Leybourne Lake

Leybourne Lake

5 x 7, oil

My new plein air friend Jane and I go out to paint on Thursdays. Today she took me to Leybourne Lake nearby. I will be going back to this place again and again. The colour was amazing and the bird life was inspiring. We actually had a good bit of sunshine popping in and out of some huge grey clouds. It was actually hard to narrow down what I wanted to paint - too many choices. But I settled on this scene. I enjoy the challenge of the water.

A Potpourri of Paintings

The Way Out

12 x 9, oil

This entrance/exit to the park is nestled into a heavily shaded area that is right on the lane beside it. The little sign on the gate actually says "no fishing" and there is no water in the park. I love the mystery that the scene presents. As an exit you walk down into the shadows. As an entrance from the other side it is a walk up the short path to open fields and lighter views. Choosing to do this dark painting was a reminder that even in the darkness there is something to appreciate.

Birling Just Over the Hill

8 x 10, oil

I can't let the grey days of England keep me inside all the time or I would go mad. So on this day Bob and I wanted to walk to a pub in Birling that we had not tried before. It took an hour to get there - a really cold, long hour. The pub, the Neville Bull,  was warm and welcoming and the food was outstanding. Well worth the effort to get there.

In this painting I wanted to capture the atmosphere of the day and the scene that I often see as Bob walks ahead of me and I lag behind taking photos and then run ahead to catch up.

Manta II

12 x 9 , oil

Ah Manta! She is the manager of the Thai restaurant in West Malling. She knows us because Bob would bring groups of people from his classes there for dinner. She is direct, bossy, right, knowledgable, confident and striking. She carries attitude. She's a doll and I love her. The last time we painted her someone in my portrait group had asked her to sit for us - this time she asked us if she could. She went to the hairdressers 2 doors down, just to get a new do for this sitting. 

She wore bright green (this gal is NOT afraid of color - last time it was bright orange). She is an amazing model. I could paint her all day. Unfortunately it was for only about 2 hours. Not enough for me to paint a finished piece but enough to get quite a bit of her likeness, colouring and attitude down.

I do not plan on solely being a portrait artist but I do enjoy the challenges that both live-model and photo reference presents. I learn something each time.

Praaaaacticing My Sheep

I am working on simplifying strokes and shapes in some of my paintings. Since these sheep live right outside my window they are constantly at the ready to model for me, and the fact that they move around a bit is the perfect situation for me to be quick and brief with my strokes and my observations.

In doing this I am partly preparing for my upcoming workshop with Roos Schuring where hopefully we will be dealing with shifting clouds and lighting on the beaches of Katwijk, Netherlands. You can see what I am talking about at her blog: http://roosschuring.blogspot.co.uk 

The one that has the most white space around it is my favourite so I signed it. It has about 4-5 strokes in it. 

Wensleydale Sheep

Wensleydale Grazer

5 x 7 - oil on panel

SOLD

One of the things I do besides paint is spin wool. England has an amazing amount of sheep of all sorts. I met the owners of this on at the county fair and visited the farm to take reference photos. I ended up buying 2 fleeces - one blue/grey and one white. The cool thing about these guys is the quality of the wool is remarkable. Very luminous. Very long. This is the only time I have bought the fiber here, generally people just give it to me. This was worth it.

I did this painting also in the limited pallet of white, ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. I am very pleased with this one. I do love losing edges as the dark values of one object become indistinguishable from the dark value of another object next to it.

The Side Entrance

Tripped on this as my painting buddy and I were looking at a water feature nearby that was much darker that I wanted to do on this really grey day. The photo doesn't really come close to showing the greyness of the day.  

 

I wanted to play with a limited pallet of white, burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. Interesting what happens to the mind when you don't have a fuller range of colors and you have to reinterpret colors to what you have on hand.

