February 2011 Blog Posts (8)

Hi all, thanks again for all your emails of support. We are actually a couple thousand miles from Christchurch, but we do have family down there who are still going through it, but they are thankfully all okay. If anyone would like to help out with donations here's the best place I could find to do that online:

All the best,

Richard

10x8" Oil on Canvasboard.

Took a few days with the family up north to Rangiputa, staying in a friend's bach there and working on some paintings for commission. Haven't really worked on commission stuff for a while now since I started getting more choosey about the work I take on, so it was interesting to feel a bit of that pressure back on…

I would like to express my thoughts and condolences to all New Zealanders caught up in this lastest natural disaster - the Earthquake centred near, and effecting Christchurch and Canterbury.

Our prayers are with you all.

Gail

Here's where I'm at so far. Took a few days break to do some other stuff and let this one stew for a bit. The colour is a bit punchier here in the photo that it actually is in the painting, but it'll look different on your screen to mine anyway. I have increased the saturation of the yellows in the foreground though, which is perhaps the major difference since my…

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Spent a few more hours on this today - really enjoyed myself a lot more than the struggle I went through the previous day. Seems to be coming together pretty well now. Was really happy about the loose painting of the sky. I was intending it to be the rough blockin, but I loved its energy so much I jumped on my right hand and held it to the floor for a while so it…

Got quite busy today with other stuff, but here's today's progress after about 3 hours. The water's not finished yet by any means. I haven't yet started to add the things that will make it look transparent like little rocks on the bottom, ripples of light and the all important sky reflection, so there's a ways to go yet. I found this all very tricky -…

"Pataua Sketch" - 10x8" - Oil on Canvasboard



Last Wednesday we spent the day in Pataua North, returning to this classic spot I'd spied on our holiday travels in the horse truck. I remember climbing along the trunk with Helen and the kids and just being in absolute wonder at the colours bouncing around everywhere. The whole scene was a sparkling jewel and I said…