Friday 5th September

The “woodland” picture for Buckinghams was fairly urgent as they needed to get it framed and to the client for a “birthday surprise present “ in October. I have stated many times in my blogs how I hate doing “copies” of my paintings.  This was to be a copy of a painting I’d sold through Buckinghams a while ago. I didn’t really like the original! It always takes longer than the original and matching colours on these paintings is impossible as a lot of mixing is done on the painting . Once I’d got the trees in place and the path I could begin. Getting the right background, with the distant, misty trees was important as the painting was called “Into the Mist”. Half way through, I decided to stop trying to copy the original and just paint. The format was close enough and I actually thought the new painting was better. It took me 2 days and I am reasonably happy with the result.

The only reason I keep doing these commissions is to maintain my contacts with Buckinghams, however,  at some point I will say no. Buckinghams did send me a couple more boards to do 2 more Autumn woodland paintings so, despite the fact they still have some, after these commissions I might do a couple more.

The second commissions was my “Pink Barns” painting from the lady who enquired through my website and who lives in Ireland. I found an old 16”×16” painting and painted white gesso over it. I then sanded it down to remove some of the collage. The painting (which can be seen on my website) sold a while ago and looks very simple. However, it wasn’t quite so straight forward.  Although the client hadn’t requested a copy, she loved the painting so I didn’t want to change its contents too much. Although it looked simple from a distance, if you zoom in there are a lot of subtle colour mixes on the board, particularly in the sky and foreground. It would have been much easier if I had the original to look at. I did alter a few aspects but kept the “feel” the same. It was the first time I’d painted my sheep for a while. It soon came back to me. I then had the “moon” jeopardy situation. On most of my “sheep” paintings for Buckinghams and even before with Washington Green landscapes I added a moon. It was always the last thing to paint and was always a “heart in mouth” moment as messing it up, especially with acrylics would ruin the whole sky which would have to be repainted, an incredibly difficult thing to do as the sky was always the first thing to be painted and everything else painted on top of it. I manage it with no traumas. So, that’s 2 commissions down. 2 to go.

The 3rd one is for a very local client and is “top secret, with a tight schedule, so I can’t say too much about it yet. I started it on Thursday. It’s only small (10”×12”) and not my usual subject matter.

These paintings will need varnishing and dispatching next week.

The 4th commission, of Embleton Bay, is for another local client received at AITG. I need to confirm details before I start as it’s a big painting (4ft ×2ft) and the unusual shaped canvas is expensive. A lot of the time you can only buy unusual size canvases like this in pairs. At £50 each, I have to make sure of the clients brief.

In other news...

I got good news from Jetty Gallery in Oban this week. Annie had sold 6 paintings in August,  mainly to tourists. 3 were new ones I sent recently. The season up there will start slowing down soon but it was still busy when we were up there last September.

In the next few weeks (when we get a free weekend!), I need to get my new semi abstract Northumberland paintings to a gallery, probably Blagdon. I need to decide whether to add to the collection.

I will then start on my new “Lakes of Lakeland “ series of paintings for Beckstones Gallery. These will be done as and when for delivery when the Gallery fully re-opens in May. I might even push for a solo exhibition? That would be very exciting.