Planning a Painting: Edges and Padding

My first stage in planning a painting is staring at a rectangle for a while. Usually, this is in a sketch book, and then I cover it with marks. What I am doing is working out where bits of the

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 4

Today I hoped to get the stems and leaves moulded, on the first layer. After a bit of colour selection I came up with a mix that was largely opaque for the leaves, meaning that the top layer will almost

Methods of Portraiture

I recently persuaded a friend to sit for me for several days while I tried out painting techniques. She was writing, which meant she had her eyes down, but she was still enough that I could get a good likeness

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

Lady in a Landscape: Day 2

The second day’s work on Whiskey (she’s on the rocks) did not go well. In fact, this post is about day three, which was a day of painting I did not scrub out. The second day of painting left me

Lady in a Landscape: Day 1

I really really admire the high classical era, in which it seemed that the ideal of a painter was to make something look like life, but a little bit better. This year I am hoping to have a show with

A Look At: Romanticism

This is the Téméraire, in a famous picture by Turner that is a good view of the Romantic movement as a whole.