Plein air painting06 - Albert Dock

I have been in Liverpool for 2wks and today I finally had the courage to go out and do some plein air painting in public (Albert dock is a very busy place) I had some lovely comment from people which was great. With this painting I tried a different technique. I started off with a red undertone and worked wet on wet in oil from there, building up the layers. It was a challenging subject to paint as I had to be more precise in my perspective unlike painting trees and fields, but I can't wait to do my next one :)

Soft Edge study

I have been reading Andrew Loomis' book "Creative Illustration" recommended to me by Robert Lemler. It has been a really interesting and helpful read so far. I noticed with my recent plein air paintings that all my edges were hard and that seemed to flatten my paintings. So here I have tried Loomis' Soft Edge technique. where you use a combination of soft and hard edges in your paintings to help draw the eye to your focal point and to give it more depth. This is my first attempt ,using a photo to study from, it is not very good at all but hopefully I will get better with practice. This technique will definitly come in handy once I get the hang of it.

Plein air painting 05 - Marsworth Canal

This is my first plein air painting that I have painted in public, the others were done around my garden. I was a little nervous as I did not know what people might think, but I got some nice comments which made me glad I did it as it has boosted my confidence a bit. I am currently in Liverpool for the week so I hope to get some plein painting done, maybe of some more boats :)

Happy Birthday Dad

Plein air paintings 3 & 4

Spent about 4hrs outside painting these two. I had a lot of fun painting today as the weather was beautiful and I got to spend some time with a couple of horses in the field from the first painting. Can't wait to do more! 

Plein air painting 02

Since we have been having some really great weather I went out yesterday day morning to do some outdoor oil painting near my back garden. I tried to work more thinly with the paint at the start this time as I started off too thick with my first plein air painting making it tricky to add in the lighter tones on top. I had a lot of fun painting this as I had a better understanding of the medium, but I still need loads of practice. Since the whole week is going to be great weather I will take advantage of this to do as many paintings as I can :)

Liverpool Sketches

Here are a few sketches I did whilst visiting my boyfriend in Liverpool. I spent a lot of time at Albert Dock sketching boats. They were a lot of fun to draw, though next time I need to muster up the courage to do some paintings of them. The last one is not in Liverpool but my nanas back garden :)

Meet Agnes

This delightful woman is one of our main characters from our grad film Holy She*p. Its been about a year since we finished it, so I thought it would be nice to do a character painting of Agnes :) And for some reason the colour of the image  comes up very saturated when you click on the pic to enlarge it. I will try fix that.

Plein air painting01

Here is my first plein air painting in oils. It's a picture of my back garden on a cold and cloudy day ( a typical british summer )  I painted it in about 3hrs, but I hope to get a bit quicker as I progress.

Drakensberg

I had the urge to do an oil painting of the Drakensberg mountains the other day and as I could not do it from life I chose a photo to paint from. I have not painted in oils for awhile so it was good for me to paint from a photo as I would never be able to finish it in one day. It also gave me a chance to think and learn how to paint in oils properly. I want to learn to paint a lot quicker in oils so my next painting will be a plein air painiting which will force me to work faster.

Prehistoric tortoise bird thing

Here is a little sketch I did today, inspired by Toby Dixon. Its sort of a prehistoric tortoise bird thing, which cannot fly, but has strong legs and claws to jump on its prey. I cannot think of a name for it yet, so if anyone has any good ideas let me know :)

Rainy day doodle

A quick little doodle to past the time on this rainy day. 

Dwight Schute

Had a bit of fun today painting Dwight. He makes me laugh so much :)

Nightshift

Here is my next painting in the series of death as a dad. Being death means working  random hours which is hard on his kid.

Italian Courtyard

Took a small break from film work to paint something of my own. I felt I needed to do something different to keep my creativity levels up. It was fun painting this :)