First Paintings

Now, before I let you see the first paintings I produced since joining the artists' group, I'd like to enter some special pleading on my own behalf.

* I had never used acrylic paints before
* I had not picked up a paintbrush in anger for the best part of two decades
* I have had no training whatsoever

So. . . here it is

LMS Railway William Stanier 'Duchess' Class Locomotive

Actually, looking at it, it isn't (quite) as bad as I originally thought, and I did have some tentative interest in it expressed by another member of my artists' group, who thought a relative might be interested. Nothing eventually came of that, but that's fine.

There are things I really don't like about it. For one thing I had no idea how to work acrylic paint. I don't know a huge amount more now, but I know I could do it better now. In terms of draughtsmanship, the driving wheels are horrible. After I'd done it, the professional artist in my group gave me some good advice about painting steam , and I know that I could do the steam better now as well.

Update- This painting has since been sold

It isn't so terrible, though, as to have made me give up. In fact, I was bitten by the painting bug, if anything. My next attempt was to try to paint a VW campervan. My daughter Zara, who had taken me to join the artists' group, had been unfailingly encouraging, and she is mad about campervans. As a thank you, I painted this for her: -

VW Camper Van in San Francisco

If I'm honest, it suffers from some of the same issues as the previous painting. The draughtsmanship isn't great, and the paint hasn't been worked in the way that it could be. Still, it was a little bit of a development. IN the first painting I'd sketched the picture out on the canvas, then painted it. In this one I sketched the image, then painted the whole canvas a watery, creamy yellow colour. This shows through in places under the green of the grass in the background, and the light blue of the sky, and it just gives the painting a little more glow, appropriate to the fact it's San Francisco. Zara liked it so much she photographed it, and put it on Facebook.

In my day job I work as a teacher. When the long summer holiday came round my wife and I took our grandson out to the beach one day, and I took my camera. Based on one of the photos Mary took, I painted this picture

"The Master and the Apprentice" - Me and my grandson

It isn't perfect. I'm not totally happy with the figure of my grandson. These are the clothes he was wearing on the day, but the light colours merge too much into the sand, especially compared with my figure, which I'm actually rather pleased with - again these are the clothes I was wearing on the day. Painting the canvas yellow to start with worked again, since it gives some nice textural variation in the sand. Technically I think I worked the paint a lot better blending the blue, white and yellow for the water streams on the beach just behind the two of us. Another point as well, making the foam on the water showed just how effective a little white highlighting can be.

It's the first painting I made where I can say that although I can see drawbacks, I'm pleased with the result. Not just me either. My oldest daughter, Phillippa, who is the young man's mum, insisted on having it, and she's had it framed and it's on the wall in her house. Doesn't look bad either. 

Bearing in mind the positive comments I'd received when Zara posted the photograph of the campervan on Facebook, I created my artist's page, and posted this one.