Sunday 24 March 2013

A Work In Progress: High Ousegate, York.

I had intended spending Saturday and Sunday painting, but couldn't because I spent Saturday in bed with a sickness bug (which brought me home early from the cricket club on Friday evening). I did manage to start the following this afternoon, whilst Sara built 'The Great Eggscape' with Archie, for his school's egg decorating competition.
This canvas is an old one, saved from the skip at school, and is an odd shape. I have had several goes at painting it, with no real success. Hopefully this will be more successful than previous efforts..
I'm using linseed oil to thin the paint. I usually use turps...if I use anything. Oil makes the paint more fluid, which is quite nice to handle, but will inevitably require more drying time. I intend working on this painting over a longer period of time.


It's nice pushing the paint around, without 'scrubbing'. It's nice not have the sicative effect of turps/white spirit.

Slowly building up and indicating where the figures will go.


Detail. 
I intend keeping this much more painterly than some of my other paintings.

That's it for now.
Stage 2.
Having let the paint dry for a week, I have had another go at it.
I'm starting to build up some of the details a little, but trying to retain the painterliness.

Hmmm... I like the left hand side more than the right. Time to let it dry again and then work back into it.

Stage 3.

The paint had dried sufficiently to work into this (I have been working on another piece whilst waiting for it to dry - a woodland scene, to be added later). I have worked into both shops, left and right, cleaned the sky up a little, and worked into the floor. After this I had a look at the figures. I will leave it for a while now and live with it for a bit. I may feel like coming back to it later.
A few details...



High Ousegate, York.



Friday 8 March 2013

More Paris

Friday night and we have just got in after going straight from school to town with Archie, so that he could spend his Waterstones vouchers. Four books later (2 Darren Shann's and 2 by some other author + a few ideas for yours truly), and we took him for a hot chocolate in Pret a Manger (do they pay corporation tax?) - by-the-way, it is currently cheaper to get your drinks by buying a £1.50 chocolate bars, because they throw the drinks in free. Having got home Archie has decided that he doesn't want to watch a family film tonight - he'd rather read. Excellent! That gives me chance to post the second painting that I completed after our Paris trip. This one is from some photos that I took out side the Pumpypants (Pompidou) centre.
Blocking in.

A little definitition.
 Establishing tones. 
Starting to build it up. 

 A little more detail.
Finished.
Paris Contre Jour

Saturday 2 March 2013

Paris

Having returned from a great trip to Paris, with a fantastic bunch of students and colleagues, we broke up for half-term and I found time to do some painting. 
I love Paris. It just seems so much more spacious than London, it's better to look at, and it feels more lived in. The buildings are great, and because it seems more spacious, the light seems to bounce around more.
We dropped lucky with the weather, with hardly any rain, and the weekend wasn't dominated with that blanket of cloud that we often get in the winter, especially around York.
This picture is from one of the photos that I took whilst there. I haven't got a clue which street it is; it was taken from the coach window on our way back to the hotel at the end of the day, and actually, this was on one of the days when the weather wasn't great.
Initial blocking in..

A little more drawing..

A few more details, including some cars.


..starting to establish the tones..

...

...

I decided that I didn't like it at this stage..

...so scraped some of the paint off, and scrubbed into it with a dirty brush. I enjoyed this, and liked what it did to the painting, so I started working back into it. 

This is the finished painting:
'Paris: February Afternoon'