I didn't think that the scruffy little tree would be the center of interest. I was going to make it smaller and have the entrance as the centre of interest. But, as I began to downplay the tree, it's presence started to speak to me of more than just this view. England has many paths and entrances and walkways that have a bit of overgrown foliage in the way. I have come to like that. Not all is neat and in order here, but it remains beautiful for sure. Thus the attention I gave it.

The Side Entrance

12 x 9

Finished product got more of the grey day in it. There are lots of them here. The owner invited me to come back to paint there again. I love the perk of meeting new people when you paint out.

I will do some more paintings with this limited pallet to explore it even more.

And the Winner is ..........

So I had to choose between this painting(#4) and the cows(#9). How to choose? I put the numbers 4 and 9,  12 times on tiny pieces of paper and tossed them loosely in my hands until one fell out - that was #4 - the chicken. Then I put all the names in a hat and decided that the last one that I pick was the one. Voila!

BenN is the winner!! Congratulations Ben! I will be emailing you to get the details.

Thank you all for joining my blog. I hope that you will enjoy the behind the scenes thoughts and pictures that are only found here. I hope that you spread the word and suggest others to visit my blog - maybe sharing a picture or two here and there.

I will be doing this again sometime. Stay tuned.

The Contest

It is looking like there will be some competition in the free painting contest. Glad to see it. All done Tuesday night. Winner contacted on Wednesday. Even from this post I hope that there is more activity. I am kind of excited about the whole thing - especially when someone shares the link. I am leaving the details are in the previous post for people to still check out.

Scott Addis

Scott Addis is my dear friend who is a most amazing artist. He lives in Montreal. I am starting to take some coaching from him. I am excited for the challenge and insight that this will bring me. 

I wanted to share with you some of his beautiful work. I can just get lost in it all. Enjoy these photos and then go and check out more of his website: http://galerieaddis.com or see him on Facebook. 

Win One of my Paintings

A contest. One of my blog followers can win one of my paintings. I have made a folder on my Facebook Fan Page that lists 20 paintings.

Join my blog and then go to my FB page (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.543599169006983.120684.258729710827265&type=3 )  and check out the photo folder marked "Eligible Paintings".  Then all you have to do is "like" the one or ones that you like. The painting with the most new "likes" from my blog members is the one in the contest.

I will then write all of the "like" names on pieces of paper and pull the winner's name out of a hat and contact them via my blog. I really will go through all the hoops to make sure that it is a random winner. Sign up today. YOU MUST JOIN MY BLOG TO WIN.

This should be fun. If it goes the way I would like I may do it again. The contest goes for 2 weeks - from February19 thru March 5. Winner announced March 6.

Exception to the rule - if someone buys one of the eligible pieces within the 2 week period it is out of the contest. I will post it here and on my Facebook Fan page if this happens and I will replace it with a new painting to the list so stay tuned.

There will be a modest shipping fee.

A Close Study of Helen

Helen

8 x 10

My portrait group uses friends as models. This is the 3rd time we have had Helen. I have learned something each time. I wanted to do something different with this one - concentrate my short amount of time with a close in crop and a little more in-depth study. I am learning to simplify and emphasise colour. I am mostly pleased with this effort.

After the Polo Match

Blocking it in.

I took the reference photos for this painting maybe 5-6 years ago. At the time I took a couple hundred photos mostly of what happens off the polo field. So eventually I will be doing more paintings of some of the scenes that I liked. This one captured one of the stablemen taking several of the horses back to the stables to be showered off. I loved the cloud of dust they created as they walked along.

Starting to take shape.

Finished painting - although even finished paintings sometimes get tweaked.

After the Polo Match

9 x 12, oil on panel

Sometimes I feel incomplete being limited to the small size. My larger studio in the states will accommodate the larger paintings much better so the big ones will have to wait for now.

