WIP 23rd September

Finally a painting week - 5 probably done paintings and three more started.

Some studio tidying/clearing as well, as it is Open Studios on the 3rd and 4th October. It's really nice to have some space again and to get some new finished works up on the wall.

As you can see two of the new paintings are the 12 x 16 inch size - and one is my first big paper mask painting. Can't wait to see what these look like finished, as they look pretty strong already. The other one doesn't have as clear tonal differences and I'm more nervous about it but the plan is for there to be some subtle painting things going on, to counteract the dramatic subject matter. Next week you should be able to see how I've progressed - I might completely change my mind.

WIP 16th Sept 2016

Another mainly drawing week - as you can see I've been doing more 12x16 inch drawings as I really like this format and am planning a little series - out of the 14 drawings I can see me painting about eight of them, to join the two paintings I've already done. (you can get a glimpse of those in progress back at the start of August ). I've also started planning some bigger paintings, but feel I'm still very much in the beginning stages of this - and I feel that I'm going to need some time and experimenting to get this right. So for the time being I'll mainly be sticking to smaller things, under a couple a feet.

Oh, and I've started tidying in preparation for the open studios at Hanson St on the 3rd and 4th of October - would love to see some of you there!

WIP 9th September

A bit of a drawing week this one, partly because I didn't have a lot of studio time and partly as I wanted to explore the 12x16 inch format more. One of the changes that I'm planning is working with a more limited range of sizes and this one seems to fit a single figure quite well. Not all of these drawings will become paintings as some ideas are just better than others - the top right in particular I think should be a smashing painting, although I prefer the ones on the left as drawings.

So I had a day painting, in which I may have finished the top two and have made progress on the other two - if they have dried enough they will get more done tomorrow, with the little cat probably being finished then. The other one I suspect will take some time - not least because the aluminium is new to me and I'm still not decided if I'll leave part of the surface bare or not. Any opinions?

WIP 2nd Sept 2015

Mainly painting again this week - started four new paintings and done more work on six others, from changing the background to fully finishing. Eight of these should get finished over the next week and then I'll move on to finishing the five still lifes that have been in progress since before May. It will be a relief both to finish the uncompleted works and to get a batch of new paintings up on the walls.

Although I'm itching to get started on some bigger paintings based on the drawings I've done so far that might have to wait a few weeks until after the Open Studios at Hanson Street in the first weekend in October. Up until then I'll mainly be limiting myself to smaller works - I've been having ideas about a new series of works, all 12x16 inches. The plan presently is to spend Saturday doing drawings in preparation for these, so we'll see how it goes.