Studies and practice!

Hey everyone.

I am going back to the fundamentals for a while. I recently spent a morning at the studio of the wonderfully generous painter Marcus Hodge. You can see his work here: MARCUS HODGE

He was educated in Spain and is a tremendous direct painter. I cannot thank him enough for the time and expertise he gave me. He reviewed a selection of my recent paintings and then set me one hour to do a Sorolla self portrait study. The main aim of this was so he could see how I currently approach a piece. He then reviewed my terrible attempt and then proceeded to demo on the same canvas how he would have approached it. It was incredibly enlightening and has given me a great deal to consider in my work.

After that last studio painting taking so much time I was ready to get back to doing some studies and Marcus provided me with a few pointers as to what might benefit me the most. First up are a few master studies. I have limited myself to one and a half hours per painting on these. They have been great fun to do. Master studies are one of those things that I did digitally but really had glossed over. It is so interesting to paint from something where someone else has already solved all of the difficult decisions for you!

These are all oil on canvas board 40x34cm (I Think!) First 2 are Velasquez and the 3rd is a Sargent.

These next couple are from the portrait group as normal. They were done before I met up with Marcus. They are both done using the Zorn limited palette (well an equivilent one: titanium white, yellow ochre, cad red and lamp black). I still can't get these done in the hour and a bit painting time but I try!

I painted this next one in the garden on saturday. An hour and a half. It is my father in law Phil. He is an excellent chap and kindly sat for me. I wanted to take it further but got bored bless him!
This last one was pretty much a disaster but since this is more of a journal than a portfolio I will share it here. About 5 hours Plein Air in my front garden. The subject matter was tough and my greens are just foul! The first of many to come, onwards and upwards eh? haha!

I don't know if anyone actually reads my blog but if you are interested in representational painting then I would heartily recommend these 3 books as being incredible useful:

Richard Schmid: Alla Prima
Harold Speed: Practice and Science of Drawing
Harold SPeed: Paining techniques and materials.