Midlands Open 2011

I've had a painting selected for the Midlands Open 2011 held at the Tarpey Gallery in Castle Donnington. The selected work was 'Blues Guitarist' seen below at upper left. I went to see the exhibition today and I have to say it's one of the best I've seen for ages, with an eclectic mixture of work as expected from this type of exhibition. The high standard of the work on show, the thoughtful hanging and the gallery space itself make this a must see exhibition. It's great to see a small gallery getting it right, and great to see Midland's artists on good form.



I was tempted into buying a small study by Jackie Berridge whose work I find both intriguing and playful. This painting is entitled 'Birds of a Feather' (see below) also on her website as 'Lovebirds'. I think I'll know it as Spring Fever.



The exhibition is on until Christmas eve, so there is no excuse for not seeing it and buying some unique Christmas presents to support Midland's artists.

Life drawing

A sanguine drawing from last night at the Stamford Arts Centre. Highlighted with white chalk on buff Ingres paper.

New portrait painting - Day 6

Further progress in my step-by-step portrait painting. It may not look like I've done much, but have worked on the necklace, chest, ear and hair. I tend to slow up towards the end. Note these are not full days work, I tend to work in fits and starts. I still need some work on the background and may need to 'oil-out' certain areas that have dried out to make sure they are dark enough. I may try lightening the eyes.

New portrait painting - Day 5

Further work on this step-by-step portrait painting. I am working from two photographs which is a bit tricky. This is now getting closer to the look I want. The thing with portraits is that tiny changes can make a lot of difference as our vision is so attuned to faces. A good tip is to look at the painting in a mirror as this shows up drawing errors. I'm not really sure why. I've also tried varying the background a bit to see if this will work. I think it will. More work to go.

New portrait painting - Day 4

Did some more work on my latest portrait painting. To see the history of this painting click the step-by-step tag at the bottom of this post. This time I worked from photographs as the model sessions have finished. Main thing was to correct the drawing - in particular the far eye (too large) and the neckline (too low) and reduced the sauturation of the background. There's a little too much space around the head (if it was a photo I would crop it slightly). It may be OK when in a frame, or alternatively the canvas could be removed and put on a smaller support (although I've never done this). Other way is to put a bit more interest in the background - maybe just some variation in colour and tone. Still a bit more to do on this - I want to capture some of 'intelligence' of the look in the original drawing.

Pastel portrait

Drew a portrait in conte pastels on 'charcoal' pastelmat paper at the Stamford Arts Centre. Click on image for larger vesrion. All rights reserved.