Portrait of Manta

"Manta"

12 x 9, oil on panel

Manta is the owner of the Pad Thai Restaurant in West Malling. She is an amazing person - almost the Pad Thai Nazi (like the soup Nazi from Seinfeld, if you know what I mean). She will not let you eat the wrong combinations of Thai food, in fact, she will get rather pushy if you want to. Of course her heavy accent and limited English vocabulary helps the image of her.  As you can see from the painting, she is also a very proud woman. She had just come from the hairdressers  and had red, orange, blonde and green streaks through her hair. She wore a bright orange top too. For less than a 2 hour sit I think I mostly captured her. One day I will have a nice long pose to really get into the skin tones etc. In the mean time I am enjoying the explorations of portraiture.

I am painting my butt off!

Muddy Path on a Grey Day

8 x 10, oil on panel

What a mess this day was. Wet, mucky, stick-to-your-boots mud. And it was darkish too. What a day to paint outside! The challenge was to bring some life into all the dark. There is some but I strive for more.

Shack at the Silo

9 x 12, oil on panel

Another muddy day in England (and very windy too) but with a bit of fleeting sunshine. This shack was so overgrown and had such character it drew me in. The door actually kept on flapping open and closed in the wind.  This one was fun to paint. I don't do many structures for fear of getting too caught up in the details. One day buildings will be something I will conquer but they just aren't pulling me at the moment. Here I had found a somewhat sheltered area to set up in but my painting buddy decided to plop himself in the middle of the unplanted field of puddles and... more mud. His painting blew over into the mud several times.

Untitled

8 x 10, oil on panel

This is part of my commitment to learn how to paint the moving clouds. There is such drama and energy in this kind of cloud cover as the sunshines peaks through in varying degrees so quickly. I do not consider this to be a success (among other things I think the composition is trite and uninteresting) but I did get a bit of insight. I did 2 other small studies of the clouds and learned even more but the photos of those paintings are pending the battery recharge on my camera. 

A better photo of the post from the other day. This was not a plein air painting but I think I am starting to take some of the things that I am learning en plein air and applying them to my studio work.

Sheep Study

5 x 7

These little guys are right outside my window so I don't even have to pack up to do them from life. I am after getting their shape and values in as few of strokes as I can. I am pleased with what took place here. The bottom one is headless because the neighbor came out and tossed them some bread and they moved. I will be doing more of them as I take advantage of my opportunity of having them so close since I won't be here forever.

ps - I am still  not pleased with my photos. These are not scanned cause they are all still wet. 

From the last 24 hours

Heavy Snow

9 x 12, oil on panel

This one was actually done with a photo reference that I took nearby. It is actually a rickety old fence that is quite grown over and the snow made it quite heavy. I loved the shapes that were created with the lighting. I also love the challenge of finding and depicting the many colors in the white shadowed areas. Once again, the photo does not quite show all of the color I put in.

Two Chinese Teenagers

9 x 12, oil on panel

This painting was an hour's worth of work. The girls had never modelled before and had slept in so they were late and had to leave early. They chatted in Chinese the entire time but kept their pose throughout.  I really found it interesting to see the difference in their skin tones and head shapes.  There are drawing flaws for sure but I am mostly happy with this one. There was no time to noodle it - and that is good, but I could have used another hour with them. I also do enjoy keeping it a bit sketchy in a portrait.

En Plein Air

"The Little Bridge at Manor Park"

8 x 10, oil on panel

 Side note: I may have cracked the photography problems I have been having. Hopefully I will get better colour representation in them from now on.

I set out with my hand warmers and foot warmers to the park near home. So many subjects to choose from. I settled on this bridge. To the right the path goes up the hill to the village. To the left takes you around the lake. I really enjoyed doing this painting even with it's challenges. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. That is the key when there is so much growth around. Just use detail where you really need it. 

Lots of people went walking by and stopped to admire. 1- I think I made a new friend. 2 - I may have found a potential client. Lesson learned: bring business cards with me whenever I go out.

