Commission completed and loved!

Spring Meadow II
30 x 36 Oil/Linen

Here is a pretty poor photo of one of the commissions. You may remember I posted a smaller version of this a while back and my client saw that and requested a larger one... which was great having already solved some of the problems. I delivered it this weekend at her 50th birthday party and it felt really good when we unwrapped it in front of a group of friends and relatives and saw their looks of admiration! Nothing like that to boost one's ego! I wish the darker areas would have photographed better, there is so much going on, but Oh well, I don't have a fancy photography studio and will just have to make do!

What was interesting about this commission was that the request was to keep the abstract quality and the intense blues, which I did. It gave me permission to enjoy the loose brush strokes and intense somewhat unrealistic colours!

I am now at my Dad's for a few days, which is really lovely. (Hi Dad!xx)

Laying out a painting

As mentioned before I seem to have a lot of commissions on at the moment and this is one of them. Commissions can be quite scary I think. Just painting on a large canvas and the investment involved can be bad enough when you have been painting quite small for a while! Anyway, I have pretty much finished the first one, which I would post but I haven't managed to get a good photo of it. So, I thought I would post the stages that I go through when laying out a painting. Already I can see I need to lift the right hand side of the painting, so it's definitely worth taking photos .. you can see a lot more this way. I am quite pleased with the start though. I will post more as I go along.

For those of you that were interested in my give away... all I can say is huge apologies..but the little painting I had earmarked got sold (I can't pass up the money at the moment!)... so I am afraid we will have to wait a while until I have time to do another one... but I haven't forgotten, honest!

Good painting spots for my workshop.

I went out looking for good painting spots for my workshop in September yesterday. Unfortunately I just happen to choose the one day in the last couple of weeks when the light was flat, but I did find two more places which would be good for painting, plus plenty of space to park. I am busy working on commissions, so not going out to paint much. Plus I sold a painting in my new gallery last weekend, so I am really happy about that!

I have to say it has just been glorious lately. The walk to my studio is so wonderful that I turn down the offer of rides just so that I can walk. The trees are all out now and the horse chestnuts are in full bloom. Tonight on my way home, I climbed up the hill behind the house and took some more photos. The X marks the location of my studio. Can't ask for more!