WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

With each new Blog post I always tell myself that I should do them more frequently than I do, but I have kind of given myself a break about it recently.  Of course I could create a blog post each time a new piece is created or when anything remotely interesting happens to me, but I kind of like waiting a couple of months between Blogs so that they have more meat to them, yeah sure they take me longer to write but I think I'd much rather be sat down in the right frame of mind with the right kind of  focus and create better content for you guys to read than bang out a blog every week or so.

Anyway, I'm rambling....

Since the last Blog I have created four new pieces and I'm currently working on another.
The first piece since the portrait I created of my father, is another toy inspired piece and one of my largest pieces to date, My father quite a few years ago gave me an old wind up toy aeroplane, I think with the intention to paint, but at the time I didn't really think of anything I could use It for so put it away for safe keeping. It was only when I was sorting through a few things that I stumbled across this wonderful little toy, obviously now I was creating a few pieces with toys and so this sparked a few ideas.

I knew I didn't want to paint the plane just on it's own and had a few Ideas, but one that kept coming around again and again was a composition that included a pilot, I started to search the web to find the right kind of toy but had no real idea what I would find, until I stumbled across the most perfect toy pilot I could have ever wished for, the colours were a perfect match for the plane, the little details on his uniform etc were exactly what I was looking for, and so a purchase was made.

A Couple of days later he arrived and I set about creating some compositions until I settled on one, this composition was simple yet striking and as I knew what the title would be It would be a nod to the British dry sense of humour.....the title...."Is this a wind up"

I felt this worked as I created the pilot with a very unimpressed expression as if to say "You don't expect me to fly this...do you" whilst at the same time having the more obvious fact that it was indeed a wind up plane.

 

"Is this a Wind Up"

48" x 36"

Oil on Panel

 

SOLD

 

 

The next piece that came out of the Studio was again based on an old Vintage wind up tin toy I had purchased for my self, It was a small boxing ring with two fighters in the centre and when you wind the toy up the fighters moved backwards and forwards allowing there one riveted arm to move freely and look like they were indeed throwing punches. Again I didn't want to just paint it exactly how it was and so I thought it would be a nice to give the piece a little change so I could show a mark of respect for one of my favourite films growing up, What film??.......Rocky

 

The way I was going to do this was to change the shorts of the two tin fighters to the short designs that both  Rocky and Apollo wore in the first film, only a true fan would notice this small change but for those of you that are not familiar here is a screen shot from the film Rocky

 

 

Film Still of the film Rocky.

 

Now I started painting this piece and to be honest I really struggled for some reason, I found the characters looked too cartoony and kept working on them to make them look more realistic, but then they wouldn't look like the tin material they were made of and this went on back and fourth until finally I decided to stop messing around and paint exactly what I saw  

 

 

The actual Tin toy I was attempting to paint with my painting in the background

 

I worked at it more and more and I feel it actually came out really well and looked like the material I was trying to render with paint

 

 

"Slugger Champions"

30" x 30"

Oil on Panel

 

AVAILABLE

 

The next piece came as a commission, the client was a chief fire officer and had liked some of my toy pieces and asked if I would paint him a little Lego fire fighter character putting out a tea light, his only request was that I painted the character with a white chief's hat.

 

I set about creating this piece for him and loved every minute of it, the particular challenge for me whilst creating this piece was painting the smoke drifting away from the candle wick, but I was really pleased with how I rendered this and felt it came out better than I was anticipating

 

 

"FIRE" - Commission

30" x 18"

Oil on panel

 

SOLD

 

 

Hanging in the clients home

 

 

At this point I was craving something with reflections and glass, for those that have followed my work this is as you all know something I love to paint.

 

And so this piece was created

 

"The Gambling Game"

21" x 21"

Oil on panel

 

SOLD

 

 

I also had a print made of one of my paintings from my show last year and had it framed to hang in my kitchen and finally got around to hanging it on the wall....and I love it!!

 

 

Marmite print hanging in my kitchen.

 

So, that's you all up to date with my goings on, I'm currently working on a few commissions but as always I'll be blogging about them soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Latest Boxing/Sports painting

Over the past month or so I have been working away in the studio working on my latest sport painting, and thought I would blog about the process from start to finish.

It all started whilst I was working out at my local gym and noticed this guy working out and immediately I thought to myself that he would be perfect for a painting I'd had in my head for a while. He was big at 6ft 3 and was covered in tattoos, so, not one to let an opportunity slip by I approached him and explained that I was an artist and told him all about my new body of work based on sports. He told me that he actually was a semi professional boxer and that he was in training for a fight, right there and then I knew he was the perfect guy to model for my latest piece. 

I booked him in for a photo shoot about three weeks after we had initially met, I had a rough idea on the composition I wanted and  so went about taking a number of photographic references.

When I then got back to the studio I uploaded all the photos into photoshop and found that the image was making his skin tone far to orange for the final look I wanted in my painting.

I wanted a loose background mixed of blues, whites, and browns but this orange tint to his skin tone would have made the figure sit awkwardly against my background and so I decided to use my own skin tone to mix the flesh colour as  I felt my skin tone would work better in the final painting.

Once I had mixed a light, medium and dark skin colour based on my arm tones,  I painted these three colours onto a piece of paper so I could continually refer back to them with each paint sitting so I had  continuity throughout the painting. 

I used at least three layers on each part of the portrait with each layer adding more drawing corrections, tonal correction, and details

Below are three images taken with my mobile as I painted the portrait section of my painting

Sketching and Blocking in

Here I used a thin mix of Burnt Umber to roughly sketch out the head,and then using my mixed skin tone started to block in tone to start adding form to the painting. 

