Tangerine dream

12 x 9 inches, oil on Gatorfoam panel
SOLD to Ryan Gallery Las Vegas

I did a smaller version of this about a year back without the knife (which is on the cover of the Blick catalogue this year) and just wanted to enjoy painting a tangerine again but using walnut oil this time.
I have started buying unrefined walnut oil from my local supermarket and 'washing' it myself to clean it.
You do that by putting distilled water and walnut oil (50/50) in a clean glass jar, give it a shake and leave it to stand in the sun for about three days. The water pulls the impurities out of the oil and so you are left with oil at the top, mucilage (the impurities) in the middle and the water at the bottom.
Then I carefully extract the oil into another clean glass jar with a pipette leaving behind the mucilage and water to throw away. I then leave the oil in the sun for a further 3/4 days (with the top not on too tight to let a little air in) which lightens the colour quite a lot.
if it was good enough for Da Vinci, it's good enough for me ;-)

Apparently, walnut does not yellow as much as linseed and my next step is to press my own oil from the millions of walnuts cluttering the garden each year.
I still add cobalt drier to speed up the drying time as walnut takes longer to dry than linseed.

Leaving on a jet plane

16 x 12 inches - Oil on Gatorfoam
SOLD to Ryan Gallery Las Vegas

This is my Winter hat and an old suitcase that I store old video tapes in (so, two lots of antiques ... if you don't include me that is ;-)
I like doing these retro scenes so I may hunt out some more objects that I can use in the junk shops around here.
More lemons and tangerines coming soon - so no surprises there (I'm self indulgent, what can I say!).

Moving pictures (sort of)

If anyone is interested in taking a look, I have added a movie of some of my paintings to YouTube.
For anyone with a Mac and iMovie it is really easy to do so let me know if you want to have a go at one.

Let there be light

12 x 9 inches, oil on Gatorfoam panel
SOLD

I thought I'd try another candle but fill the background in this time to give it a darker feel. I think that I need a lot of time working with this kind of subject to get it the way I really want it to look. If any of you know Joseph Wright of Derby's candle/fire paintings you'll know what I mean ;-)
I had loads of fun painting the very bottom of the candlestick but the background was a nervy time for me and I kept putting it off (so I left it until the very last ;-).

I did something I don't usually do with this one too: I cropped the books. I wanted to do this one in portrait aspect and not landscape so that the candle would be bigger and if I had included all the books the candle would have been too small and insignificant.

Peeled

12 x 9 inches - oil on Gatorfoam panel
SOLD

When you click the image you will see that I left the photo bigger than life size for a change so those of you who revel in getting up close and personal can see it warts and all ;-)
This one has gone to the Elliot Foutts Gallery in Sacramento. They are a big supporter of my work and they are great people too :-)

I like painting on these panels as they are very smooth and unbelievably light, they are also very cheap. I give them three coats of white gesso (sanded with very fine sandpaper between each coat) and then a final coat of Winsor & Newton Galleria gloss acrylic medium to make them less absorbent.
I get the 3/16 inch thick panels.
You can get them here (mentioning my name wouldn't hurt me ;-): windriverarts.com

Wine on the vine

16 x 12 inches - oil on hardboard panel
SOLD

This is quite a big one for me and I started it many months ago but gave up on it, and then I started experimenting with different mediums so I thought it would be good to use this failure as a test (so as not to ruin a new one if the experiment went disastrously wrong).
I think I managed to save it so I'm glad I didn't paint over it or use it as a cutting board (as has happened with other dubious offerings).

I'll be mentioning more about mediums from James Cosgrove in the next post when I hope to have a new candle painting completed exclusively with a new mix I am using incorporating some of his fine products.

I finished all the paintings for the Tallantyre Gallery in the UK so I hope to be posting some new work soon that will be available for sale - when I get around to doing some more photos.
This one may or may not be going to the Mason Murer Gallery in Atlanta as I have a lemon painting going to them for a show in April and may send this along for company ;-)