Online study

I have been doing an online study course recently, led by American artist Larry Seiler.  Other than a few issues finding my way round the site used (ArtistsNetworkUniversity) the content has been really valuable.
We have been doing exercises concentrating on getting good value contrasts.  This is an area that has proved difficult for me in the past, and together with the discipline of working small and fast I think the long term results will be beneficial.  I just hope I can translate what I have learnt when I revert to my normal, undirected, plein air work.

These are the three pieces I submitted for week three, they are all oil on gessoed paper (a new substrate for me - I will blog about that later) 5x7" (another 'new for me') done with a very limited palette and three pre-mixed tones of each colour.

I will go back and do bigger paintings of some of these.  I look forward to what we have to do for the final week.

Scarecrow festival Thornton le Dale

This week sees a scarecrow festival in our village.  They are very popular in this area, some places being very much better than others.  I suspect that those who have been doing it longer have evolved   a greater level of Worzel Gummaging than others.
I think this is the first one here, but the standard was pretty high, and certainly provided much interest for the hundreds of ice-cream licking tourists who wander the streets of the village looking for something more to look at.
I bravely took to the main street to paint it.  For such an attractive village there aren't all that many 'ready made' painting locations,  indeed even the postcards on sale in the shops only have a limited choice of views, mainly centered on the thatched cottage that I posted about recently.
The structure of the cottages was really complicated to sort out, and I abandoned my first attempt as I had strayed away from the initial sketch I did in my sketchbook, and it was already starting to get more formal that I wanted.  The careful approach is my fall back position when I am struggling with a difficulty (in this case getting the drawing right), but for my second attempt I had sorted out in my mind what went where so I made better progress.
On reflection I think I have got some way towards the simple statement in the painting of the cottages.  I think it might look better overall if I crop down the left and bottom by a few centimetres.  As it is painted on a board that I made myself at least I know that the canvas will be firmly adhered and it won't suffer unduly from the attentions of a stanley knife.

Scarecrow Festival Thornton le Dale

oils on canvas board

10x8"

Chocolate anyone?

I am not a natural blogger so I constantly have to remind myself to update here.  I sometimes feel it is a waste of time because I have only three followers, but I hope others do occasionally come across it.  In reality it is more for a permanent record of my progress, or lack of it, currently in the plein air field, but more generally of my artistic journey.

We have lived in Thornton le Dale for four years now, almost next door to the most painted cottage in all of North Yorkshire.
The path where you need to stand to get a good view is swarming with people, admiring the view and enjoying the delightful quintessential cottage garden in front of the cottage, but it makes it a hard task to concentrate on making a painting.

I got the initial drawing badly wrong; never a good start, but the light soon disappeared behind the wall so I had to retreat, armed with a photograph.  As soon as I got home I could see the error of my ways and was able to correct, and finish the painting quite quickly, but it is much harder in a studio situation to be generous with the brush strokes.
The limitations of time are removed and everything becomes much more considered.  I prefer being surrounded by lots of fresh air and little time to consider, even if one does have to take on board the onlookers and the facile comments (although I am sure most are well intentioned, I don't think people realise how much you need to concentrate)

Beck Cottage, Thornton le Dale

oil on board

10x8"

Plein air here we come

I finally sorted myself out with the where-withall to paint outdoor in oils. In October last when I went to Tuscany to paint with Maddine Insalaco of Etruscan Places, I had a blast with a great group of American painters, but more importantly it gave me the confidence to try the great outdoors myself. Sorting out the ideal kit isn't always straightforward and can be expensive but I managed to buy a second hand pochade box through painters-online.co.uk, so now I had no more excuses. My first sortie was about 500 metres from home, an alternative view of a much painted cottage in our village of Thornton le Dale,  North Yorkshire.
This tidy, representational style is a leftover from my days as a graphic designer, and is my fall back position when I am out of my comfort zone, in this case working outside in a relatively new medium.  As I do more I will work to be looser, but I know a lot of people who buy my work like this style.  Quandry..... but I must move on to progress.

Thornton Beck
oils on canvas
24 x 18.5 cms

All my paintings are for sale.  If you are interested please email me.