This is what is on my board at the moment, I started this before our break in London, another in my google street view series, it's somewhere in Italy. It's on a heavy weight paper that I found in my studio, it's not a paper that I normally use, I don't even know the make of it. I will post the finished painting tomorrow.

Family day out.   10" x 10"

Another painting in my 'google. street view series, I liked the grouping of the figures and the way they interacted with each other. A good little painting exercise for me.

I've just completed this painting 'Afternoon nap, should I start another or should I watch the football? Decisions, decisions!

Afternoon nap.   15" x 11"

Another painting of a man sitting on a bench in strong sunlight, I loved the colors. I first did a little pencil tonal study, not a very accurate drawing compared to the one I did for the painting but it didn't need to be. I started the painting today but will probably finish it tomorrow.

This is a tonal study for a painting I hope to be doing in the coming weeks, some days I don't feel like starting a painting, so I like to do some drawing instead.

Normally when I start a drawing  I do a rough block-in to establish it's position on the paper. I begin to establish the main directional angles of the figures form to orient it correctly in the space of the paper.

A good system to use to is the clock system, I found this in 'Expressive figure drawing' by Bill Buchman, the clock system is based on the the same idea as the compass system but since it has six basic positions for the angles or axes, it offers more precision, an example is 6'o'clock to 12'o'clock ( vertical ).

One of the good things about the clock system is that it can be refined, depending on how precise you want your directional angles to be, so you can define the angles at half hours, as in 2:30 to 8:30 creating finer angles in between the six basic ones.

Once I've established the basic drawing I also look for the

negative spaces or little shapes throughout the drawing. The sense of movement in a figure study is conveyed by the angles, direction and dynamic shapes created by the pose. When drawing remember to check your angles constantly.

Constructing an image for painting.
On our recent trip to Liverpool we had a few hours of sunshine, it was during one of these brief periods that I took a few photos that I thought might make it into one of my paintings, I found a nice high viewpoint, giving dramatic shadows, and snapped a few photos of the people as they streamed into 'Liverpool One' shopping center. Now I'm back home I can look through the photos and see if any could be used for a painting, sometimes I can be lucky and find among my photos an image that will need little alteration but for a little cropping but most of the time some extra editing is needed. in this case I've taken elements from several photos and placed them in a more pleasing composition, all this was done in 'Photoshop' on my computer.
Sometimes if I want to capture a busy scene I will use the video setting on my camera and then I can grab screenshots when I'm viewing it on my computer.

Just finished this little painting, I really liked the laid back pose of the lad on the left.

Two lads   12" x 9"

I've just sold this painting, so glad, I was getting a bit worried. This is a Mother and her daughters paddling in the sea at Blackpool, something I used to love doing when I was little.

Paddling   16" x 10"

This is the painting that was on my board a couple of days ago, a little cherub fountain in Risco Bello gardens, located alongside the Hotel Taoro above the town of Puerto de la Cruz, tenerife. These extraordinary aquatic gardens provide water landscapes to rival a Monet canvas, and a genteel tea garden in which Agatha’s ghost wouldn’t look out of place were it to materialize. Steps, footbridges and hidden paths lead around and across lily-filled ponds, waterfalls and bougainvillea backed pools where nature and secateurs have reached a compromise. Exploring Risco Bello is like discovering a secret paradise and then being able to go for coffee and cakes by the lake afterwards.
This is from our recent trip to Tenerife, I posted a little sketch that I did while I was there.

Cherub fountain   12" x 9"

This is what is on my board at the moment, halfway through 'Cherub fountain', should finish it later today.

 

On the steps.   11" x 8"

These are the pencils for my next four paintings.