Dragons: Day 1 – Initial Sketching

Last week I brought in a new commission, on the subject of great big winged flying majestic lizards – I’m going to be painting dragons. The client would like to replace a print over her mantelpiece, meaning it’s going to

Allegro, Day 3

Today I added the sky, and the whole painting started pulling together. The sky is cobalt blue with titanium white, fading to a yellowed blue at the bottom for the atmospheric effect. The very lowest bit of the blue has

Allegro, Day 2

The second day of painting on the Allegro was slightly shorter than the first, but as I had folded the sketching time into the first, I can still face my conscience. At the end of the day I had done

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 5

Today’s painting was an attempt to finish the leaves, after a morning spent on a commission project. I had about five hours left in the afternoon, so I used those, adding the green leaves, smoothing out a few painting errors

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

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 3

I spent the next day of painting starting to block in the colours. Most of this will not be visible, but it deepens the paint colours for the top layer, and lets me experiment. The first colour, and the most

Still Life, Roses and Reflections: Day 2

Day two of painting was mostly simple. I played around a little with backgrounds, and then decided to go for a plain, dark colour. What looks like black is in fact Payne’s Grey, a very dark but warm colour which