Abstraction of a Violet

This afternoon's rather abstract portrait of a violet.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

It should probably be cropped to look like this:  (but since I don't have a frame to fit this size, I won't bother.)

Shaft of Sunlight

This was pretty much a exercise to loosen up my painting. I used an idea from a smaller painting I did a while back -- it is probably still on my gallery page -- but I just wanted something to paint and did not care to waste time coming up with something entirely new.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Petunia Study 2

A companion piece for yesterday's little painting. I also worked on another piece, but ended up scraping everything off -- an idea that  doesn't seem to work no matter how often I try it.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in Lambstead Crescent

It took three days of painting on this panel to get something that I am willing to keep -- even if it does not break any new ground for me. A bird in hand is how I look on it. Some panels are like that.  A more realistic approach is that perhaps I need to work on some smaller, less ambitious pieces for a while until I come up with some fresh ideas as to what to paint, which is the plan going foreward.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

I finished up the afternoon with a little study of my favorite pentunia.

This is just a small study: 6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard (Petunia study 1)

Still working on it

 This one is unlikely to make the grade either. Oh, well. Next week is another week.

Park Lagoon Willow

Just the morning's doodle here, while I tried to come up with my next painting...'Where do I want to go..."

 6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Below is where I'm at with the next larger painting. I have a feeling a lot, if not all will change tomorrow...

Abbey Barn

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Abbey Barn, maybe

This is why painters get the big money: you can work all day, like three whole hours, and this is all you end up with. I started out with a sunset scene -- you can still see some of the colors in the stone fence, but I did not like that, so I'll probably turn it into a morning scene again -- these colors have to go. Likely in blues and creams again... tomorrow promises to be another day of hard work.

My Old Petunia Again

Last fall I painted this gangly old pentunia  when it was three years old, and since it is now once more blooming indoors, I decided to paint it again this fall just to see how I would paint it a year later.  Last year's edition is still posted on my deviantART gallery, link in the right hand column.

I could not do justice to the flowers as they are a bright magenta, and I don't have magenta in my box -- and though I lack a great understanding of color, I have a feeling from my years in the printing business, that not having magenta means you can't get there from here...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Industry Along the Landa

Basically all I used today was yesterday's idea, just about everything else has been repainted. It is a bit too stiff for my tastes, but that is a result of using a smaller brush and a more detail orientated result -- though this is far from a realistic painting and a close as I care to come.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

In progress

The plan was, and though I had second thoughts about it, still is to have buildings along a canal that will cover a fair amount of the trees as they stand right now & will be reflected in the water as well. I was not crazy about my first set of buildings, sketched in another and then abandoned the idea.  But I'm over that now & will get it to work tomorrow. Maybe.

Early Morning Frost

Here is yesterday's start, finished. Not quite what I had in mind yesterday. I had to move the sun behind me so that the buildings would have a combination of sun and shade. I had at one point drawn in the tree branches for the nearer trees, but I did not like that effect, so I went for a more fuller approach. Owes a lot to my previous Market Garden painting.   The lighting was a bit uneven -- amazing how the camera picks it up though it is not visible to my eye -- so the photo is a little funky, but it will do.

18x25" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Work in Progress

Given my approach to painting -- a sketchy impressionism -- and my use of rather large brushes to keep me from getting too fussy about things, there is a danger that I might use my approach just to be quick and lazy. While I admit to nothing, I decided to use a smaller brush this time to concentrate my focus a little.

I paint right handed and paint on a desk rather than on an easel so that I tend to paint from the upper left corner down and across the board, if only to avoid dragging my cuffs through wet paint. I started this painting at the bottom this afternoon -- you can see what's left of the morning's work on top -- and decided that it was safer to wait until tomorrow when the bottom was dry before proceeding further.

Morning, High Street Lillihill

This is a plan 'B' painting, and improvised at that. My originally intended painting did not work out, and seems unlikely to do so, so I just grabbed a smaller board this afternoon and started to work out some ideas (I want to paint trees without leaves this week) -- and use the paint that would otherwise go to waste.  With smaller paintings I am a lot less fussy, and while this is nothing much, it isn't worth painting over.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Weir on the Lenant

I spent way too much time on this small painting today. I rather hope it will be the last one on this theme -- as I should be putting a little more thought into what I paint. I generally follow the seasons with my painting and the leaves are off the trees around here, so I will try my hand at painting leafless trees next week. That, at any rate is the plan.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Foot Bridge at Willowbee revisited

As a student of painting who is just trying to discover just how to paint, I don't have all that high of standards for keeping a painting. What it can't do, however, is bug me, and the building on the first edition of this scene, bugged me. So I took it out, and while I was at it, decided to make the whole scene a bit mellower.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Foot Bridge at Willowbee

This piece is a variation on Monday's The Weir Near Compton Station.  I  had that painting up and last night while looking at it without my glasses on -- the best way to view my paintings -- I noticed a light area that looked like it could be a building in the trees -- essentially this painting. This painting is a little too up and down, too literal, but it will do.

Painting like I do, I have to be sure that the viewers realize that I am not trying to be detailed. If there is any confusion, they might think I am trying to be detailed and failing.  That was the problem with my work yesterday which I scraped off and did not post. Besides not liking the colors, it was a too much of a scene, too detailed but not detailed enough to work.

Below is today's afternoon painting. It is actually the same scene that I was trying to paint yesterday, thought less of a set-piece then the first attempt. In my first attempt I was attempting to put my morning walk to good effect by painting sunrise on the trees and the full harvest moon still low in the western sky. It was just out of my current comfort range when it came to colors & such.  This one is one of my standard issue misty morning ones.

The Old Lock at Willowbee

each 18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Weir Near Compton Station

Back to painting this week. Pottered around with this painting all morning with little to show for it, so I started fresh this afternoon and just decided to go with the flow, and so I did.

18x24" 45x60cm  acrylic on hardboard