Painting Holiday in Northern Spain

I've just arranged a painting holiday in Cantabria in Northern Spain for next summer (May 30th - 5th June). It's a beautiful part of the country, and I'm really looking forward to it. So why not come along and join me for a week of painting tuition, fun, good food and good company? I'd love to see you there. For more info visit http://www.learntodo.co.uk/html/painting_holidays.html

Hola from Olhao - Painting Holiday

I've just returned form a great painting holiday in the Algarve in Portu

gal. Seven painters from the Rohampton Club in London joined

me for a week of sketching and painting in the lovely fishing town of Olhao.

The town has everything an artist could want - old crumbling buildings with magnificant wooden doors and windows, cobbled streets full of charm, a large fish and fruit market, a fine white church, a harbour full of colourful fishing boats, and islands in a lagoon which are reminiscent of the caribbean. Plus of course, lots of sunshine and warm weather.

I've now returned with a number of oil and

watercolour paintings from the trip, and with loads of photos to work from in future. The colours, buildings, fishing boats and coastal waters have been a great inspiration.We were accomodated in a very plush and quirky house with it's own studio where paintings could be finished in comfort. And every lunchtime and evening we were wined and dined in one of the many restaurants edging the harbour, often being served the local speciality fish dishes.

I've got another two painting holidays planned for the same venue in 2010 (April 10-17 and October 9-16) so why not join me there. There are more details on my website at www.learntodo.co.uk

Pochade Paintings

I've recently painted four small water-soluble oils and here they are.

We sat in a little courtyard in the Andalucian mountain town of Competa in Southern Spain and ate bocadillos and drank wine. The sun cast lovely shadows on this little scene in front of me and I tried to capture it in a small pochade painting in oils. The large ceramic pot added character to the picture.

I also painted from the roof terrace of our friends house and tried to catch the sunlight and shadows of the narrow street below. Not sure how well I did on this one.

The beach huts below are on Southwold Beach in Suffolk and reminded me so much of our family holidays when I was young. We used to rent out one of these huts every year and sit and shiver in it as the cold north wind swept past the door!

Finally a small painting of Venice, taken from a photo I took there last year. Yes, I know it's all a bit familiar and there are hundreds of paintings of this very scene, but this is my quick attempt at it.

Counterfeit Banknotes

I read somewhere recently that banks train their staff to recognise counterfeit banknotes. They do so, not by pointing out defective notes, or letting them study bank notes which contain mistakes, or with lists of how to spot a counterfeit, but by showing them hundreds and hundreds of real notes. The bank employees get so used to seeing the real thing, that when a counterfeit note appears it just jumps out at them.

How does this relate to art? Well, I think we can spend too long looking at the wrong sort of painting! We can study our own mistakes and those paintings that haven't turned out particularly well, we can look at the paintings of others in our evening class who are at our same level and ability, and we can begin to assume that we can then spot a good painting.

However I think it is much better for us to spend our time looking at the Best of the Best in order to understand what a good painting is - immersing ourselves in galleries, looking at books of paintings by famous or professional artists, cutting out and keeping paintings from magazines that we really admire. And as we get used to seeing the 'real thing' I believe our own art will improve in leaps and bounds.

Click, clickaway!

I've just spent a day at Southwold in Suffolk in the UK. It's a place I know well because I spent many a happy holiday there when I was a child. I've not been back for many years so yesterday was a real treat, especially as I am now looking at it through artist's eyes.

Southwold (and the nearby village of Walberswick) have been a painters paradise for many years and you will often find paintings of these places in magazines and books on art. Yesterday I could see why. The harbour area is particularly interesting from a painting point of view, but because I was with my wife and my sister and we only had a few hours there, I had no oportunity to paint or even sketch. So I snapped away on the camera.

The wonder of digital cameras is that you can do this with great liberty. I took loads of photos - just aiming the camera roughly in the direction of my subject, clicking and hoping to get something. But I know that when I then upload the photos onto my pc I'll be able to edit, crop, lighten, increase the contrast and do all sorts of wobndrful things with them that I will have plenty of great reference material for paintings.

So, my advice is this - don't wait for the perfect shot or the perfect scene before taking a photo. Just click, clickaway and then find the perfect composition later on your computer. And happy painting!

The Balloon Man

Here's the latest small pochade painting, taken from a photo but painted as quickly as I could. The balloon seller was sitting in deep shadow and looked really bored and he contrasted so well with his coloured balloons he just made a great subject.

I had an 'Aha!' moment whilst doing this painting and I want to explore a new painting strategy which if it works out well, I'll incorporate into a new course on oil and colour.

I've now decided to sell some of my smaller paintings over the net, so if you're interested just look at my website at www.learntodo.co.uk.

New pochade paintings

Here are a few of may latest small pochade paintings in water-soluble oils for you to see. They are all just 6" x 8" and painted on board. I've used an underpainting in each case - just a mid-toned colour, which gives continuity to the painting in the places where it shows through. Hope you like them.