Turnbull Winter

Turnbull Winter (oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins)

I could probably go on tinkering with this forever more, but I signed off on it today. Pat helped me deliver the first two pictures to the gallery this morning and this one is now ready to go too.

Almost Done

Turnbull Winter (work in progress)

Several hours of fiddly work later and this painting is getting close to being finished (as much as any paining is ever finished).

There are some areas where the tones need re-balancing as a result of the snow being lightened; there's also the never-ending need to get the red (red!) on the sides of the building to meet my expectations. Overall, though, I think it's getting there.

More Windows ...

Turnbull Winter (work in progress)

This is a terrible photograph, I'm afraid. The studio light is reflecting far too much on the most recent layer of paint in the sky and skewing the balance of colours. Still, it serves to demonstrate that I'm back on this painting.

[Slightly better photograph uploaded 11 October 2010]

The painting is, in fact, giving me all sorts of problems. When I left it last time (can it really be June since I worked on it?) I knew it had become far too tight and fiddly and I was particularly unhappy with the trees. All of which put me off doing more to it: I didn't want to continue in that very descriptive manner, I knew there were many more windows to be put in (Windows! Why did I choose to be a painter of buildings?) and I didn't want to have to measure them and apply bits of masking tape.

I realised today that I needed to deliberately spoil the tidiness that was keeping me back, so I put in the new windows in a much more careless (carefree?) way. Irregularities can be made good as the picture goes along and while they're too dark at the moment, they can be knocked back easily enough later.. I've also painted over the trees, using a mixture of tools - rags, crumpled paper, a painting knife and a fan brush. The intention is for that to provide a better underpainting for the next session.

Finally, I used some of the paint mixtures on the palette to make thin layers mixed with white to film over parts of the sky. I've been doing that each time I've worked on the picture and it's starting to produce an effective glow.

View from the Keep 2

View from the Keep 2 - Turnbull Building (oil on canvas, 36 x 48 ins)

Another one under my belt. I think there may be too much red showing in this photograph, or maybe that's just my monitor. I can't tell.

The Second Big One

View from the Keep 2 (work in progress)

I know I have to have at least two large paintings for the Red Box show, so this is the second of the 3 x 4 feet canvases. Although I can still easily work on the first one, there'll come a time when only small amounts of work will be possible due to drying issues. By having two on the go, I'll be able to switch from one to the other. This is my preferred way of working anyway.

The red brick building at the right is the Turnbull Building which featured in a recent post. The view here is looking up the Tyne, with the Metro Bridge (as yet only showing as a remnant of the orange imprimatura) in the background. In the immediate foreground is the East Coast mainline, which shows up in the bottom left hand corner of the first Big One.