The 4 Minute Cow

"The 4 Minute Cow"

5 x 7, oil on panel

One of the first days of plein air painting in England took me to my cows. They were so curious and they all came over to investigate. At the time I had a homemade portable canvas (that maybe one day I will develop into a real product) so I could move in an instant to the subject that I wanted to paint. Of course the cows kept moving around - except for the Big Mama who just stood there and starred at me. So I thought, "what the heck" and painted her. I never thought I would show this painting because of it's major unfinishedness - done only in 4  minutes. But I love this piece so  - here it is..

Side note:  I have not mastered the photographing of my paintings as well as I would like but I just came upon this idea from listening to the podcast of Artists Helping Artists with the guest of Lisa Darie Kennedy (look her up!) who has done 1 painting everyday for over 1000 days, and she mentioned that she scans her works in rather than take the pictures. Since many of my works are small these days that is what I am going to be doing lots of. So be watching for more updates on my works cause I have been working believe you me.

and the cows get in the way........

No photo today, just a story.  I went to the park to paint today. I hadn't been there for about 10 days. Of course I knew I would have to take time to greet my cows. They were lazily lounging under the trees and barely moved as I came  up to greet them. Having finished my hellos and seeing that they were staying put in their reclining state, I thought I would take advantage of the situation and paint them. No sooner did I get all my gear set up then one by one they started getting up and coming over to investigate. All 9 of them surrounded me, sniffing and licking my setup and me. Of course I could not start painting yet - couldn't even get the pallet with the paint out yet. They hung around for 5 - 7 minutes then slowly started moving on .....but then turned and came back again.

Three of them were surrounding me, their massive heads, me and my painting gear could have fit inside a 41/2 foot ring. I had to take hold of their horns so they wouldn't catch on my pochade box or my stool or on me. They were so close I couldn't get into my bag to get the camera out. One took a step away and peed. One didn't take a step away and left a fresh and steaming pile of poo a foot away from me.

So I gave up on painting there and decided to walk to the other end of the field where they were showing no interest. Half way to this other end I turned around and they were all following me. I sat on my stool and just let them do more of their usual thing until they finally got bored and wandered off. They eventually came back into the scene but not until I was able to get a painting done. I will post it soon.

Later on in the day I was working on another painting in my studio and could not figure out where all the long hairs on my pallet were coming from. Hmmmm......

Love them cows!!

Portrait Practice

9 x 12, oil on panel

"Jane's Sister"

I am in a weekly portrait study group now. I have sat for two sessions and been able to paint for two. This is my second painting since I have been with them. This elderly woman is the sister of one of the other artists. She kept on falling asleep and changing positions (all of our models are voluntary and not paid) but I managed to get a likeness and somewhat of an interesting composition out it.

Just as with my en pleine air practices lately, I am finding working from life much more rewarding and I know that it will educate me whenever I do need to work from references rather than life. One of the biggest lessons is to get the main shapes and placements down fast and solidly as the model (or nature if outside) will tend to change as you go along.

Judit Varga

Judit Varga Ceramics that are so different and intriguing. Check out her site: http://www.juditvarga.net/Squares.html#

Roos Schuring

I am taking inspiration from an amazing artists these days. Her name is Roos Schuring and she is from the Netherlands. If you like pleine air work with a passion she is it!! Simple. Dynamic. Energized. Mysterious. Truly amazing work. I hope that she doesn't mind that I shared a couple of her works here. I invite you to check out her blog and website listed below.  I bet you fall in love with her work too.

http://roosschuring.blogspot.co.uk file:
http://www.roosschuring.com

Starting to do Plein Air Painting

In the Middle of the Park

5 x 7, oil on linen panel

I have started en plein air painting (painting outdoors). I have been putting it off forever but, as I follow so many artists whose work I really like, I cannot get away from knowing that they paint en plein air. The current day masters all say to do it. So I have finally begun. I had put it off because I didn't want the pressure of time as the light changes and I didn't want the pain of getting all the equipment ready etc. and setting up in all weather conditions. After only a few days, in chill and drizzle, I may be hooked. What a crazy time of year to start painting outside.

Hiding After the Chase

5 x 7 oil on linen panel

Catch the hint of "my" cows under the trees. They had just been mini-stampeded by an unruly terrier. 

