Four Deckchairs on the Seafront

Four Deckchairs on the Seafront - Acrylic on Board

This is one of six of my acrylic paintings on show in this years Royal Society of British Artists exhibition which opens at the Mall Galleries (near Trafalgar Square) London on 29 February and closes 10 March 2012.

Twelve photographs showing the different stages of this painting feature in a Masterclass article on using glazes in acrylic painting in the March issue of Artists & Illustrators magazine.

Feet Up

Feet Up - 11" x 14" - Acrylic on Board

This painting is one of six acrylic paintings that I will be showing in the forthcoming Royal Society of British Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London - 29 February to 10 March 2012.

Empty Deckchair

Empty Deckchair - 11" x 15" - Acrylic on Canvas

This painting is one of six that will be on show in the upcoming Royal Society of British Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London - 29 February to 10 March 2012.

One of the, perhaps less obvious, influences on my painting is the work of the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). I especially liked the natural way that he made people part of the landscape. His figures are often partly obscured - maybe passing behind a tree or crossing a bridge with an umbrella against the rain - and no more or less important than the landscape they inhabit. As a young art student I discovered that my widowed neighbour, her husband had died in the late 1950s, had a complete set of Hiroshige's woodblock prints of the 'Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido'. She kept them wrapped in newspaper in the cupboard under the stairs. Whenever I visited her and asked to see them she would fetch them, give them to me and leave. When I had finished looking at them she would return, and put them back in their place in the dark under the stairs. They were very beautiful and I spent many hours studying them. She told me her husband had acquired the set while in the Far East at the end of the war. I asked her why she didn't display them. She simply said, "Jim was a prisoner of the Japanese, I can't bear to look at them." After that I didn't like to ask to see them again.

Taking a Photo

Taking a Photo - 10" x 14" - Acrylic on Board

This painting is one of six acrylics that I will be showing in the forthcoming Royal Society of British Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London - 29 February to 10 March 2012.

Somewhere in New York

Pool # 3: Igor Somewhere in New York State - 10" x 14" - Watercolour

This is another portrait that demonstrates my reluctance to paint likenesses. Igor, and his wife Irene, were my hosts when I first visited New York City. They lived in Orange County NY. Igor introduced me to the CD and the Apple Mackintosh computer so it must have been 1984. He also taught me how to speak American. They took me to visit friends who lived in the Catskill Mountains, somewhere in New York State, and that's where I painted this picture.

Cross Channel Ferry

Ricky Asleep on the Cross Channel Ferry - 10" x 14" - Watercolour

I don't do many portraits. I like doing them but tend to concentrate on everything except getting a likeness, which, to be honest, is a bit of a weakness in portraiture. This one was done from a series of photos of the painter Ricky Romain (http://www.rickyromain.com) on the Channel ferry en route to Paris. It was a short trip but I came away with many ideas for subsequent paintings, including several of the steps series already included in this blog. At the time I was reading some short stories by Honoré de Balzac and during the trip I visited the August Rodin Museum hence the passing similarity to the statue of Balzac by Rodin. I especially enjoyed painting the vinyl seat and the wall: I used a toothbrush to spatter the paint through a paper stencil to get the cork tile effect.