I started up this blog with the intention of including only artwork produced from life, so this is a bit of a cheat really. But never mind. Rules are there to be broken etc… Last year, I produced a few new pieces of artwork specifically to use on Christmas cards (e.g.: http://www.birtall.co.uk/fineart/greetingcards.htm). I’ve left it…
Category: Paintings
Chinese Lantern #2
I’ve made a few studies of Chinese Lantern plants before today. I find the delicacy and colour of the husks quite beautiful. An earlier post – Chinese Lanterns #1 – included a study of husks in coloured pencil. Around this time last year I made a painting in oils on canvas, Chinese Lantern on Blue….
Portrait: ‘My Judith’
I started work on this portrait of my fiancée Judith around a year ago, towards the end of summer 2012. Initial sessions from life were followed by sporadic work from photographs, until it was finally completed a couple of weeks ago. It was painted in Winsor & Newton alkyds (quick drying oils) on 20″ x 16″…
Judith’s Chair, 18 August 2013
I picked up my brushes around 4pm yesterday with the intention of completing this painting in one session, an exercise in working quickly. By 7pm the paint surface had become too wet to work any further and the natural light in the room had become too dim. I thought the exercise had been a useful…
Glass Vase, 16 August 2013
The glass vase depicted here was a recent present from my Great Uncle Fred. In it are some gladioli that I sketched in an earlier post (Gladioli, 9 August 2013). I started off this sketch in gouache with the intention of possibly heightening some areas with chalk pastels. In the end a lot more pastel…
Drawing Upon Life 