Frost

This my latest piece of "abstract realism". 

Inspired by the patterns frost made on the roof of my car, it is painted with Atelier acrylics on Daler Rowney Aquarelle NOT paper, and measures approx 9" by 13".

Horse portraits

Today, while talking to a couple of people, I had a blinding flash of the bl**ding obvious. Painting horse portraits has always been fun. Here are three examples from recent years. The most important part is that all these pictures have sold.

Clearly there is an urgent need to paint some more horses quickly. If anyone has good photos of handsome/beautiful horses that they don't mind me using, please send them in.

10 minute sketches of Members

Back to work after the Christmas/New Year break. Last night at Art Club we were sketching each other in no more than 10 minutes. It is great fun and something I always enjoy. However, we seemed to run out of steam after the tea break!

Next week we are due to do the same thing in colour, allowing 20 minutes per portrait. That should be a challenge.

Altered books

This was a new concept to me. Someone circulates a book to other artists, and each individual "adds" to the book by working on one or more pages. It is then passed on to the next artist, ad infinitum.

This book was a vegetarian cookbook belonging to a professional artist, who is also one of my tutors - no pressure then. I spent weeks trying to find inspiration from the content of the book. The best I could come up with was that most of the recipes would be good with a nice steak. Then I stumbled on  page 149, "Vegetable Cobbler", and I had a vision of a little old man sitting on the floor making sandals from butternut squash skins. Here he is.

Not an exercise I will rush to repeat. At least Jane seemed pleased with result.

In the style of Gustav Klimt

A number of people have asked if I am still painting. Apologies that I have not posted here for a while, personal pressures have meant that there has been little time to have fun, but here is another doodle.

The brief was to paint a portrait in the style of Gustav Klimt. This measures approx 8" by 14" and is painted in acrylics and other mixed media. While the portrait is not a great success ( can you guess the celebrity?) I am pleased with the overall effect.

Black Pearl Rising

This is a piece of nonsense, but a lot of fun all the same.

The task was to cover a piece of watercolour paper with random wet in wet colours. It was then covered in cling film and the cling film was scrunched up. After leaving it to dry a random coloured pattern was revealed. After studying it for some time, I could just make out a boat emerging from the sea. This initial "pattern" was developed using St Petersburg White Nights watercolour, Turners acrylic gouache and pastel to reveal the Black Pearl in all her glory.

A piece of hand-made paper from India was used, measuring approximately 15" by 11". The deckled edges all the way around it are just great.

Autumn leaves and berries

This is my latest pastel painting. It measures around 10" by 13" and was painted with Conte pastel pencils on Winsor Blue pastel paper.

A big thank you to Jane Denman for her help on this one (or it may never have been finished!)