Latest oil paintings

Here's a painting I did last weekend. It's a bit looser than my normal style and I was interested in pushing the dark/light contrast whereas I'm normally playing warm reds and oranges against cool neutrals, with a focus on aerial perspective.

(Angus Evening. 30x70cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

And here's yesterday's plein air piece. I think this one will be repainted much bigger soon.

(Knight's Canola - plein air. 20x22cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

Once again, the photography is less than perfect. That's a problem I hope to solve soon.

Spring Plein Air

Spring has finally arrived in the Great Southern and the canola is in full bloom all around us, so I took the opportunity to get out and paint. I was joined by Ted who's on holidays in the region. You can see Ted below, completing his first-ever plein air painting, with spectacular results.

Here's my effort completed using a limited palette of French ultramarine, cerulean blue, permanent crimson, cadmium yellow light and white...

We were painting well before sunset and the sky was clear, with no threat of clouding over, so I took a bit more time than usual. There's about an hour of work in this piece.

Long-time followers of the blog might recognise this tree from paintings I did at the same location last December. It's a great spot with a ready-made composition. I think I'll be painting here again.

I'll post a better photo of the finished painting soon, along with a studio painting from last weekend.

Self Caricature Sketch

I decided it was time to do a caricature of myself. This is somewhat worse than doing self portraits (and it's been many years since I did one of those) because a caricature requires the exaggeration of features, even the less-flattering ones.

Most of us are used to seeing ourselves in the mirror but mirrors don't give an accurate image. Not only are we in reverse, we are also, in my experience, slimmer, taller and less wrinkly.

This was an impromptu decision and there was no combing of hair, no shaving and no makeup - just a few reference photos snapped in the spring sun. So here I am in my natural, wrinkled, uncombed state - and exaggerated.

This is just a quick digital sketch. I might work on it some more in the future.

August Workshops

I did two workshops earlier this month - the first for Gallery 500 and the second for Albany Art Group. Here are the demonstration pieces I did in each workshop...

In this seascape, done with Gallery 500 at Terra Verde Gallery in Albany, I focussed mainly on translucent water and the colours required to make a convincing "white" in sunlight and shade.

I did this landscape with Albany Art Group. My main interest here was aerial perspective and shadow-sunlight contrast. The original is very warm as we were painting under mercury-vapour lamps which lean heavily toward blue-green and tend to suck the life out of reds and oranges. Consequently, there's a tendency to mix these colours more saturated than usual.

Quinninup Cow - Digital Painting

Another digital painting based on a photo I took earlier this year on the way home from Pemberton. I was particularly interested in the contrast of the sunlit "brick red" cow against all those cool, dark greens.

(Quinninup Cow. 1200x432px digital. © Andy Dolphin)

Millie in Oil

I found some time and space yesterday to get some brushes wet. Here's the result.

This is the under-painting, done with thin mixtures of burnt sienna and French ultramarine. Animal studies like this require a little more care than landscapes and seascapes because it's too easy to "be wrong". If a tree branch is painted a little short or a wave a little too high, no one will know. But if the proportions of head, body and legs aren't right on a lamb, then most people will notice something is wrong, even if they can't identify what the problem is.

So I spent quite a bit more time on this under-painting than I would on any of my small landscape subjects. It doesn't look like much but there's probably 45 minutes work just in the under-painting.

(Millie. 20x22cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

This is Millie, one of our pet sheep. I did a digital painting of her last August, based on a photo I took a few years ago when she was only a matter of weeks old. This oil painting is based on that digital piece. I used a limited palette of French ultramarine, permanent crimson, burnt sienna, cadmium yellow deep and white.

I'm still here!

Things have been a bit quiet on the art front for me lately. I'm still without a practical painting space but progress on the studio is taking place - or at least, it was until I sliced the tip of my finger on some galvanised flashing (It's pretty minor but I'm trying hard to keep it clean) and now we have some severe weather happening so progress has halted - again. On top of this, my real job as been hectic for quite a while (cue the violins!).

I've got a couple of workshops coming up very soon. Next weekend, Saturday August 6, I have another workshop with Gallery 500 at their Terra Verde Gallery in Albany. By popular demand, I'll be revisiting seascapes in this one. The first three were great fun and the finished works were fantastic so I'm looking forward to seeing what we can produce this time.

The following week, Thursday August 10, I'm doing a workshop with the Albany Art Group and Vancouver Arts Centre.

Army Art is on again in Perth in a couple of weeks. I've entered two pieces and I'm hoping to travel up there and meet up with some of my old art friends.

This year's exhibition will be held at Leeuwin Barracks, Riverside Road, East Fremantle on Saturday and Sunday, 12th & 13th of August. All exhibited work will be for sale and part proceeds will benefit The Fremantle Foundation.