Morning in Dering Crescent 2

Sorry, getting rather uncreative with names, probably too many paintings too alike. Otherwise, I've been exploring the cooler shades of green recently, but I'm more of a gold and yellow sort of painter, so this is a step back in that direction, but only a step.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in Dering Crescent

A rather blah painting, but it was Thursday and I only had one painting done this week. My quota is two. So I was determined to meet my quota before deadline. It will make for a more mellow Friday.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Lansworth After a Shower (revised)

The sky was pretty boring, especially after it dried, so I tried to give it a little more life and drama with this revision.


18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Lansworth After a Shower

I mentioned in a recent writeup in my gallery at deviantART that I have trouble doing houses in this abstracted style. They're too regular shaped. In this picture I avoided the problem entirely by hiding all the houses behind the trees in their front yards... either that or people live in trees in Lansworth.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Great House Fence

Worked on this piece yesterday and today. Originally it was a flat scene with a regular house on the left half of the painting, but I neither liked the house and I wanted a bit more depth in the painting so I all but eliminated the house and curved the road into the painting.  This style of painting is not very good for representing buildings.  They're too regular to fit the more slap-dash style of the trees.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Dreary Day in Lansworth

It's a dreary day here too, but at least the snow is a hour north of us today so I'll not complain, I'll just mention it. 

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in the Mews 4

Today's installment of this little series. Likely the last as well.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in the Mews 3

I had nothing to do this afternoon, so I did another version of the same, this one a mash-up of the previous two. Just being lazy, mostly, but hopefully I've learned something by doing it over and over again.  

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in the Mews 2

A more monochromatic version of yesterday's scene. Fairly boring, but being a small painting 6x8" 15x20cm, I'm not going to worry about that too much.

Spring Morning in the Mews

I'm thinking this local might be my next series, but this first attempt casts some doubts as to how suitable it actually is. If it wasn't just a little 6x8" 15x20cm piece I'd probably paint over this one, but oh, well, maybe by tomorrow I'll figure out what I need to do...

Misty Morning in Crofthaven Close

I set out this morning with the intention of doing one more Light Rain in Lansworth painting, only this time on a larger, 40x60cm scale. This is what I ended up with: certainly not Lansworth, thus it has it's own title. Yesterday I'd seen a photo of Whistler's Nocturne: Blue And Silver  and I had that painting in mind when I was working on this one to the  extent that I did not care to make anything too defined or too dark and followed something of his color scheme.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Light Rain in Lansworth 6

Another variation on the theme. I'm having fun doing these little paintings, but maybe I should move on to a new theme.  Well, I've got the day to think about what next.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard 

Light Rain in Lansworth 5

Today's piece is a bit more gloomy this time around. Not exactly grey skies, but close.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Light Rain in Lansworth 4

Yet another rainy day in Lansworth. Seeing that I don't like painting blue skies, it may be raining for a while yet. I did make another try on painting a grey rainy day, but it looked to cold and unpleasant, and there's too much unpleasantness around to add to it...

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Light Rain in Lansworth 3

A little different colors this time... maybe a break in the clouds, but it's still raining.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Light Rain in Lansworth 2

This morning's piece. I started out intending to paint a grey rainy day, but chickened out. I know you can paint beautiful pictures in greys, but mine always seem to look so gloomy - but then I usually don't finish them. Tomorrow I'll try to finish one...

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Light Rain in Lansworth

Here's today's 6x8" (15x20cm) painting. It is nice to be able to sit down with no idea and mind and just play with paint -- and at a size that does not challenge my attention span...

A Street in Blues

Here's another little painting I did this afternoon. I had to work to make sure I didn't put in too many details...

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Bright Morning in Pangone

I've been meaning to get back to painting some small paintings like this one. Some of my favorite pieces are small, though is not exactly one of them. Still, I have another 11 boards cut this size, so we'll see what I can do once I get back into the swing...

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Country Lane in Spring (rev.)

Here's what's painted over yesterday's Country Lane in Spring. It is an almost virtual redo of An Upland Road on a Frosty Morning, posted below, so I don't think I'll keep it like this, but I'm just playing around right now...

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Country Lane in Spring

This is just an improvised piece that I'm far from sure I will like tomorrow. I do want to do a misty morning scene, but I'm not sure this is it.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 6

A bit different than the rest of the series, but pretty much what I wanted to do.  This may be the last on the series, however, at least until I can think of a new angle.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 5(rev)

Just after I posted the first version and commented on how the buildings had gotten grander than I had originally envisioned, I decided that not only had they gotten grander, but they had gotten out of scale as well. They looked  bigger than the space would have allowed. Now there's not a lot of realism in my paintings, but the one area that I do try to be realistic is in the shape of the scene. I don't insist on strict drafting exactness, but I try to have my paintings seem like they could be based on real scenes, even if I don't paint them that way. Since I had to do the buildings over, I decided to go back to the more modest type of row house, as I had painted the first time around.

Spring in Blysmith Station 5

This piece started out looking a lot like the last one posted: mostly in blues -- too much like the last one, so I went the other way and made it a sunny morning. My idea was to have a series with smaller terrace houses but I seem to have drifted into painting bigger buildings.  I'm going to have to come up with some other ideas now, as I think I've done enough street scenes like these.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 4

Another rainy day in Blysmith Station. I had a lot more color in this painting at one time, but it didn't work (or I couldn't get it to work), so we ended up with a very blue piece.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 3

This is more like it - less fussy and clunky, more fluid and relaxed.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 2

Again, a bit too clunky. Not what I was hoping for. I did up the size of my brush to try and avoid picky details, but still not the free impressionist painting I'm shooting for.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring in Blysmith Station 1

Not what I set out to paint; too many colors, but that's what improvising is all about. I'll try for a little more monochromatic painting next time.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Hamdril Hill, Lansworth (Minor revisions)

A few minor revisions this morning to the last post: such as giving the top of the retaining wall more of a curve and changing the color of the figure so that she's less a part of the wall and sidewalk then she was wearing blue, plus a few touch-ups to the light.

Hamdril Hill, Lansworth

I generally like to keep my views on the level, since I mostly make them up in my head or on the board as I paint, and looking up or down a hill makes designing them more complicated. I think you need more detail than I use to create the illusion of depth and prospective, especially looking up a hill. Looking down a hill, as in this case, is easier in that one can create an opening that can be used to define the depth of the scene, something looking into a hill one can't do.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard