Portrait of A*.

Sometimes in the life of an artist there comes a time when they just have to terrify passing civilians by asking, “Do you mind if I paint you?” For extra points, you can then tell them why, but that usually

Dragons: Day 5 – the dragon

This day was spread out over a couple of painting sessions, to allow the paint to dry, but the underpainting took no more than a couple of hours, so I’m calling it a single day. I knew the dragon in

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 9a

Day 10 was a half day, so filed under 9a, not 10. I did other things in the studio as well, after three or four hours of work on this. I am now on the top layer, which means I’m

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 9

Today’s painting was the hardest so far, for two reasons. I had to paint ellipses with complex parts, and my shoulder really hurts. Precision in painting comes at a cost of sometimes maintaining stress positions, and lately I’ve been getting

Dragons: Day 4 – the rocks

Day 4 was a faintly annoying day. I had to mix a blue that was darker than the colour out by the entrance, as if the yellow had been removed as the sunlight faded. However, there was not any yellow

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 8

Today was a really, really difficult day. The copper jug was always going to be hard to do. It’s a mixture of an imperfect mirror, a cylinder, an overall colour, and a lot of drapery and complicated reflection. Ignore the

Dragons: Day 3 – the lighting

The dragon cave is going to be made up of receding layers of rock, going back towards the outside, where a dragon is silhouetted. The further back a layer, the earlier I should be painting it, which in this case