Commissions

Hey everyone!
Just thought that I should let you all know, my output in the painting area has been severely reduced, since I am now conventionally employed, and this takes up a very large percentage of my time, and I have have received a commission, which must take precedence over all other projects. I'll hope to increase my output as the month goes on and I can get into a good routine.

Lanarkshire Sky

This is the final version of the painting. I'm calling it Lanarkshire Sky, for incredibly obvious reasons.

I've really learned some things from this painting:
1) That one must have a plan for the stages of the painting, so that you don't get awkward-looking segments that you then need to spend ages fixing.

2) That a warm, tonal underpainting would really have helped to give life and variation and depth to the final version.

3) Not to get hung about technicality and have some damn fun.

If you're interested in purchasing this piece, or any other, please see the Gallery page of my website, and feel free to contact me at my email address, hbartgallery@yahoo.co.uk

First Project Part II

So this here is what my first landscape in acrylics looks like after the first round of painting. I was meaning to just put down thin layers of mid-toned colours to act as a basis on which to paint lighter or darker paint, but I got rather... carried away. 

What I got rather carried away with was doing the sky, and painted waaaay more detail of the tones than I meant to before remembering that I had meant to take pictures of at least every other step. So the land is very simple, and the sky is mostly done. I worked wet-into-wet for the most part, especially on the sky , but the long dry grass (the yellow on the left hand side) was a case of putting down a thin layer of Yellow Ochre, followed up by a drybrush with a hog-bristle brush of Burnt Umber. I found that I loved the combination of layers of golden yellow and the scumbled purple (Alizarin crimson + Ultramarine + Umber) clouds. I was really making a conscious effort to do the hills in increasingly washed light, pastel colours as they move towards the horizon, to make use of aerial perspective.

More details next installment.

First project

I should reiterate here that  my artistic training is virtually nil. I am self-taught in everything I do. I have read books, of course, but that's really no substitute. Thus, this is quite the learning experience for me.
So for my first project to kick things off, I decided it would be be st to get right out of my comfort zone. I don't want to be the kind of person who spends his life entirely in comfort. 

Here is the underdrawing for my first ever acrylic landscape painting. 

Mostly, what I do is watercolours, when on holiday, and plenty of graphite drawing around the house so acrylics are a big departure from the norm for me. I've had the set for a while now, and have never really managed to do anything worthwhile with them. Thus, I determined myself to do so. .

This is the charcoal underdrawing on a 12x14" gesso board from Windson and Newton

The story behind this painting goes like this;

My partner and I were walking along in some pretty fields near a canal in Lanarkshire one day, just taking the dog for a stroll. It was a warm sunny day, maybe about 19 degrees centigrade, and there was just a little bit of wind stirring some long end-of-summer grass. It was about two in the afternoon, when we abruptly felt the temperature drop and the light shifted. I was wrapped up in thoughts, not particularly noticing the surroundings, when my parnter took my elbow and she turned me around.

It looked like the clouds of frickin' Mordor were looming over the horizon hills, sunlight blasting out from behind them. It was golden, glorious sunshine, and the cloud was so ridiculously thick and dark. I wondered how anything that vast and menacing could possibly have sneaked up on us. Even the dog seemed to notice, and became apprehensive.

I took a picture with my trusty sidekick, and we beat a hasty retreat.

I have never seen the like of the rain that followed, and I live in the West of Scotland.

First Post in Blogger

Hello readers!

I'm Harry, a twenty-something from Scotland. Mostly, and nowadays, I'm an artist. I've been drawing a lot through my life, and studied art a little, but the traditional art institutions really haven't been for me, so I'm self taught. Accordingly, my techniques are half-formed and idiosyncratic, and my overall knowledge is patchy. I wanted to learn more, and learn better, but I knew that it would be easier, and more fun, to stick to if I wrote about it. Blogging my experiments and progress seemed like the natural thing to do. 

So that's the mission plan: learn about art and painting, post what I find out. 

I'm also going to weigh in on things I think about and things I see around the world, because, hey, I don't wanna be restrictive in my mission statement.