Double portrait started

Matthew has been working on big double portrait of Mandy & Desi
have a look at it here:
Paintings

They have gone off travelling now for a week to learn how to surf.

Amanda and Desi arrive in New Zealand

Amanda and Desi arrived in Auckland 7 hours apart from each other on different flights. One at nearly midnight and the other at 7am. Both arrived safely and got over the jet lag very quickly. Here they are with Joe in the Winter Garden in Auckland Domain.

Halloween

Anita bought a pumpkin to carve for Halloween. It was quite difficult to do and resulted in Matthew's assistance. Here is the finished result which is a very friendly pumpkin!

Joe has a hair cut

We decided that Joe looked far too much like Albert Einstein and needed a hair cut. This is Joe before he had his hair cut up a tree in Cornwall Park.

Kotaro

Here is a new painting I've started of Kotaro Suzuki, who is staying with us for some months. He spent a lot of time learning one of Bach's preludes and I thought it would be good to see as a painting.

College Rifles Badminton Hall.
I've got to prepare a speech for the AGM coming up in November and I find the best time to write it is 4 am.

Another sunny day on the roof. The wind didn't get up until about midday when it took me by surprise and knocked the canvas off the easel onto my palette. A few splodges of paint and some swearing later, I secured it again only to have the same thing happen again.
Here is the result of the mornings painting.
I am getting 6 paintings ready for an exhibition which I'm getting a bit anxious about and I want to include this one. I is not quite finished though and the deadline is this weekend!

Another windy and hot day on the roof.

Today wasn't as windy as yesterday, but my canvas still got blown off the easel as soon as my back was turned. How do these 'plein air' painters manage without having to wait for weeks for the perfect day with a clouldless sky and not a breath of wind? Today for example if I saw that the sun had come out, I made my way upstairs but by the time I got set up, a large dark cloud had come over and a shower started! Off I trot with canvas, easel, paints etc inside.

Anyway here are the results of today's painting.

The partition wall is complete and I've gibstopped (filled the holes in the plasterboard) and painted it so it is ready for visitors or another homestay. Here it is from the outside of the room.


and here is Joe helping me build it.

A great windy day for painting on the roof

Today was a hot and windy day for painting on the roof. I have no pictures from today either of the hot windy weather directly or of the painting I have started, so here instead is an old one of a lovely hot day in Coromandel when we were on holiday:

And here's one of the others on the beach when it was not quite so sunny.

I will update you on the progress of the new bedroom tomorrow with some photos. (that is if anyone is watching!!)

Busy week after the flu.

At the beginning of the week I thought I'd had it. I had a bad case of flu' and several days in bed looking at the sky through the bedroom window. When I thought I was getting better I got up and started building another bedroom downstairs in the area where we used to watch tv.
That area we have since vacated as we moved the tv upstairs and we found it just to be a vacant space.


So, here it is semi built. After I got this far I was in bed for 2 days. Anyway, with the use of a nail gun borrowed from Barry Bright, it was up pretty quickly.

Stadt Weimar at Auckland Port

Here is the painting of the ship so far.
I'm trying to create a bright sunny day which is from imagination as when I saw the boat, it was raining so those drawings and photos I took had a completely different look.

New painting of the port

I have started something a bit different. It's come out of the cityscapes and I'm not sure where it is going but here is the drawing. You can just make out the cranes over the container ship.

It is bigger than anything so far and on a large easel which I can pull up and down using a small pulley.

You can see another idea I had underneath. A double portrait of Anita and Myself. I wasn't happy with it so am trying something new.

I've finished the painting of Tom at last. Anita suggested I get rid of the mysterious sheet behind him because it was distracting. so I've done that and kept it simple. I also brightened up the carpet area in front of him to create a pool of light there. I think it is better so I'm going to leave it as it is. You can see it at the Paintings site: www.gallerynewzealand.blogspot.com

I have got into an exhibition called the Original Art Sale at the TelstraClear Pacific Centre http://www.theoriginalartsale.co.nz/
which is happening at the end of August/early September, so I'm getting 6 paintings ready for that.

I've been painting a few oil sketches too. Cityscapes and views from the roof. Yesterday I was up there sheltering from showers which came every half an hour and trying to paint at the same time! One of the sketches is of Devenport and Rangitoto Island which I intend to make up into a big painting. Could be one for the exhibition if it turns out OK.

I thought I'd have a go at a still life because I havn't got anybody new to sit for a portrait. So to keep myself busy I'm doing a big cityscape during the day and this still life during the night.
The cityscapes are on a new blog which you will see at sidebar.

This one is oil on board, size: 24"x24" and shows the first coat on most of it plus a 2nd coat on the brown bottle.
I didn't do an underpaint on this, just a charcoal drawing which I scuffed out and then another charcoal drawing which I was happy with.

update on Tom WIP

It's a bad photo I know but it shows what I need to change in this new painting. That is the right lower leg length which is too long. I should have taken more time at the underpaiting stage.!!

WIP anita standing

Sorry this is blurry. (I need to use a tripod but have left it at Figgins.)
Now I've replaced it with a new photo.

New painting of Anita started

I started this one last weekend and this was how it was after the first paint of the head.
I will post more soon of updates.

Paintings and drawings on new site

I'm posting new paintings and drawings on the other sites, accessible from the links on the right. There is a new oil of Anita and Rainny and lots more drawings from our trip to the Coromandel at Easter.
We'll go back to posting other stuff here like photos of that holiday.

Update on Standing SP

Here is a detail of the head which is about 2 inches in length.
And below is the half length detail. I've used a limited palette for this painting so far.

