Surf Painting Seascape further progress shot

As promised, here is my latest update shot of my current seascape painting. I have done some work on the children in the centre, and although they are not finished entirely, as there is some shaping of them to do, this completes the initial covering of the canvas. This allows me to see the overall impression of how the red on the horizon looks as it is very different from the photo I am working from which is a completely blue horizon. I think that the tinged horizon adds something to the painting and shall leave it while I continue to develop the rest of the painting. I have more work to do on the waves and foreground apart from touching up the children a little more.

I am very pleased with how this is turning out so far, and have learnt a lot in the process of working on it, especially about how photos are deceiving in their capturing of what are eyes see so much better. Hence, painting from photos is not ideal by a long shot, although sometimes we have no choice. Feel free to leave comments as always if you like my work...

And stop by my etsy shop to see some of my work for sale as prints.
Thanks Jim

Daisy Meadow Flower Painting

This is the initial stage of my next painting, which I have just sketched out. I don't use pencil on the canvas as it is difficult to cover in paint and instead I draw out with charcoal before going over it in paint. Here I have drawn in a medium green, made from mixing viridian and cadmium yellow. I am blocking in the background darker areas for now with viridian mixed with raw umber. I will update during the week as I progress this painting.

If you want to buy a print of a daisy I painted before, visit my Etsy shop. To see previous art demonstrations, here are some links: snowscene, clew bay, fishing in a lake, etc. You can also search under art demonstrations on the blog tags list on the right column. I hope you enjoy the site and spend some time browsing my art. I am selling original paintings in the gallery at the bottom of this page. Please scroll down to view them.

Croagh Patrick from road to Delphi Valley - Finished Painting

This is the finished painting I did this last week of Croagh Patrick. It is not the usual view of the mountain. It is looking at it from the south west side, so view above is facing north west. If you drive the road, which heads south, you arrive at Mweelrea Mountain and then onwards into the Delphi Valley heading south towards Killary Fjord, the only fjord in Ireland. This is the boundary between Galway and Mayo counties. Mweelrea is the highest mountain in Connaught but Croagh Patrick is not far behind. The colours are very close to those on the day and I am not brightening them too much compared to reality. I have also been working on other different types of subject, to see what I can do to improve. I have started a painting of children playing in surf, see below. This is a larger than the above painting, 16 x 22 versus the above 12 x 16 inch work. All my paintings are on canvas and I am using the Artists grade paints from Windsor and Newton, so all should be very good quality and fade proof.

When I get this finished in the next week or two I will post the final work online here. Due to the slight difficulty in photographing I have cropped a little of the picture off in the above, so it is slightly larger in reality, especially at the bottom. In the meantime I will be working in other ideas alongside this one. If you want to see my continued progress, make sure to subscribe to the blog and get automatic updates, or call back often. I post approx. once a week now, when I have new work. I am getting faster at painting due to learning better techniques, hence there will be faster progress in my ability, and more paintings to see!! Hopefully! I have several works finsihed now and when I get enough, approximately 20 - 30, I will explore organising an exhibition of my work. That appears to be a way of showing my work on a wider scale here in Dublin.

Anyway that's it for now - hope some people will leave comments and feedback as it's a way for me to know if you think I am improving. Something I am trying very hard to do now.