Monday, August 15, 2011

Mayo Summer Landscape

This is an oil painting I worked on for the past few weeks.  It is based on a photograph I took.  All too many of those kinds of days this summer. The sky was dark and ominous but the sun still shone out of shot.  The farmer had cut the grass the previous day cutting around the poles.  
oil painting countryside landscape ireland Mayo

This is the drawing gridded out as was the photograph. 

I did all this work in one sitting. Got a lot done in a short time.  Left the poles until the paint was dry. 
Started to work on the detail of poles.
Still fiddling about with details.  Added in wires. 


Finished out highlights. 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Portrait Practice

Have been putting off doing some serious drawing practice.  To make up for it I thought I would have a go at doing some portraits.  These are all from photo or picture  reference in Photoshop. 



Monday, June 20, 2011

Coral Pink Sand Dunes Speed Paint

Digital speed paint using a photograph I took in Coral Pink Sand Dunes. I camped there the week of 9/11.  I remember watching the star filled skies criss crossed with flights just after the airspace was reopened.  


Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tornado speedpaint

After the long haul completing the oil painting alt="plough horse oil painting" I was glad to switch to some speed painting in Photoshop using photo reference.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Plough horse oil painting

This year has been tough - lots of long hours at work and other commitments that have meant I was not able to do as much art work as I would have liked.

One piece that has being running since April is this plough horse.


 
It started out as an exercise and I was going to use acrylics.

I have not worked with them much but  liked the idea of being able to layer the paints quickly.
I used a couple of photo references for this - the main one was in black and white.  The sketch used that composition.  

20 march 2011



I sketched in pencil and  I should have spent some time getting this right but I didn't.  Next time .........
The next thing I did was started blocking in colour. This was in acrylic.
It was at his point I realised how massive the area was and how much effort it was going to take to make this work. 



 I stopped at here.  

When I returned to work on it I had decided to switch to oils.  
I chipped away at it for April and blocked in all the colour.  I worked on landscape behind. 

05 May 2011
Plough horse oil painting step 6
Next I started to work on the furrows.  As it was such a big canvas I didn't want to get into too much detail.  I marked the lines out then defined

11 MAY 2011



25 MAY 2011
When all other detail was added I went in and added the harness and shadows.
I added a pale wash to push the landscape and sky back and that was it.
03  June 2011


As ever learned alot on this-I should do more prep and make more decisive decisions as I work.  






 



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