homage to the east coast and to folk artists.

Another detail from the portrait of 3. Still a lot of work to do on this subject and the others but the end is in sight. The scrubbing out and re-working that oil allows comes as a bit of surprise to novices. It is such a flexible medium – so many ways of applying it. I have always loved impasto – thick gobs of paint ! This is not always appropriate when painting a commissioned portrait and there have been several occasions where I have had to remove lumps of paint that from certain angles ressemble warts on noses etc.

This is a detail from a large painting of 3 young men that is close to completion. Hands can be as expressive as faces in describing a personality and in this portrait I am painting all six of them (hands) in very different positions and attitudes. Not a simple part of the anatomy, painters used to charge more per hand – hence the hand in the pocket pose so popular in historic paintings.

Welcome to the new site of my blog which until now has been at www.apaintersday.blogspot.com. My postings and comments are intended to entertain, inform and generally let the viewer into my creative process. I hope you will continue to subscribe and if you enjoy it, please feel free to let me know and possibly pass the site onto friends.