A Blog About Oil Painting
Welcome to my blog. Here you'll find me rambling on, unassisted by AI, about all sorts of things related to art in general and oil painting in particular. There's even a recipe for dog cookies hidden away somewhere.
Like the rest of the site, this section is still a work in progress and I will be making it tider and easier to navigate in time. There is a lot of content, so using the buttons below may help you to get around. Newest posts are shown first.
Sketch Marathon Day 13: Even More Abstraction
by Simon Bland / 13 May 2016
Bainbridge Point. 5x7, oil on linen panel. 2016 This one took a lot of experimentation. I had to keep painting and destroying the forms over and over again until I got what I was looking for. I've always been very careful about mixing my paint and keeping everything super tidy, so it's a big change ...
Sketch Marathon Day 12: More Abstraction
by Simon Bland / 13 May 2016
Millville Road. 7x5, oil on linen panel. 2016 One of the things that I've been working on over the past couple of weeks has been an increased emphasis on abstraction. It's not that I suddenly want to declare myself an abstract painter, I just want to use it as a way to place more emphasis on the lig...
Sketch Marathon Day 11: Painting on Location at Carkeek Beach
by Simon Bland / 11 May 2016
Carkeek Shore (plein air). 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 I painted on the beach at Carkeek Park today. What a difference compared to my last visit - a rainy winter day when I had the whole place to myself. On a bright spring day like today, the colors of the PNW coast almost look artificial. ...
Sketch Marathon Day 10: Revisiting a Plein Air Notan Sketch
by Simon Bland / 10 May 2016
North Field. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 Sketch marathon day 10. Starting to feel like I'm making some progress. [Before I continue, I have to say that this sketch didn't photograph very well (much like yesterday's painting). I'll try to get a better image when the paint has dried a little.] Yest...
Sketch Marathon Day 9: A Seago Palette
by Simon Bland / 09 May 2016
Golden Gardens Beach. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 This painting is ostensibly of Golden Gardens beach, with a lot of clutter removed and the layout of the beach slightly altered. It's a scene that I've tried to paint before without success. Today, I spent more time developing the composition usin...
Sketch Marathon Day 8: Back to the Water
by Simon Bland / 07 May 2016
Soar. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 A customer gave me some great feedback on the seascape I did earlier in the week. With that in mind I revisited one of the plein air themes I'd worked on over the winter. My goal was to put more in the foreground: this started off as waves and beach but, after ad...
Sketch Marathon Day 7: Working Directly from Notan Sketches
by Simon Bland / 06 May 2016
North Bluff. 5x7, oil on linen panel. 2016 Today I took a bit of a different turn in my sketch-a-thon. Because I had other things that I needed to get done, I was only able to get a couple of sketches finished. I revisited some of the scraped-off field studies that I did yesterday, working from a co...
Sketch Marathon Day 6: Olympic Peninsula
by Simon Bland / 05 May 2016
Olympic Peninsula (plein air). 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 Of the four field studies that I did today, this is the only one I decided to keep. Despite the grandiose title, I painted this at the Smith Cove Park marina here in Magnolia, just 5 minutes from our house. I timed my arrival (accidentall...
Sketch Marathon Day 5: Showers
by Simon Bland / 04 May 2016
Showers. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 Another big effort today to keep up with my self imposed goal. I made several attempts to start another small painting, but I found myself getting too caught up in detail to make any of them work. In addition to this oil sketch, I also made about a dozen small...