Peonies and Peruvian Lillies on blue table

Peonies and Peruvian Lillies on blue table
Size 28X48 Acrylic on board

Here's a few pictures of my latest painting. Again this was a little larger than paintings I've been doing recently, so it was satisfying to work in this scale. I also always enjoy working in a stretched 'widescreen' style aspect ratio. It adds such a nice passage through the painting; great for landscapes or still lifes!

The early line work.
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Color plan
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Me working feverishly!
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in progress
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in progress (detail)
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The final painting again.
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a detail
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another detail
(I loved the compliment color of that shade of blue vase in front of the back drape)
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Blame it on Christmas!

With little ones in the house there's no end to preparations required for 'the big day'; to that end some things fall of the plate! Last weekend probably in place of doing essential Christmas shopping, I finally got round to hanging a few of my paintings and photographing them (something I'd been meaning to do for quite sometime). Let's hope that too much time spent doing this and painting in my studio doesn't result in a cancelled Christmas in the Wilson household - 'Baa Humbug!' ;-D

Usually I just present cropped images of my final paintings, but if I can supply a photograph of them with the frame or even better - on a wall with furniture, it can really give a potential collector a greater feel for the final work and it's appearance.



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Patterns

tulips on red patterned cloth
Size 36X18
Acrylic on board

Just finished this new painting, it was fun to put some patterning in again, in this case on the tablecloth. I vary a little how I approach painting patterns on cloths, but in this case I painted with fairly strong colors and then toned the contrasts back with a series of glazes. This is a process that works better with oil than Acrylic, since Acrylic washes do tend cover so poorly. The problem of course with oils is you have to wait a long time between each layer, so Acrylics can get the job done quicker.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the amount of tone and contrast in the cloth design, though I preferred the color tone of the little gray/blue/purple squares before glazing. I could have repainted these, but I wanted to keep the continuity across the design. Additionally of course the focus of the design is not solely the tablecloth, but I thought it was note worthy.

Snapdragons with Pears & Lemons
Acrylic on board Size 24X18

latest paintings

Helianthus with lemons
24X18
Acrylic on board

Stargazers with Pomegranate on green table

36X24
Acrylic on board

To copy is to study

The other day I'd been looking at some of my older work and realizing that over the last few years, my approach to accurate perspective had tightened-up, compared to some of my earlier pieces. I've always had a love for a casual or flagrant regard to accurate perspective and enjoy many Naive painters and the works of artists like Mary Fedden. Though I don't feel I wish to push my perspective or painting narrative as far this, I do feel I'd like to dabble with a more relaxed representation; at least for a while....Whether that's one painting or a larger volume of work is anyones guess.

To get this ball rolling, and help me break from my style I thought I'd have a go at copying another artists painting. - From time to time I like to have a go at working from another artists style or even an actual painting. I tend to really suck at this, but it's a great opportunity to learn their techniques and get a feel for how they paint. It's important of course only to use this as a learning tool and not to run away with their techniques on a more permanent basis.

After a bit of thought on who and what, I turned to a Scottish painter who's work I had admired back when I lived in Edinburgh, by the name of Archie Forrest. As a painter he regualry tackles Still life subject matter and has a far more relaxed approach to both his painting and perspective. Rather than trying to work on my own painting with his techniques I decided to try for a direct copy. This in theory allows me not to worry about anything other than the art of paint emulation.


I had this small low resolution web image of this painting, which made the deciphering of some information challenging, but I wasn't interested in a 100% copy I just wanted to get a feel for the work.

The greatest challenge turned out to be working with Acrylic, because Archie's work so clearly has a strong oily bend to it. I did my best to emulate this with some dry brush scrubbing over areas and working quickly in one area before moving on.

Here's what I came up with... the colors aren't quite as flat and bright as they appear (fire the photographer!)

Lilies by Forrest (no idea what the original painting is called)
18X25
Acrylic on board

I quite like the end result, of course the original painting is wonderful, so even a mediocre copy should be enjoyable. More importantly, it served as a break and springboard for me when going back to my work. I plan in my next few paintings to have a more relaxed perspective incorporated into my next few paintings, and hopefully this little exorcise has helped me break a little from usual method.

a triptych

Sunflowers and Lilies on long table
triptych - 30X24 (each panel)

I love painting triptychs and indeed diptychs too. Planning the structuring of the overall piece is so much fun. I try to make each section or panel hold up in it's own right, but still relate to each other. Additionally planning the lines within the painting becomes more interesting, because each panel division serves as a line too.

This is a painting I did last year, but the other day I had a collector considering it and then I thought, "well why not..."

I changed lots of minor things, - the colors inside the lilies, the color of the pineapple foliage bit (what are those bits called?), the lemons and sunflowers (a little), the segmented apple, etc... The end result is much tighter.

The final painting looks great, I love the way with a multi panel painting you can choose how much space to place between each panel as you hang them, to create a very different effect. I frame each separately; though I try to frame them in something contemporary that does not intrude or break the continuity of the three paintings and their relationship together.

a detail of one panel. (I like the way I handled the vase in this)