Children playing on the beach, Mill Bay, Devon

I have just finished a commission for a friend who has two gorgeous twin boys born the same week as my daughter Louisa (going through labour together does create a bond!). She wanted to give her parents a painting of the boys and her niece as a surprise for their anniversary so she commissioned me for this piece. It is done after a photograph she took while they were on a family day out in Devon. I do like to work from life, but in this case I'm glad it was from a photograph as these boys are constantly on the move and certainly wouldn't have quietly posed for me! I'm reather pleased with the result and I they were thrilled with it. 

Playing on the beach, Mill Bay, Devon   16"x9"  oil on board

Here are below a few steps of the process:

Quick drawing of the basic shapes done in oil

I filled most of the canvas with blocks of colours

Worked a bit more on the background and the children's faces

Adding the last details

The finished painting

I loved the position of the kids. It looked to me that the girl (Bea) was clearly in charge and telling the boys (Finbar and Dexter) what to do! Not sure what's in the bucket but it is obviously a matter of great importance!

Detail

Detail

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Detail

On an other note, I take this opportunity to let you know I currently have some work on display at a lovely new gallery in Bath called Imagianation. It is situated on Terrace Walk in Bath (Bog Island) so do stop by next time you are in Bath as it has a lovely collection of work there - and I'm not just saying this because my work is there:-). Click here to view their website. 

Can you spot my paintings?

Finally, for those who haven't seen my previous post, my new calendars 2016 are ready for orders, alongside prints and postcards so click here to visit my shop page for more info.

Natural Arch, Mackinac Island

As this is my first post of the year, let me all wish you a very Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my blog and leaving lovely comments last year. I'm posting here a small painting I did in December from a photograph I saw in a friend's album on Facebook (with approval of course). I usually like painting landscapes from life but I also like to do little studies from photographs to work a specific concept and colour palette:

Natural Arch, Mackinac Island  5"x7"  oil on board

Here is the original photograph taken on Mackinac Island  - I love the way the view is framed by the rocks. The sea has beautiful colours you don't see often on english shores.

photograph © Keonne Rodriguez

detail

My biggest painting challenge so far...

Here is a painting I completed for a commission a few months ago. It was commissioned from a whole family to be a birthday present for their mother/grandmother. The brief was to have a painting of the whole family together on a Nord Sea beach in Belgium.

Une après midi à la mer du Nord    18"x14"   oil on board

I called it a challenge for many reasons: first I'm not particularly familiar with portraits/figures as 90% of my work is landscape. Secondly this was done from photograph and I've never met most of the people in the painting so it's was a challenge to include 5 adults, 4 kids, a dog and a horse (!) in the same painting and get them all right... Finally this particular scene as such never happened which means I didn't have one photograph to work from, but instead around 50 different photographs/portraits of everybody in various positions/lights/clothing so I had to come up with a suitable composition.

Here is how I did it:

Step1: composition
Before I could even dream of picking up my brushes, I had to come up with a concept, a composition that would enable me to display everybody in positions as natural as possible but still without showing anybody from behind. Being a Graphic Designer in my full time job, I thought I could make good use of my skills and do a photoshop montage using various pictures (some even from google for the background and objects), cutting out people and moving them around until I'm happy with it.

Photoshop composition

Step2: photoshop filter
To test the quality of the composition, get the essence of the light and structure and to erase all the montage imperfections, I applied an artistic filter in photoshop. That enabled me to get a feel if this would work or not as a painting and could see it going somewhere.

Photoshop artistic effects

Step3: sketch
Afterwards I did a quick sketch to place the characters properly.

First sketch

Step4: oil background
Then I started painting the background of the painting (that's the easy bit).

Background painting

Step5: sketch with grid
Then I did an other sketch of the outlines of the drawing and applied a grid to it.

Sketch with grid 

Step6: sketch and grid on the painting
I then traced the same grid on my painting to enable me to easily reproduce the drawing.

Paintting with grid and sketch

Step7: colour blocking
I then started to gradually apply the colours and shapes of the people (and animals!) but I had to keep in mind where the light was coming from and keep it unified as the photographs on the photoshop composition were all from different lighting/colour etc...

Building up the figures

Step8: painting the faces
The trickiest part was probably to get all the faces right and make them recognisable. I kept referring to various pictures on my laptop  while painting to try to get the correct expressions and features.

Adding details with the photo references

I wanted to only suggest the faces but still get them clear enough to be identifiable.

Detail 

Step6: final touches
Here is the final painting. I added various objects and tried to unify the shadows and light effect.

The final painting

The family was  really happy with it (what a relief!) and I've just heard that the mother/grandmother was really happy too and moved when she received it. I've been told, when she received it, she kept repeating "I love it, I love it, it's beautiful."

So, it was a tough challenge but I'm so glad I did it!