New websites

Don't forget to check out the new sites from the links to the right.

Charcoal drawing

Here's a big charcoal drawing. It's on A1 size paper which is 23" x 33"
I wanted to do a big drawing and have found it difficult to get the scales right in different areas as I am looking in one direction only without being able to see the rest.

Update on Standing SP

I've done a second coat on the face, hands, and the clothes. I've also adjusted the shoulders to be higher to shorten the neck as it was a bit long! It may still be too long. I'm not sure what to do with the room just yet, but I'm thinking about it.

Pastel of Anita watching TV

Pastel on dark green Canson paper. 19" x 23"
This one I have made the effort to finish and I'm much happier with it now it has some more interesting background. I've also tried to sort out the issues with her eyes and hands and it is a bit better. I'm going to leave it as it's already been sitting around for months.


Detail.

New weblog for Paintings and Drawings

I have started a new separate site for drawings and paintings. This is accesible by clicking on the link 'Gallery New Zealand' on the right.
I will be transferring all work there to keep this one free for other family photos as they have taken a back seat recently.
Please check out the new site and let me know what you think by commenting.
Thanks.

Here is the 1st paint. Not much colour there yet but that can change.

New Self portrait

I've started a painting of Anita and Rainy but have only managed the charcoal drawing stage. Tomorrow I'll start underpainting it. In the meantime, I've also started another self portrait. Here it is in the early stages. I'm adopting the Claude method of underpainting in pinky brown as the final drawing, before starting the painting proper.

A pastel drawing of Anita on coloured paper. Still in progress.

I've done some more work on the shirt, jaw, face and now I will probably leave it more or less as it is. Time to start something else.

I have painted over the sky and clouds background and returned it to the pale blue but with a bit more yellow in it to bring it closer to the yellow in the figure. I have worked into the face some more this time adding a pinker range of skin tones so reducing the yellow.
I have done the same with the hand.

Sky Background

I've put a sky into the background but I'm not liking it. I am going to try to improve the cloud forms and also change the overall colour of the figure or background or both, but I'm thinking I may change it back to a more simple one.

I've done another session on the oil. I've worked in some background and worked up the figure. I had a blue undercoat on the board before painting and after I'd painted the figure I like the undercoat colour, so I've kept a similar colour for the background when I painted it, like a new Zealand sky. I may put in some variation in there. I'm not sure what to do with the lower background apart from making it darker. I'd like to take it out of the studio to an exterior with a sky.
Also, I need to do some rearranging of the jaw. It needs to project more to the left.

Work in Progress

I've started an oil on hardboard here. I have mixed a bit too much linseed oil into the dark paint for the shirt and as can be seen it has run down the board.

New Weblog for drawings and paintings

I am starting a new site/weblog more for the wider world to look at drawings and paintings.
It will be at: www.gallerynewzealand.blogspot.com

Please have a look and let me know what you think.

I have pretty much finished work on the Anita portrait now, as I want to start something new. One thing I have found with pastels is that mixing is limited; you can mix on the paper by smudging which is a bit haphazard. So for this reason very large ranges of colours are produced to allow you to choose the colour you want. I have a range of 24 and I have found that to be far too small, especially in the dark colours. I found myself using black quite a lot in Anita's portrait because there just wasn't another colour dark enough. I have a dark blue which is the next darkest and up from that is a dark brown which is quite a bit lighter.

The other problem is that working on a small scale is tricky because of the bulky-ness of the pastel sticks. Sometimes I want a fine point to draw a line say for around the fine lines of the face. Trying to locate the corner of a thick stick of pastel is haphazard and I don't get enough control over where it is going on the paper.

I am going to read up about these issues for solutions, but I am thinking I may start oil painting soon.

Anita Portrait

I am going to leave this one now and start something else.
The scale of the drawing is such that the detail in hands and face are a bit difficult with the bulky pastels. You have to sort of guess where the line is going to appear and sometimes mistakes are made. I could sharpen the pastel into a pencil-like point but it seems an awful waste of pastel!
Anyway, there are still some issues with the general drawing which I have to sort out.

Portrait in progress

Here is a portrait of Anita in progress. It is a pastel on grey coloured Canson paper. Size 24' x 19'. I have yet to put in the cusions she is sitting on that are on the table, then she won't look like she is floating.

Hands and Feet Studies

Here are a few studies of hands and feet. They are all my hands and feet that's why the hands are all left hands as my right hand is drawing. I want to do some studies of two hands together sometime and will have to ask someone else other than myself to model.

These are all graphite pencil on paper.
Either A2 or A3.

Bottles finished

That's it for the bottles. The paper I used here is wrapping paper, probably better used for multiple sketches as it doesn't have enough texture, called 'tooth' to hold the pastel. I am not entirely happy with it but I am going to start on something else now.

Weather changing

Here it is changing from one to the other. (see below)
Rangitoto island in the distance is in sunshine while we are probably about to have a torrent of rain.

Weather

This was the scene on New Years Eve. The weather here is alternating between this sort of stormy, rainy stuff to hot bright sunshine. If I can find a photo of the sunshine then I'll post it, but for the meantime you'll have to trust me.

Work in Progress

Another pastel drawing in progress. I've had a bit of trouble with this one and have changed the background a couple of times.
It is drawn on brown parcel paper (not the best quality but very cheap) and it doesn't have quite enough texture to the surface.

Jars

This one was drawn with a Rotring technical pen . It is my old pen which is about 30 years old. I used a nib size of 0.3 which is pretty thin, and I found that the ink flow struggled on this paper. Probably a smooth card would be better. The paper used here is fairly smooth but does have a fine texture to it.