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

Mist and Willows

This is just something I did this afternoon to cover over the other River Crossing painting from last week. It is the type of painting I do without thinking at this point in time. I did not know what I wanted to paint: only that I wanted to cover up the previous painting, so I just started painting and went with the flow. I did try several other approaches that did not seem to work -- I was not happy with the colors,  so I ended up reverting to a familiar standard.  Who knows if this will last any longer than the painting underneath it.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

No Painting today

Having fun with another project, so I did no painting today. Maybe tomorrow -- getting some ideas in the meanwhile.

Bridge and Barges

Since I didn't have a clue as to what to paint today, I decided to go back and rework one of last week's less than stellar pieces. Just as in my writing, I find that it is sometimes best to edit out things to make a piece better. In this instance,  keeping only the bridge and barges I think improved the work -- even if you're not getting a lot of paint for you money.

It is a gloomy day here, so the photo is a bit funkier than usual.  I've taken hundreds of photos of paintings and I am amazed at how unseen tiny variations in shadow and light make a big difference in a photo and how hard it is to get all the colors right, no matter what you do.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Above the Weir at Copper Vale

Not great, but after a week of not painting well at all, I'll not complain.  I used to hate painting the summer's greens and looked forward to autumn and the autumn colors to paint, but I don't seem to be on top of my fall color game.  With a bit of luck, I will have next week to work on it...

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Chasing my tail

I did end up working on the River Cross Station Dawn painting (above) for what it's worth. This week I'm just chasing my tail and can't seem to get anywhere.  It appears that my leeriness of painting these scenes was justified.  Below is the down and dirty revision of River Cross Station Dusk that I did this afternoon -- removing River Cross Station and changing it into a boulevard for no improvement, but since I'm painting as a student: it counts as practice.   (Both 16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard).

Finally, since I had time, I decided, what the hell,  I'd do a quick study and take a peek at how tomorrow's paintings might work out in order to avoid even more tail chasing. At least I have the rest of the evening to think about this one.

River Cross Station, Dusk - Last Version

Above is the latest, and last version of River Cross Station, Dusk.  I'm not sure it is much of an improvement, but I'm having my doubts about the whole exercise anyways.  Below is my quick sketch of River Cross Station, Dawn, mainly blocked in for position.  Can't say I'm too fired up about it. I have two other paintings in mind for this week, so it may get bumped back to next week, if at all.

both 16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Nothing to Show Today

Decided to revise yesterday's 'River Cross Station, Dusk' painting and ended up it  and all my  day's work scraping off. Oh well. Did explore quite a few ideas, none of them worked, however.

River Cross Station, Dusk

I have been trying to figure out how to paint an urban scene without being too closed in. Today I simply opened up my umbrella and flew like Mary Poppins over the city. The painting turned out somewhat crude -- it always was going to be more than a little abstracted. I had hoped that I could paint the foreground in a bit more flowing manner, but as a first attempt, it will have to do. I'm planning a 'River Cross Station, Dawn'  and hopefully I can smooth things out a bit.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Market Garden, Autumn Morning (Sunday's edition)

If I hadn't painted a series of this themed paintings last year, I would have given up on this painting a while ago and painted over it. But having done these once, I did not like to think I could no longer paint them. This is the final version. I'll settle for it.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Market Garden, Autumn Morning (Saturday's edition)

Here is today's revision of yesterday's painting -- having the trees recede in the distance and a revised wall and foreground. Not thrilled by the foreground, will have to see if I can come up with something else.

Market Garden, Autumn Morning

I did a three painting series of market gardens last fall, and this painting represents a return to that theme -- for no particular reason. I had a barn or a shed on the left, but it looked clunky, so I moved it mostly off the frame and plunked in another one in the distance, back beyond the wall.  I really should try to get a few buildings into my paintings -- but I've not been very happy with them  when I do.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn Meadow Morning

This is my morning's painting. I decided to go with the flow and paint another tree and field painting, though this time I used the thinner, drier, more pastel approach similar to "A pond in a Mist" rather than the thinker technique of my usual  'Friday paintings' . I find I really have an aversion to painting straight 'set piece scenes'. That is to say paintings were all the elements, trees, buildings, people, trains, etc are plunked into their places to create a realistic setting or scene. For example, tossing in a deer or two in this painting. (Not that you could tell my deer from my cows or sheep.) Maybe I've done enough of those, or maybe this is just a passing fancy, but I don't feel like doing them. Expect more of these more abstracted landscapes.

18x24" 45x60 cm acrylic on hardboard

Below is my afternoon painting. I decided to keep trying to work on an urban version of my vague, foggy paintings. Luckily I decided to do so on a small scale, because this is as close as I could get to an urban setting. It turned out a bit gloomy, but it was a rainy, gloomy day, so it is in keeping with the afternoon's feeling.

The Lagoon on a Gloomy Afternoon

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

Small works

With nothing in mind to paint today, I decided to devote my time to painting some small works for an affordable art sale that a fellow artist puts on in early December. The lower right is yesterday's work, the other three are today's -- drawing on several ideas that I've used in the past month or so.

each is 6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Little Painting

Improvising as much as I do I expect to scrape off a lot of paint -- which is what I did with the day's major work.  I took a little time at the end of the day to do this small painting -- only it's small size and my small expectations saved it from being scrapped clean as well. I seemed to have taken a blurry photo of it and rather over sharpened it to boot ... but you can see all it's glorious texture.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Harbor with Lighters

There was a railroad bridge in this scene before lunch.  The problem was that it was hard to engineer it to be level and look right. Eventually I gave up and edited it out, changing the scene from a Thames-like river scene to this more industrial or harbor scene.  My intention was to apply this vague style to something other than trees -- cities in fact. The problem with cities is that  one generally views buildings from the street and it is hard to stand back from an building without making the painting rather unrealistic -- perhaps factories would easier to isolate and paint.  Tomorrow's project.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

River Morning

Last night, looking at last week Friday's painting I got an idea: I saw the trees as a plume of steam and smoke from a steam engine or two and so I set out today to paint such a scene.  And I did. The only thing is that I did not like it, and, having done some similar pieces, I decided that it was too much of a 'been there, done that' sort of thing, so I  scraped it off and scrambled for another idea.

The problem with painting cities and buildings is that they are rigid and sharp edged, so they're hard to render in a loose sketchy style typical of  this series of paintings, even in a fog.  It is a problem I've yet to solve, so I opted for a river scene today -- another option I've been considering.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard