Ancient Woods, Landscape Painting

Ancient Woods, chalk pastel on board

These redwoods are just north of San Francisco. I was there, at the Muir Woods National Monument,  a while back and took tonnes of photos. It really did feel as if you were back in time.

A wonderful ancient, peaceful place.

Smokey Jura, Landscape Oil Painting

Smokey Jura, oil on canvas

This was a tiny wee painting. I started out painting murals, so working on something so small was a real challenge for me. It went well, I think, and the painting has sold.

Greetings cards of it are available through my website.

Inaccessible Temple Landscape Painting

Inaccessible Temple, chalk pastel on board.

I love using chalk pastels, especially iridescent ones. I've used them all over this painting, but annoyingly, you can't see them in photos - I've tried with several. They added a shimmer to the water in silvers, and depth in bronzes to the rocks.

Sorry for letting you know what you can't see.

I still wonder how anyone gets to the temple - I saw no boats.

Goodbye Comfort Zone, Suilven Landscape Painting

Walk into Suilven, oil on canvas

I don't like brown. I really hate it. I never wear it. It's an old school uniform thing.

But while painting, I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone. So I got the brown paint out.

• Burnt Umber
• Raw Umber
• Raw Sienna
• Burnt Sienna (I quite like that one, actually)
• Yellow Ochre (it was in my school tie, so it's still hard to stomache)

I mixed in blues and pinks while I was working, just to alleviate things and even scraped away paint with the hard end of my brush. This is what I came up with.

I'm not finding brown quite as offensive as I once did.

Art Materials

As you can see from my blog title, I have changed the picture from a selection of my paintings to my work space - I thought you might like to see what I work with.

Moments after I took the photo, I had a barrier to my work. No surprise really, I had set a cat trap - an open box just begging to be filled.