A Bend in the River

4x5" oil on canvas board. $30. Available here

Here's a little study of our local nature reserve. I really enjoy doing little landscape studies, having to simplify everything into patches of light and dark. I learn a lot about composition from them. It's helping plan the larger works a lot.

Sharing Secrets

5x4" acrylic on canvas board. SOLD

Here's another attempt at pears. They're an interesting subject, great curves and subtle colours. I'm pretty happy with my brushwork on this one. I'm trying to let go of the need to render everything in minute detail. Getting there!

Soft Colours and Long Shadows

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

Here's another little still life with lemon slices, this one with a much gentler palette.

Primary Palette

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

Here's another little still life in acrylics. The highlights on the cherry tomatoes came out well here, I think.

Colourful Crowd

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

I really love the way light bounces back off brightly coloured objects to create colourful shadows. I'm really enjoying these bright, vibrant arrangements at the moment.

Cornered Lemon

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

I really enjoyed painting the bright colours in this little picture. I wanted a warm, light feeling. I'm really happy with the shapes the shadows create.

Surrounded Pear

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

Another little composition with a pear and some radishes. Trying to capture the mottled green and brown colours on the pear is a real challenge. So far I've been simplifying it which seems to work relatively well, but I have a few other ideas in mind I might try out in future paintings.

Pear and Radishes

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $18. Available here

I did a series of little still life paintings the other night, playing with different coloured underpaintings. But it was late and I forgot to write down which was which, so in the end I haven't learned much from it, other than that I quite enjoy painting while watching tv, and I really love these 4x5" canvas boards.

Scattered

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

A return to my faithful old friends, mange tout and cherry tomatoes.

Lemon and Radishes

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

I have discovered a tv show I quite enjoy, a bit unusual for me as I normally lack the patience for them- they just take too much commitment. You mean I have to watch 10+ episodes to find out what happens...? That's a lot of tv, you know. I could be painting. But this one is just too good to walk away from, so I've been setting up small still lifes on my desk and trying to paint while watching it.

Stream With Trees

7X5" oil on canvas board. $40. Available here

Here's another painting of my favourite little river, which never ceases to inspire me, it seems. It's fun to see how the greenery has exploded into life around it, compared to the very brown plein air study I did back in January, or the other studies of it from this winter.

Wooden Bridge In Spring

5x7" oil on canvas board. $40. Available here

Here's another picture painted after a walk; a little wooden bridge on our local nature reserve, surrounded by colour. The trees are a beautiful range of greens, yellows, reds and pinks right now. It was really fun to do a landscape with more than just green and brown in it!

Path Near The Allotments

5x7" oil on canvas board. SOLD

I found myself up earlier than usual one day last week and went out to do some painting. When it got too hot to sit in one place (and my paints were drying up on the palette faster than I could use them) I took a long walk and got lots of new reference photos to paint from. This is from one I took that day, of a path which leads past some allotments. I don't usually walk past them but I'm glad I did on this occasion. There's a great atmosphere in this little area, very calm and pleasant. I had good fun painting this little study, exploring the range of greens, yellows and purples.

Pomegranate

8x8" acrylic on canvas board. $55. Available here

I had so much fun doing my small pomegranate study I did another, larger painting. I really love how this one came out.

Pomegranate Wedges

4x5" acrylic on canvas board. $30. Available here

Mum bought me a pomegranate to paint. I love the rich colours and the pools of juice staining the plate. The wedge shapes are great fun to paint. I love the kind of dynamic compositions they create.

Colour of a Crush

5x7" acrylic on canvas board. $40. Available here

Getting creative with these titles again, haha. When I was in primary school, I had a massive crush on this boy who owned an orange and green striped shirt. It was an awful shirt, but he wore it a lot, and whenever I see orange and green together, that's what I think of. Associative memory is a funny thing...

Duck Study

8x8" oil on canvas board. $55. Available here

I was scrolling through my Isle of Wight photos a few weeks ago and found some shots of a duck, sitting by a puddle in the middle of a pig pen at Quarr Abbey. I wanted to try and capture the subtle colours of the feathers- I thought it would be quite a challenge, but it turned out to be the easy bit. Duck proportions, plus foreshortening, gave me quite a headache. Pleased with how it turned out though!

A Break in the Clouds

6x6" acrylic on canvas board. SOLD
I'm in the middle of backing up everything on my computer, preparing to upgrade to Windows 10. It's amazing how quickly the 'stuff' on a computer multiplies- I have a sprawling mass of folders to go through, and a ton of software I only use for five minutes a year, and it is a big, big job to figure out what needs saving and what I can lose.

Anyway, the point is that I needed something calming to help me prepare for the long night ahead, so here's a cloud study. I love the way light hits the edge of dark clouds, creating amazing contrast.