A Blog About Oil Painting
Welcome to my blog. Here you'll find me rambling on 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.
Breaking the Ice with Leftovers
by Simon Bland / 06 Apr 2016
Trough Hill III. 6x12, oil on canvas panel. 2016 Procrastination is my forte. I've been finding other things to do for the past week rather than get back to the easel and start painting again. Since I was unable to get out of the house today, I decided to break the ice on the new studio and do some ...
Discovery Park. Plein air by bike.
by Simon Bland / 30 Mar 2016
Field Study: Discovery Park 033116. 6x8, oil on canvas panel. 2016 This was painted at Discovery Park in Magnolia today. Since it's such a large area and off limits to road vehicles, I decided to park my car at one of the lots and ride in on my bike. My bike doesn't have a luggage rack so this requi...
Late Summer
by Simon Bland / 25 Mar 2016
Late Summer. 5x7, oil on linen panel. 2016 This is a small painting I did at the studio in Ballard from a reference photo that I took at a plein air painting location in Virginia. Working at this size is great for finding ways to simplify the landscape and use more expressive paint handling. Spring ...
Spring Gales
by Simon Bland / 10 Mar 2016
Spring Gales. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2016 Working outside this morning took more fortitude than usual: 30mph winds make for a challenging environment. I tied everything down and stood in the shelter of a sad-looking bush that grows at the end of the beach. Despite all that, it was enjoyable to ha...
Light in the Sky - a study
by Simon Bland / 08 Mar 2016
Light in the Sky - study. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2016. This is a study that I painted as a way to explore a different take on representing light in the sky. I based it on some plein air sketches. Having painted landscapes in Virginia for so long, I've become used to working with the hierarchy of ...
David and Max in progress
by Simon Bland / 07 Mar 2016
David and Max (WIP). 26x24, oil on linen. 2016 This is a portrait that I've been working on for the past three months. It's still in progress, but near enough to completion that I feel OK about showing it. The painting is based on a photo taken by Smiley's Studio in Fort Worth, Texas, and us...
Cell Phone Waiting
by Simon Bland / 07 Mar 2016
Cell Phone Waiting. 5x7, oil on linen panel. This was one of those little end-of-the-day sketches, the kind you do when the previous 5 hours in the studio haven't produced anything worthwhile. I based it on a photo I took at Dulles Airport one evening while waiting to pick up my wife. The ground was...
A Very Gray Day
by Simon Bland / 02 Mar 2016
Gray Day. 9x12, oil and cold wax on linen panel. 2016. Rapidly changing conditions and lack of light made for difficult painting conditions today. In retrospect, the cold wax medium also made the painting harder to execute. There's something about this season that can make overcast gray skies f...
Clouds on the Horizon
by Simon Bland / 26 Feb 2016
Clouds on the Horizon. 9x12, oil and cold wax on linen panel. 2016. This was created from a combination of two different field (or should that be beach?) studies in an attempt to recreate the feeling of light in the sky over Puget Sound. Using cold wax medium gave the paint a lot of body. I tried to...