More Bedtime Stories!

More Bedtime Stories
Oil on Canvas Panel
10x8"

$79.99
Click here to purchase

I got a nice big delivery of art supplies yesterday from Dick Blick, so I was really excited to try out my new canvas panels for these studies. I also ordered to big roll of canvas and some 60" stretcher bars, so that should keep me busy for a while!

This is a painting I've had in mind for a long time, and has a lot of meaning besides the subject for me. Most things I paint end up having some kind of personal metaphor embedded in them, whether or not I realise it at the time I paint it.

Sometimes I have to sit back after I've finished a big painting, exhausted, and just stare for hours at it. I'm becoming familiar with it, which I know sounds weird because I might have just spent a few weeks being obsessed with it while I'm structuring ideas, making drawings, stretching canvas or preparing a panel, and then actually painting it.

Sometimes it feels like someone else painted it, and I just came along at the end and decided on a title. I think that's when I know I've really allowed something subconscious to drive a piece, and so the emotion can be somewhat raw and challenging. I used to be fairly spiritual, and imagined that someone was channelling though me in some way. I don't feel that way any more. I know it all comes from me, from my experience, from my body, and my mind. It's not always an easy thing to accept.

Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories
Oil on Panel
5x7"

Click here to buy this painting for
$49.99

Ellie was actually 'reading' to me at the time this was taken. She was illuminated in a really pretty pink light from her string of flower lights hanging over her bed. I'm planning a larger version of this, taken from further away. She looked so tiny in her bed, surrounded by lights. It was a perfect composition - atmospheric, emotive and nostalgic.

Award-Winning Documentary 'High Art' included on showreel!

David Jinks of FridgeProductions, a UK film company, made the award-winning documentary 'High Art' about my work in 2005. My little appearance on this showreel is taken from that movie, filmed in Fontainebleau and Wales. He is currently making a feature film called 'The Impossible Escape' about a group of prisoners who escape and brave the wilds of Siberia.

White Earthen Pitchers

White Earthen Pitchers
Oil on Panel
7x5"

Click here to buy this painting
$49.99

Great news! I found out yesterday that I've won a $1000 Jackpot Grant from the Nevada Arts Council to take a painting course with Daily Painter Carole Marine at the Andreeva Portrait Academy in Santa Fe! I'm so excited, I love Carole's work - in fact it was her who inspired me to take up daily painting - and I love Santa Fe too.

A change to my selling practice too - I'm moving my business away from Ebay. After a few weeks of no sales I found out there's been a massive Ebay boycott which has apparently cost Ebay $13 million a day, and god knows how much to artists and other sellers. I'm trying out a few different online auctions - starting with eCrater...so we'll see what happens.

Sand Harbour on a Sunny day

Sand Harbour (iii)
Oil on Panel
5x7"

I wasn't quite as pleased with this painting - I'd had my heart set on another view but the Hilfiger shoot was being set up in the area I wanted to be - typical! Anyway, I can always go back there again when the weather gets better again. It's snowing now, and is forecast for the next few days, so I'll just have to wait.

I did enjoy the contrasts of the snow sitting on top of the dark rocks though. It created some interesting shapes, so the design of the rocky area became quite abstract.

Sand Harbour Painting

Sand Harbour (ii)
Oil on Panel
7x5"

Given that I don't ordinarily enjoy painting outdoors, because of the distractions, it's crucial that my subject is engaging enough to keep me motivated in the right way. Sometimes a bit of background noise is a good thing - like having the radio* on - since my mind wonders in the deafening silence.

So back to Sand Harbour. On day one (this painting and yesterday's are day 1) the background noise was pretty much the gentle lapping of Lake Tahoe on the sand a few inches from my feet. It was a strange day for light, the clouds occasionally covering the sun entirely, but mostly just creating a diffused, pre-storm illumination.

I put down a layer of green first in these paintings, which is unusual for me as I'm not a green fan. What I've been doing of late is sketching the composition, and then applying a thin layer of the colour I anticipate to be the overall 'influence' of the painting - whether it be a 'accent', like a bright red/purple fruit in an otherwise white still life, or as in this case, the emerald - blue of the lake, made yellower by the sky and transcient sunlight.

I actually thought I'd messed up big time with these paintings at first, until Bonita came over to see how I was doing and I took a few steps back from what I thought was a nonsensical oily mess. Strange how something you've spent years doing automatically can be so easily forgotten in a new environment - moving away from your subject gives you perspective. Not just in art, in life generally. That's why travelling is such an amazing tool for reevaluation.

I was also very conscious of painting with others for the first time since my student days. I'd been admiring Donald's painting, almost complete to my eye by the time we arrived to meet him there. He's got a great portable painting set up - lightweight, compact and organised. He likes to work seated because of back problems, so was able to easily adjust the telescopic legs on his outdoor easel/paintbox and have everything ready to go in seconds. The paintbox doubles as an easel - I believe they call them French Easels. Bonita had an equally impressive apparatus. She works in pastels, and had a lidded box with an attachment like a drywall palette on it, which you slot into the telescopic legs and hey presto! open the box with all the pastels neatly organised inside.

In the end I was actually really pleased with the outcome of these two paintings. Maybe the pressure of doing something I wouldn't be too embarrassed to show the others made me dig a bit deeper. The granite rocks are so cool it really made the composition for me, being a rock person. I also love diagonals, they add a sense of underlying movement and drama to a painting.

Whilst I was painting, some guys started playing guitar and singing nearby. I couldn't see them, but could hear enough to deduce that they were writing a new song. It was a lovely moment of creative synchronicity, and the sounds weren't distracting at all, and I enjoyed hearing them working out guitar riffs and vocal melodies. It was a perfect day.

Unlike day 2, when the Tommy Hilfiger shoot was coming together. Loud New Yorker cries of "Yo yo yo yo!!" every 5 minutes...

Photos by Donald Neff

* BBC Radio 2 Mostly! Radcliffe & Marconi, Russel Brand, and Jonathan Ross are my favorites.

Plein Aire Painting at Sand Harbour, Lake Tahoe

Sand Harbour, Lake Tahoe (i)
Oil on Panel
7x5"

For the past couple of days I've been taking advantage of the tail end of a spell of glorious weather here in Tahoe, by painting outdoors - a thing I kind of dread and love in equal measure.

The last time I did it, was last winter in a snowstorm as part of a plein aire event in the Martis Valley near Truckee. It was cold and as I was entirely inexperienced, I made some logistical errors which made things a bit stressful (overly large canvas got blown into bush, 'buttered side down' as it were). However, I did enjoy the experience - in a masochistic way, I suppose, fancying myself as a 'proper' artist for once, getting out there in the elements in true Turner-esque fashion.

So this time I was more prepared, and had the inspiration of some seasoned plein aire painters to draw on. Artist friend Donald Neff was visiting from San Jose, to pick up his work after the gallery we were both exhibiting in closed down - such a shame.

He invited me and some local artists, Bonita Paulis and Penny Shrawder (who are fellow members of the Tahoe Art League) to go out painting with him. I jumped at the chance, hoping to glean some tips from this award-winning artist - what kind of set-up does he have? how does he deal with annoying tourists/insects/wind/rain/wildlife? Bonita and Penny also work outdoors a lot (in pastels, very beautiful) so I was ready to peep over shoulders.

However, when we arrived, we discovered the beach was being appropriated for a Tommy Hilfiger photo shoot...

...to be continued tomorrow!