A Blog About Oil Painting

Winter Fields and Hedgerows - a Repaint

by Simon Bland / Aug 25, 2016

Winter Fields and Hedgerows. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2016 When I went down to the studio today and took a close look at a painting that I'd worked on last week, I realized that it had too many flaws in the execution to be marketable. Rather than re-paint over the top of the old version, I started ...

Early Evening on the Cliffs

by Simon Bland / Aug 21, 2016

Early Evening on the Cliffs. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2016-2017 It was one of those weeks when I take two steps forward and one step back; this painting took more than three restarts before it began to emerge. It took me a long time to figure out that it was all about texture and small co...

Above the Morning Fog

by Simon Bland / Aug 15, 2016

Above the Morning Fog. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 I took advantage of the nice weather this week to get in a spot of plein air painting. It's been a month or two since I last did any work outside and I was starting to get the itch. After so long in the studio, my gear felt extra heavy. I took a ...

The Dunes

by Simon Bland / Jul 13, 2016

The Dunes. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2016. This is a painting done from two studies: a plein air sketch done at the beach; and a small sketch that I did in the studio. I tried to bring my favorite parts together in a single work. This is another that I'll have for sale at Magnolia Summerfest in earl...

Late Morning

by Simon Bland / Jul 11, 2016

Late Morning. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2016 I've been working at this painting on-and-off for a couple of months. Needless to say it has been through a few revisions by now, but I think it's finally reached a state where I feel comfortable showing it. Although this is strictly a studio work, it's ...

Starting Paintings from Sketches

by Simon Bland / Jul 6, 2016

Winter Dawn. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2016 As the title of this post suggests, I've started to use some of the sketches I have on hand to create bigger paintings. In this case I went from a 5x7 sketch to an 11x14 painting, which felt like a comfortable step. As the painting scaled up, some of the ...