Venice!

- and why not? Well, it;s a little bit of a change of subject for me, but then a change is as good as a rest, and variety is the spice of life. Bits of this are really quite nice, I think. The figure of the gondolier is pretty nice, and the water between the paddle and the back of the gondola is surprisingly good considering that I wasn't impressed with it while I was painting it. I like the back of the gondola - the less said about the front of it, the better. 

Well, you can only really expect to learn though trying.

Finished Tram painting

Here it is: -

Swansea Bay tram - c. 1950s - Acrylic on Canvas board.

More lightening of the sky , and a little bit of work on the waves. I smoothed out the finish on the tram itself as well. Couple of figure added in the background, and a little more definition to the hills. A little shadow on the track bed, and voila, here we are. I like this, and I'm tempted to take it into work to put it up in my classroom to cheer me up on the bad days. 

Back to the trams

Yes, back to the Swansea trams, but this time I'm working on one on a 12 x 10 board rather than a 5x7 board. This is where we are

Swansea and Mumbles tram

I put two hours a week ago on Wednesday into it, and maybe another 3 or 4 hours today. I think that there's a good couple of hours left in it, but I don't want to finish it today. This will do nicely for Wednesday evening at the Artists' group. I'm glad to say that the sky doesn't look so bad now as it did at the start of the day. I've tried to soften it and soften it, which has taken several thin layers of paint, but the sky is pretty much where I want it now. There isn't a lot of work left to do on the tram itself, but the rails and the track bed need doing, and there;s some work to do on the background to the right of the tram, and also I want to put a few more figures in, and two boats on the left by the track.

This is the 4th time I've painted a Swansea Tram. The first was an A4 sized water colour: -

The next was a 5x7 acrylic: -

- as was the one after that: -

Commission: Julie's Dog

A few months ago my daughter commissioned me to paint her friend Sam's pet dog as a birthday present for her. This was the painting: -

Sam's Dog - Commission

In all honesty I don't think that it's the best painting I've ever produced, but Phillippa, my daughter, was very happy with it, and Sam made a point of thanking me, and asking if I could do another picture now that her dog is a little older. I haven't see Sam since, so that one's on hold for the moment. Still, Phillippa has asked if I could do a painting for another friend called Julie, whose birthday is next. This is Julie's puppy: -

Julie's dog - Commission

I'm much more pleased with this one. The colours work together a lot better with the background, and I just feel it's a better painting.

Painting Port Talbot: Taste Brasserie

Again, yet another paintworthy building on the same street where I live: -

Taste Brasserie, Port Talbot

Up until a few  months ago this used to be a pub called the Red Lion. I wasn't that keen on it to be honest. Since reopening in January though this has quickly become possibly my favourite restaurant in Port Talbot.

There are a couple of things I really like about this particular painting. I must have taken the best part of a dozen photos of it to help me, and for the first time I didn't try to slavishly copy one of the photos. I don't have one photo taken from this exact position, and it's really a composite of different photos. What I was aiming for was almost the effect of a panoramic photograph taken with a fish eye lens, and I think I've come fairly close with this painting.

UPDATE 11/6/16 - This painting has since been sold

Cathcart Road Glasgow - Commission

The gentleman who bought this painting: -

apart from liking it as a painting had bought it because he used to live in the area. He asked me if I could paint a building in which he used to live, as it is now, and sent me a couple of photographs. I also did some research on the net, and this is the painting which resulted - there are several stages of painting it in the photos below: -

I've waited until the painting arrived by my client and he got back to me to say that he likes it - phew. It took a long time this one - about 3 hours to sketch it out, and then 5 or 6 hours to paint it in 2 sessions.