Refining tone, and fixing drawing

Here I blended the tones out using a nice soft Sable blending brush and started refining the eye socket and nose It was here that I noticed that the head was the incorrect shape and as you see from the back of his neck to the top of his head the curve goes to high and gives him a distorted head shape. 

Finished portrait

As you can see I have fixed the head shape, and added several details like the stubble on his head, veins on his temple and facial hair etc as well as continually changing tones. 

With this piece I wanted it to be strong yet gentle at the same time, the boxer portraying the strength not only because of the nature of the sport of boxing but also because of the sheer physicality of the model. 

But to balance this I believe the pose and expression on his face add a gentleness to the image. 

I was thinking of a suitable title for the image but have decided even with all the fantastic suggestions by my facebook, twitter and Instagram followers I would like the viewer to decide why the boxer is in the position he is and what is running through his mind. And so I decided not to title so It doesn't influence the viewers thought process. 

"Untitled"

40" x 40"

Oil on wooden panel. 

Available at the Darren Baker Gallery London 

0207 580 5332

Must do better

Once again I must apologies for the lateness of this Blog. I do try and keep my Facebook followers up to date with all new works and information and post frequently on my page and If you haven't already then please follow the link on the right of the page and give it a "Like".

But with  my blog  I like to have a more in-depth feel to them, so can only really post when I have a spare hour In my day,which at the moment is becoming more and more rare the busier I get. But I know I must do better!!

Firstly I'd like to announce that I will be working with and represented by Cloud galleries, Cloud have three galleries that they manage based in Chester, Brighton and Worthing and I will be showing in all three in the near future. Damian the Gallery director approached me recently wanting to work with and show my work and of course I was more than happy to do so. I have created two brand new originals for my launch with them as well as providing them with three older pieces from 2012

"Crayon Stack"

24" x 24"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

"The perfect accompaniment" 

24" x 24"

Oil on wooden panel 

SOLD

Both of these pieces are available through Cloud Galleries - Telephone 01224 324 638

I have also just completed my 3rd of the sports series,  again using the sport of Boxing as the main inspiration. This piece was so much fun to paint and was one of my biggest ever paintings, and once again Sold within days of me finishing it so a BIG thank you to David at Warwick Studios Gallery 

 I have agreed that Warwick Studios will be showing the majority of  these new sports series of paintings as well as my more known still life works, so watch out for more to come and not just in the sport of boxing as I will be creating a number of sport related paintings over the coming months. 

"Champions are made not born"

48" x 32"

oil on wooden panel

SOLD

I am also currently in the process of creating a brand new sweets original for Warwick Studios that should be completed next week, so keep a look out for it. 

Painting Updates.

So here is the last replacement commission for Warwick studios gallery. As you must know by now a year ago there was a terrible fire at the gallery that destroyed the gallery and its contents, including 9 of my paintings, 4 of those painting were commissions and we were just discussing the 5th when the fire destroyed all the others.

Once everything had settled down the client, through Warwick studios, re-placed the order of all 5 commissions and this is the last replacement so only one more to do.

Grolsch replacement

36" x 25"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

With all the replacements I was adamant that I would change the composition of them slightly but with this piece I was really happy with the original composition and so decided to stick with it, by doing this I created myself a different kind of pressure as I had to make it better than the original because everyone could compare the two.

 I personally feel that this piece alone shows how I have grown as an artist. I feel my colour matching has improved the most and now there seems to be more of a realism to my pieces focusing on the subtle paint strokes and colours.  I think before I would over emphasize a highlight or light source and thought by adding a total black background made the central image look more striking but I have learnt to match my colours more accurately and realised that a highlight may be darker than you would think now i have this more tighter approach to mixing i'm constantly surprised at how different colours are to what you think especially with highlights quite often now i'll mix a highlight and think that cant be right its to dark its to brown/blue/purple etc but once I start laying the colour into the painting I realise just how much more realistic It is this combined 

with my change in background colour I feel I'm attaining a far more polished realistic painting's

As you can see in my newest painting below, this is a piece I've wanted to do for quite some time but with all the commissions I haven't had the time but with me delivering the commissions to Warwick studios gallery last  week I wanted to squeeze in a piece for them to hang and be the first gallery piece of the year. 

Pool Balls

30" x 30"

Oil on panel 

SOLD

Available at Warwick Studios 

And in other news, I have started a new and very different body of work based on my love of figurative works and boxing. I decided that I would produce the first two of the year and see what reaction I got from my followers on Facebook and I was really pleased with how well received they were. 

The first Is of a fighter in a blue hooded top shadow boxing, the idea of this piece is to have a feeling that the boxer is in a prison type environment with the desire to change his life, I used lots of grey's in the background of this piece and also used a authority type text to mirror his feelings, needing the "Focus" to stay on track, having "Faith" in either a god or family members, and the "Fear" of change. 

"Focus, Faith, Fear"

48" x 25"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD

The second piece I wanted to represent the religious element of a fighter. Some fighters are very religious using faith and prayer to keep themselves and there opponent safe and as a form of guidance to stay on the right path

Originally I wanted to put in a cross but I thought It would go against some other religions, but then a strange thing happened, whilst the painting was still in the burnt umber brown sketch stage, I was cleaning up the studio and moved one of my easels, and as I did so, the light shone onto the top of the easel casting a cross shadow onto the panel, I quickly grabbed a pencil and drew around the shadow and decided to keep it in the composition but made sure it was knocked back and subtly blended into the background. 

"Belief in the man and himself"

40" x 28"

Oil on wooden panel

SOLD