Monday, November 24, 2014

Back in the UK.

After a quick visit to Los Angeles to help my daughter Rosie settle into her new flat, Barry and I dashed back to New Mexico last Saturday, (it's a long way to drive in one day!!).  I only had one day to finish the big painting before leaving last Tuesday. 

I arrived back in Lincolnshire last Wednesday,  unpacked, packed and paid some bills on my Dad's house, loaded up my little car with my beetle cabinet and beetle boxes and drove up to Scotland on Friday to deliver my work to the Royal Scottish Academy.  Phew!!   My work had been pre-selected for the Scottish Society of Artists exhibition and I am now waiting to see if I have made it through to the final exhibition.  Luckily, I can stay with my friend Jasmin whilst I wait to hear.

As many of you know,  Edinburgh is not flat, so we had to be very careful not to let the sack barrow run away with us!  Here is Jasmin holding onto the cabinet.  She is very strong!!

Last post, I had promised to include the stages of the large painting I was trying to finish before returning to the UK.  I hope you enjoy them.  Please don't hesitate to ask questions.

I used to cover the whole of the canvas and then wipe out, but I work more directly these days.

Building up the image.

Although from my reference material there wasn't a river, I put one in because I thought it needed something for the eye to follow into the landscape.  Plus I wanted to echo a little of the sky colour and not just have a lot of green fields!
At this stage I began to mix Ultramarine blue deep with the Burnt Sienna to create the darks.
Big decisions to be made on the colour of the fields,  to bring some fields forward and push others back. 

I found it difficult to find the appropriate colour for the distant hills, wanting them to be fairly true to the colour which is quite warm,  but needing them to recede.  Forming the structure of the hills.
Adding the sky, hoping to create the atmosphere. 

Rolling Mist - The Lake District 40 x 64 Oil/Linen

When the whole painting was covered and I had worked on all the tree shapes, tweaking the lights and darks and the distant hills, I let the painting dry.  Then I covered the distant hills and the sky in a milk glaze... transparent white, paynes grey and a tiny amount of ultramarine blue.  This pushed the hills back.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those in the US.  My birthday once again falls on Thanksgiving day.  Last time it did that was when I was 50 and Barry and I took off to Oaxaca.  That does sound very appealing, but I will be happy to stay in Scotland.

Bye for now.




Thursday, November 6, 2014

Time flies!

I can't believe that I only have 12 more days before I go back to the UK.  I have been really busy getting paintings finished and revamping my website, which I am hoping will go live soon.

Since I have been here, I have partaken in two exhibitions at Ventana Fine Art and prepared two paintings for the Small Works, Great Wonders show at the  National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  Barry and I enjoyed the Paint Out day on Canyon Road, Santa Fe and met lots of clients and lovely people.  It was fun. Lots of good food and of course, wonderful art!! We have painted up in the mountains and at Ghost Ranch and to be honest, I am not really ready to leave beautiful New Mexico yet.

I am working on a really big painting at the moment and have documented the stages because I have had many requests to show my way of working.  I am sorry I have been so bad at dealing with these requests, but, well, as you know, I have had a busy year.  I will post this next time... 

Thanks for sticking with me during these difficult months.  Your kind words have been so helpful.

So, here are a few photos from the last few weeks.

On the easel and pretty much done!

At the Canyon Road Paint out. Photo by Jennifer Davenport.

Kitchen Mesa at Ghost Ranch

Painting up in the Sangre de Cristos

The colours we so amazing.

I think Connie did such a great job hanging of these little ones.   
Me and my some of my work at Ventana Fine Art