Man in a Tree (Robin Hood)

Man in a tree (Robin Hood)

Looking back at the work in progress post, this one has changed even more than I remembered. But it's a lot closer to the concept than the version posted there, although - unfortunately - the opportunity that I was painting for has since vanished into thin air.

So I have shelved my Robin Hood project for the time being, but this fellow is now happily ensconced in his tree, awaiting a rich, unscrupulous (and unsuspecting) abbot to pounce upon - or is it the sherriff of Nottingham he's lying in wait for?

Man in a Tree (work in progress)

This one is going to change direction, but I quite like it as it is, for what it is (which isn't what is was meant to be).

It's based on one of a series of sketches of a friend who cheerfully agreed to climb a tree for the purposes of this picture:

Dappled

The photograph I was working from was too blue, so I was making mental colour corrections all the way through the painting process - I wanted it to be a warm painting. After all, no child would wear that outfit if it were cold, would they... ?

I don't think I will provide a truthful answer to that.

But it was a warm day; a day for adventures. And she does look like she's off to seek an adventure. A nice one, of course.

Oil on natural colour linen canvas, 33 x 41 cm

Waiting for the Tide

This is another scene from Portreath on the 30th of December. It's a open-ended cave in the cliffs that I painted on Thursday; we all trooped through it and then looped back around the end of the cliffs. There was a very nice rock just the other side - more, no doubt, of that later.

The fellow you can see here was not so lucky as us. He got caught out by the waves; there he was, standing on  rock, keeping his feet dry and waiting for the tide to recede when I started waving my camera around. I thought he looked rather picturesque - romantic, almost (in a Walter Scott sort of way, rather than a Barbara Cartland sort of way).

Oil on box canvas (edges painted plain Paynes Grey in acrylic), 30 x 30 cm
06 January 2013
For sale

Edit: I managed to get a daylit photograph this afternoon (10 January 2013), so I've replaced the photograph taken under artificial light. 

New Forest Heather 3: Path (7x7)

This is painted from a photograph taken last Wednesday on the same trip that supplied me with the source image for "New Forest Heather 1: From the stream bed".

The original image is decidedly more rectangular, but I seem to have run out of suitably sized canvases with the right proportions for the big portrait version in oils that I was planning. This is a sketch to see if the image works as a square.

You may have noticed that "New Forest Heather 2" is missing from the blog. Well, it exists; I made two versions of this image yesterday evening. You'll find it on DeviantART...