and now, something completely different!

So glad you all enjoyed the crystal peacock.
No sooner had I finished it than I started this  fast and loose painting of a tiger.

I had learned from our Painting Like the Masters challenge on Painting Friends how to paint a Monet style oil in watercolour - and I so loved it I do not want to lose the skill. So I employed that technique again on this tiger.

I find repetition is the best way for me to retain a skill - how about you?

Anyway, here's the tiger painitng, I do hope you enjoy this too.

Time for Tea

Don't forget, he and all your favourite paintings of mine, can be found HERE in my permanent gallery site.

The Magic of Rainbows (crystal painting)

Here's the finished crystal painting. I hope you enjoyed the stages as much as I enjoyed showing you.

The Magic of Rainbows

Permanently on display at my gallery site, HERE

A Crystal painting - further steps

we have some more steps on the way to the crystal painting.

Firstly some washes of cobalt blue

then a second glaze of cobalt blue, in selected areas only. That will deepen the glass and help to make the crystal more 3-D

Adding in some cadmium yellow on certain segments

And a wash of gamboge overlaid with red (makes the reds sing) in selected spots

adding some dark tone in, to tie in the shadows to the peacock. French ultramarine+alizarin crimson mix

All I have to do now is remove the masking and tidy up any areas I feel need a little more zing - and the painting will be ready. I'll post it tomorrow.

A Crystal painting step by step

I have a crystal ornament or two :)
The one that I wanted to paint is a peacock.
It casts some beautiful rainbows, but you have to look very very closely to see the colour in it.
So I took a photo and blew it up and from there I started to draw, mask and paint.

Here's the drawing on a quarter sheet, with all the facets and shapes of the colours drawn in

and here is the masking laid down to preserve the whites

the sky through the window is french ultramarine and the door a gold ochre. The shadows on the window and sill a a very weak wash of winsor green and alizarin crimson.

The deeper shadows are french ultramarine and alizarin crimson

and the tips of the feathers and body of the bird are gold ochre.
The base of the mirrored stand is a weak mix of the winsor green and alizarin crimson.

more to follow another day...

Love, Actually

A little while ago I made a pencil portrait called Manifestly, Love. 
It was a portrait of my friend, Lynne and her dog, Ben.

Today I show you the other half of the portrait, which features Stuart and Ben.

I'm going to frame these two pencil drawings and give them to Lynne and Stuart as their wedding present.

Eminently fitting for  Manifestly, Love and Love, Actually.

Love, Actually

Dancing with Deb

Morning all,

The photo for this painting came from Deb over at Painting Friends. Mollie kindly gave a stage by stage of her version, with lots of helpful tips. Mollie is the crystal painting Queen!

So I made an attempt - and here it is:

Dancing with Deb

Country Fayre

We went out to a local fayre today at a country park which had been seconded as an air field in WWII

The weather was very hot for England in October -  85F !

We stopped for an hour or so then came home to have a respite from the heat.
We didn't take Missy, it would have been far too hot for her when there was hardly any shade. It was really a touch too hot for me! 

I took some photos for you to enjoy.
If you would like to use any in this post for the basis of a painting, you may do so, freely :)