Allegro, Day 1

This commission started, as they often do, with sketches and squinting at the canvas. I painted a purple background, made of the blue and red I used for the sail with titanium white, which is a workhorse white; it’s nothing

Girl in a Dress: Day 4

The last days were about slow, steady improvement and painting a castle wall. Day 4 and Day 5 were really one and the same, and as such, I have filed them together. The face was defined better and skimmed slightly

Girl in a Dress: Day 3

Day 3 of painting was full of little tweaks on the dress and hands, and the long, slow slog of painting stone. Stone slabs have to look flat, be in perspective, and still be interesting. I painted a matrix of

Girl in a Dress: Day 2

On the second day of painting, while the dress was still tacky but not wet, I finished off some of the details and began on the face. Immediately, I hit the problem of the strong grounding. When I was mixing

Girl in a Dress: Day 1

Over the summer I painted a Tudor dress with a girl in it. Let me phrase that more appropriately. A client of mine took advantage of an offer and provided a picture to let me expand my portfolio. She pre-bought

Anglesey Seascape: Day 3

For the last day of painting, I had to do those awkward, awkward things that most people do not notice. There are ways to transition most good paintings into better paintings, at the end of the process, with light touch

Anglesey Seascape: Day 2

This is day two of painting a view of Anglesey, after the first day’s work has dried. Previously, I had left the work with some of the sea painted, and none of the foreground. The centre of the foreground stayed