ARTWORK: Ghost

Painted 04/05/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 14"x10".

This was a super quick speed painting I did after watching S4E4 of Game of Thrones. I wanted to see how quickly I could create something that looked decent, and managed this in about 30-45 minutes.

ARTWORK: Mourne Mountain Walk #2

Painted 04/05/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 16"x12".

Another painting from the same set of photos as the last Mourne Mountain Walk painting!

ARTWORK: She Wears the Stars In Her Hair

Painted 07/05/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 22"x18".

THIS PAINTING TOOK ME THREE DAYS.

I swear there are like a million layers where I've been trying to get the skintone just right. Saturn stands about an inch off the canvas where I've been layering and layering enough paint so that the blue of the space behind it wouldn't bleed through.

The subject has gone through several facelifts, from duckfacing party girl to female Mr Burns (yes, she did look like that at one point) to finally looking like how I'd envisioned her in my mind.

ARTWORK: Mourne Mountain Walk #1

Painted 03/05/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 16"x12".

The day I painted this, I was feeling a bit down in the dumps about my ability as an artist. While I ate breakfast, I decided to watch some of Bob Ross's video tutorials - I reckoned it was the perfect thing to lift my mood while picking up some important tips and tricks to improve my technique.
Later in the day, I did this. It was a challenging piece of work - especially capturing the shadows that the trees on the right cast across the grass and the pathway. I painted this from one of my holiday snaps, and another thing I found a challenge was trying to recreate the depth of the work. To achieve this, I built the painting up from background to foreground: sky, trees in background, grass furthest to nearest, then the nearer trees depending on their distance, and then the path itself.

ARTWORK: Accidental Will Graham

Painted 01/05/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 18"x14".

Named as such because he ended up looking kinda like Will Graham from Hannibal - plus there's the stag connection. I have never watched the series so I guess this happened subconsciously :P

ARTWORK: Self Portrait #2 - With Rats

Painted 28/04/15. Acrylic on canvas board, 20"x16".

My second attempt at a self portrait, because there were a few things I wasn't happy with with the first. I decided to paint myself with one of the things I love most in life - rats!
On my head is Teyla. On my shoulders, L-R, is Violet, Florence and Stormy, AKA Stormageddon.
I'm much happier with this one, but I'll continue to paint self portraits to improve :)

ARTWORK: Self Portrait #1

Painted 21/04/15.

This is the first self portrait I've ever done, and it was so weird because it meant not only did I have to stare at my own face for a good few hours, but I had to work really hard to create an accurate representation of myself.
It appears quite pinkish because I painted it from a photo I took in my room - I have purple curtains and they were closed at the time. Plus, my skin is quite reddish in hue anyway!

ARTWORK: Sunset Over St Helens

Painted 14/04/15.

This one looks a lot more rough - the whole thing was wet-on-wet as I was painting late at night and didn't want to wake everybody up with the hairdryer!
Featuring the industrial skyline of St Helens circa 2012, as viewed from the Grange Valley area of Haydock.

ARTWORK: Late Sunset

Painted 14/04/15. This is a painting of a very late sunset from a photo I took just down the road.

I used a clean, dry 2" house brush on the background to achieve a gradient, working in dark blue, sky blue, tiny amounts of green, then yellow and orange until it looked smooth.
Clouds were a varying mixture of light pink, orange and brown, using a wet-on-wet technique to blend them in.
My original photo doesn't have the sun in it, but I thought the painting would look better overall if it was featured.

ARTWORK: Slieve Donard From Murlough Beach

Painted on 12/04/15. This is a redo of an old painting I did back in 2010, but never finished.

Took me ages to figure out how I could get decent looking pebbles on the beach when it occurred to me: gab a fistful of cotton buds, dab them in grey paint that had been mixed so it looked marbled, and slam 'em on the canvas!