I just finished a series of paintings for a commission for a lovely house in Holt near Bath.
There were several views the owners and myself had in mind so I ended up doing four separate paintings... Here is the first one I did:
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| The entrance to the house - Summer evening 10"x8" oil on board |
I did this one on an evening after work. The light hit beautifully the front of the facade so I tried to catch it before I disappeared. The house is made of that beautiful golden stone which makes Bath and most surrounding villages so attractive.
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I did a quick 5 minutes sketch before starting
to make sure I had the composition right |
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| The painting towards the end of the session |
I set up where the view was the best - which was almost on the road... Fortunately Holt is a very small and peaceful village so apart from children playing football and neighbours having a sneaky look, it was rather quiet.
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That's me on the pavement (I should have put my hat on the floor to collect coins)
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| So focused I didn't realise I was being papped... |
The second painting was the house from the garden. I figured out the best time for light was around 3pm so I came back on a sunday afternoon to tackle this one.
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| The house from the garden in the afternoon 14"x10" oil on board |
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| I liked the way the house was illuminated from behind the trees |
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| Here again, a quick preliminary sketch to decide on the composition. |
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| I set up in the shade to avoid unwanted shining effect on my canvas |
Back in the studio, after having finished the two views of the house, I decided to paint the conservatory from a photograph I took during my visit there. I loved the vertical and horizontal lines and the sunny garden framed by the window which reminded me of a "Ken Howard" type of subject.
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| The conservatory - Evening light 12"x10" oil on board |
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The drawing was particularly tricky on this one
because of all the different points of perspective |
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| One of the photograph I used a reference |
Finally, I did a quick study from a photograph of the lovely garden. As you might have noticed by now I just love greens and I couldn't help having fun with the different shades and the highlights of the flowers.
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| Evening sunshine in the garden 6"x8" oil on board |
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| The reference photograph |
I got the chance to present my work a week ago or so and was so happy (and relieved!) that the couple loved them all and decided to adopt 3 of them!
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| The framed paintings before I had to say goodbye to them ... |
