Red Curtain Drapery

This is the white underpainting for what will be a wine-coloured or crimson painting. The idea is that when it looks good in white, I coat it with a crimson glaze and it looks just as good but far deeper.

Agents!

Recently I have finally felt I have enough work to send away to agents. My first polite refusal came back today. I am oddly proud of it – it means that I sent something off. I cannot expect immediate success,

Red Curtain

This is a thumbnail for a foot-square deep colour piece. The blue on blue image and its companions are popular, and a couple of people who have seen them have encouraged me to work on something deep red. I have

Series: The Madness of the Bird King

Over the past fortnight I have been working on an exciting project, illustrating The Madness of the Bird King for James Knight. This is a post about how the concept grew, and a bit about how I see the subject,

Blooming Huge Blue Glass Still Life: Day 15

Over the past few weeks, I have been painting one particular canvas blue. It has appeared on this blog before, but the slow creeping of the paint over the surface was not particularly interesting. Days 5-14 were mostly ‘painted more

Sketching at the Sidgewick

I have the good fortune to live close to a museum of casts, some of which are valuable antiques in their own right. Casts do not move, and it is easy to select one with an interesting pose or anatomy

Cezanne’s Forest: Day 3

Today’s challenge was all about balance. The bright jumble of warm colours to the left of the tree needs something strong enough to set it off, on the right which is the sunward side. It required several warm greens, and