Clowning around

Hi, you must know by now how much I love clowns. I think it is because they are so emmotive. Their acts are always exaggerated comedy, tradgedy etc. So, knowing that I am enthralled with clowns, imagine how delighted I was to be able to see a clown act at the Royal Melbourne show last week. We went on a beautiful spring day, which was very lucky as it rained for the rest of the week. This is a preliminary sketch for a painting I intend on depicting.

Universal Studios

This painting was inspired by a trip that we took to America nearly 10 years ago. We visited Florida and were lucky enough to visit a number of theme parks whilst we were there.

I was at a loose end about what to paint and was attracted to the darks and lights in the photo reference.

String Quartette

This painting was inspired by a photo that I took at a friend's wedding. They had this lovely string quartette playing as they were married on a little jetty over looking a lake. The day was extremely hot. These musicians must have suffered from the heat.

Bush Clown

I did this painting from a black and white picture. I imagined the colors that I wanted and I thought it would be best with a color scheme of green, red and blue. The picture virtually painted itself. Once again I feel a bit more work on the hands but I was excited to publish it on the net and will work on them some more at leisure.

Concentration

Hi, this is another portrait of Aurelio that I have painted. This time from a photo instead of from life. I've been reading a book on Rembrandt and looking at his portraits. I wanted to capture some of the light and dark that Rembrandt used but it didn't work to well on this picture. I need more dramatic lighting in real life to be able to try and attemt this. Over all I a am pleased with this picture. There might need a bit of improvement on the hands yet. What do you think?

Dragon Delight

Hi, this latest painting is from my imagination, which is a tough thing to do when you are used to having references. It was an exercise. I must say I started off dreading doing this and had a bit of a think. Then I did a little sketch to see if it might work out on paper.

I chose a dragon to paint, as I love them. I am an avid sci fi fantasy reader. I enjoy all the stories with dragons and magic and a hero. I thought the dragon looked ferocious and so I drew some scared little fairies that the dragon had perchanced across. I stood there thinking what does scared look like and I thought big startled eyes and a wide open mouth, perhaps racing off screaming.

Critique night at pastel society

I took this painting along to a critique night at the pastel society. What an interesting night. Robert Wade was the artist critiquing. He was a wealth of knowledge and constructive in his opinion. As a result I have tried to tone the background down a bit so it is not fighting with the whole picture. He loves broad strokes and was fond of commenting on them in different pictures. I have utilised lots of lines in this picture which was confliciting to the judges opinion. The main thing is I enjoyed painting this picture, which inthe end is all that matters.

One of my favourite pieces for the night was a painting of a venetian mask with masses of feathers surrounding the mask. The detail in the body of the mask was magnificent with gorgeous contrasting loose feathers enveloping it.