Alcudia Rooftops

Alcudia Rooftops (Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 ins)

A painting from Mallorca, finished almost in passing between working on the Holy Island paintings.

Clouds over Holy Island

Clouds over Holy Island (Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 ins)

It's tempting to go on fiddling, but I think in this case it's time to stop. The clouds were complicated and it wasn't always easy to keep the colours from becoming an overall grey, but now I believe I'm happy with this one.

*SEVEN*

Seven years before the mast. Against all expectations, the good ship Boogie Street sails majestically onwards, its brave captain wondering what on earth was in his mind when he posted that first post seven whole years ago.

Grog all round!

Venetian Balcony

Venetian Balcony (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cms)

Giving time for the Holy Island skyscapes to dry, I turned back to this balcony piece and finished it. On a day when the sun had mostly deserted us, it was lovely to revel in the colours.

Holy Island Progress

Holy Island I (work in progress)

I suppose it must be much great to be a fast and furious painter of skies like John Houston, but I'm not. I take my time, building up the subtleties and nuances of colour. Which is not to say that one way is better than another, or to denigrate John Houston's work which I really really like; it's just different.

Anyway, this is where I left this today.

Third Holy Island Picture

Holy Island III (work in progress)

A bit more cloud structure in the sky in this one. It'll give me the opportunity to play with quite a varied palette of pastel colours.

Opening Tomorrow

I left five paintings today to be included in this show opening tomorrow. It's organised by the Newcastle Artists Society and is at Citibase in Churchill House, Newcastle.. You may remember I went to their first show a while ago. Well this is a bigger show, taking in all five floors of the building and looking round at what's already on the walls, it promises to be a good show.

The preview is tomorrow night from 6pm to 9pm. I hope if you're in the area, you might call in and look around, say "hello" even. But if you can't make it tomorrow night, the show is running for the next three months.

If you really can't get to see it all, then these are the paintings of mine you'll be missing:



Wooden Sunset (Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 x 4 cm) £700



Close to Islam (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 x 4 cm) £300



Venetian Wall (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 x 4 cm) £300



Engine Summer (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 x 4 cm) £300



Oil Drums (Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 x 4 cm) £350

Onto the Island

Holy Island I (work in progress)


Holy Island II (work in progress)

I know what you're thinking: Not more new ones! When will he ever finish something? Well, this is how I prefer to work. I have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks and I find that getting the paintings actually begun is the best way of moving forward. From the initial blocking in, I move on to getting done most of the work, then bring the paintings to their final state by putting in small delineations, points of light, etc.

Whether or not I should be showing these two at this stage, however, is a moot point. A comment on the previous post suggests that I'm very brave to do so. There is a danger that you can't see what I can see in them and you may wonder how they''re going to turn out. In this case, I'm erring on the side of giving information about their construction. The paintings are the result of a commission to provide a painting of Holy Island and what I've decided to do is make several at one time. Expect more of these in the coming weeks.