I do like the color that is ending up in these en plein air paintings. I am learning why so many love to paint this way.

Pair of Trees

5 x 7 oil on panel

Across the pasture on the farm where we are living here in England are these 2 trees that seem to stand guard over the acres. The trees like these each seem to have their own personality cause you cannot find 2 that are the same. After finishing this painting I headed to the store to buy a camping stool cause sitting on the ground killed me.

Just a few of the more current pieces

Staying Cool in the Shadows

8 x 10  oil

A friend of ours have a farm with sheep and loads of horses, and now a few llamas too. I also got some of these sheep's wool so I am a happy camper.

Almost Blending In

5 x 7 oil

My darlings. So fortunate to have them a short walking distance away. This new group of 9 are all between 1 - 1 1/2 years old.  I just visited them this morning and my favorite 3 all came up to me for a pat and a sniff. One of them even had to fend off the dominant one of the group to get to me. My little heart just soared. 

Badger's Front Door

5 x 7 oil

You know how I love the English paths. Well this badger hole was right along one of those paths. it was quite a big hole. Badgers are pretty common around here although I haven't see many - just their holes. 

Cascade at St. Mary's Abbey #2

9 x 12 oil

I did this painting before and someone in the village has it now. I did it again thinking I might have it as my own keepsake of the little village that we are living in. Instead though I am going to offer it to raise more money for a Rotary Charity called ShelterBox.  It, and many of my available paintings will be in a show at the beginning of November called the Kent Affordable Art Show.

Figure Workshop with Cathy Bird

Finally a 4 day workshop on the figure. Very intense. So much work! I was absolutely exhausted at the end of the days. These are a few of the final products. All in oil.

"Voluptuous Woman"

I love painting and drawing large women. This one is about 30 x 30

All day pose.

"The Three faces of Eve"

about 30 x 22

No her name wasn't Eve. The day had us doing 3 poses of the same person in 3 different outfits in 3 different poses. Each pose was around 30 - 45 minutes. She would do the poses and then do them again, then again = 9 sittings. Had no idea how I was going to compose this as I was doing the first pass at each pose. You may not see it all real clearly here. With all of these - when the time was up it was up. There is lots left not fully resolved thus I don't consider any of these finished. Just thought I would share.

"Barefooted Bride"

about 18 x 15

This was an all day pose so there was lots of time to develop it, but still not enough. I was pleased with the outcome on this one.

The final day had us doing eleven 15 minute poses. All depicting strong emotion. I did them in pencil.

Non shown here.

Aug, 6, 2012

"The Seductive Stairway", 9 x 12ish, oil on panel

I see this stairway every time I go to Manor Park to see the Highland cattle grazing. It is down near the small lake where the swans and the other water fowl are. I won't tell you what is at the top of the stairs -  that's your choice.

"Longwool Couple", 8 x 10, oil on panel
SOLD

These are Wesleydale Longwool sheep. I found them at the Kent County show and got to meet their owners and eventually ended up at their farm to take lots of reference photos. Their wool is absolutely beautiful and of course I got 2 fleeces to process and spin. The bonus for me was the visit with the lady  afterwards. She is a really good artist so we had lots in common.

"Lost in the Field". 10 x 8, oil on panel, done solely with 3 sticks.

This painting is the result of a painting challenge that I came upon through Facebook. It was fun. Not quite like a palette knife painting but close. I had to make friends with the sticks because they were not uniform or flat. One stick did get a little bit of a sanding though.

Gypsy Horse Journal Feature

"Nibbling" 9 x 12, oil on panel

I just found out that I DID make the feature artist in Gypsy Horse Magazine. It is called "Behind the Easel with Eileen Kling McConkey" 4 pages!. I am very excited. Check it out. I could not get the magazine cover onto my blog but this photo is the first one in the article.

http://issuu.com/hypmagazine1/docs/ghj_spring_summer_2012