Dawn, low tide on Samdsend beach

Dawn, low tide on Samdsend beach

Another from the archive.

All the way back from 2010.

It's been a long time since I did a dawn at Sandsend near Whitby, I think this could be on the cards in the next few weeks. If I remember rightly the sand ridges were a nightmare, trying not to get paint in the water. 

I'm not sure that the camera has given a faithful reproduction of the original's colour.

Caravaggio chicken

Painting chickens is so much fun, I'm still smiling now at this one. I think I'm going to have to do a few more.

Beech tree completed...I think

I think this is just about finished, I'll let it hang around for a bit just in case I feel the need to tweak some more. 

 GREEN

 Last week I sold two large paintings including my last spring woodland scene, so I decided that I'd revisit by favourite Beech tree in Grosmont woods. I love trying to capture the vibrancy of the new spring growth especially when it's cold and grey outside. Over the last couple of weeks I've been practicing on small pieces in preparation for this one.

So this would be a good time to talk about greens. Green should just be blue mixed with yellow as we all learnt in primary (junior) school. However I've spent the day throwing all kinds of colours into the mix, including Prussian blue, pthalo blue, violet, mauve blue, burnt sienna, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow and Winsor green (pthalo green).

There are many ways of mixing effective greens and sometimes it is fun to allow yourself to run out of your main colours so that you are forced to get inventive. Currently I have no French ultra marine.I like to concentrate on warming the sunlit colours and keeping the shadows dark and cool. It's very tempting to get the tube of black out...but black is for wimps and doesn't blend so well. The hardest part is keeping the whites and yellows clean.

My intention when I set off was to use a large quantity of purple in the distance and shadows so that hopefully when it came to putting in the very yellowy greens of the sunlit areas the would stand out.

My distant colours ended up being a mix of Prussian blue, Winsor violet and burnt sienna or yellow ochre. Then to develop the shadows I started introducing pthalo green but cooled right down with Prussian blue and pthalo blue.

As I started moving into the sunlit areas I started mixing burnt sienna into the pthalo green which gives a gorgeous colour with real depth. For the very sunlight exposed areas I used white with small amounts of lemon and Winsor yellow. I then blended the yellows into the warm greens to get a nice transition.

The picture is now basically finished, tomorrow I will spend a few hours tweaking it but I doubt it will change anything significantly. I'm sat here with a brain like mush but hopefully the boy done good.

For a much simpler explanation of the way I tackle greens try this http://chrisgeall.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/a-lesson-on-green-i-felt-unhappy-with.html

The palette knife

I have a good friend who is dabbling with painting and would much rather get small chunks of specific information rather than an expansive view of the whole complexity of a painting from start to finish. So in that vein I'm going to gradually tell you all about what I do.

I call myself a palette knife painter so that's seem the obvious place to start.

This is my palette knife, I have three, all are the same size. I used to only have one and I didn't know it's make or number and so when I eventually stumbled across the same ones I bought a couple more. I wrote down the make and number so that I'd never be worried about not having the right tool again. Of course I don't remember where I wrote down the information now......and there is no information on the handle.

The blade is just over 6cm long and 2cm wide at it's thickest point. I personally find it better to know one tool well rather than continually swapping sizes. Shorter blades lack flexibility and larger ones are too cumbersome. I find that I can get incredible detail by just using the tip but also can really slap the paint on when I need to.

I would advise you to try out several mid size knives before settling on the one for you. Mine is much more of a trowel than a knife, the longer bladed knife shaped knives are unwieldy in my opinion and hamper painting rather than helping.

My knife has become an extension of my right hand now, I feel totally at ease using it and know exactly how it's very gentle curved edge will perform. 

I started using the knife due to frustration at brushes becoming clogged with a muddy mix of colours and never cleaning properly from a quick wipe with a rag. The knife allows you to have much greater control over the cleanliness  of you paint but also allows you to work straight from the tube without using smelly solvents. Unfortunately you do use a lot more paint.

Mixing paint can happen both on the palette and the canvas. in order to get realistic changes in colour, especially for skies, I gradually blend away until I'm happy with the result. Other times  I will try and cleanly flick one colour on top of another without allowing them to mix at all. I always use the top edge of the knife.

I always use a tear off paper palette block, so that each painting is started with fresh colours. Some oil colours have a nasty habit of drying overnight and if you try using them the next day it will not mix or apply properly.

I naturally work from light to dark so by the end of each painting I have a a dark muddy mess on the palette and quite often break out a fresh one to come in with any highlights.

This is the finished painting from the little video.

Whitby Abbey

Whitby abbey in soft evening light.

I dug this one out from the archive and I'm quite taken with the lighting.

Waterfall below the bridge in Doctor's wood, Grosmont

I was just looking back through last years photo's and this one jumped out at me so I thought I'd share it.

Longniddry power station with Edinburgh's Arthurs Seat in the background

This is a commission of the now demolished Longniddry power station just outside Edinburgh. I have fond memories of windsurfing and beach parties in the area when I was a student. 

I tried to do a video of the process but hit problems getting my Android phone to talk to my Mac, I'll try again next week with my Nikon.

Great Fryupdale head

This morning I decided to see whether Great Fryupdale would work on a squarish canvas, I'm undecided at the mo. 

And before you ask the name is not after the breakfast but rather the goddess Freya (Freyja) 

This lovely view is on the coast to coast trail.

Two little woodland studies

Just a couple of sketches from yesterday