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drawing mostly there now ...

... still at the blocking in page, colour, tone correction, and any sloppy drawing corrections to follow. I am hoping that soon I may spend more time on this, and then my posts will be more regular.

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blocking in...

... will add subtle colour and correct/adjust once all blocked in. This is a slow cooking one for sure. I only get about 1  1/2 days on this per week, but I am hoping to change my circumstances soon.

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making a little progress ...

.... though I am having to learn some new techniques, google and youTube are proving to be very helpful, this week I learned that a rigger brush is very helpful to make straight lines.

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Walking in Oamaru, Otago

I visited Otago a few months back and took photos in Oamaru, from these photos i hope to make a few paintings.You can see more photos in my flickr stream here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/lesterralph/15446002624/

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Driving through a Otago landscape

I visited Otago a few months back and I took some photos from a moving car. I enjoy being a passenger which is not often enough, from these photos I hope to make a few paintings.

More of these photos are in my flickr stream here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/lesterralph/15445977704/in/photostream/

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acrylic on 8oz cotton 900mm x 600mm

near the finish line...

.... a little more refining and the odd correction, but for posting puposes, this is it. I'm away to Taranaki next weekend, probably be able to take a few photos and maybe check out this door in Eltham.

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one more weekend ….

… and I can think about another image. It is near Christmas and I like to help my wife out by choosing some books for this special day. I have ordered two Thomas Struth books: ‘Unconscious Places’ and ‘walking’.  There is a certain quietness about his images, the same reason I like Robert Adams, just saying because this is possibly the direction I would like to go with my paintings.

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on the home straight ... maybe a couple of weekends to go

I have calculated these paintings are taking approximately 16 days to complete. I have been looking at photorealist work (in books from the library) but they seem to be more interested in reflections and shiny things like  automobiles. For me it is the photographers whose strongest work was from the 70's and 80's,  people like William Eggleston, and Robert Adams that inspire me.

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this week I have been mostly adding grey, white and a little raw umber

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the detail bits are moving ahead …

For the next few weeks I may only have a day and half per week to work on this as I make up some work time. Next year I’m hopeful that I will have more time painting.