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.
Puget Sound Looking North
by Simon Bland / 24 Feb 2016
Puget Sound North (plein air). 5x7, oil on linen panel. 2016 This high key sketch was done on the beach in Ballard (again!). This view catches my eye every time I go to the beach - over the water the north sky often has a pale blue cast that tends towards orange at the horizon. This was done en...
Ridgeline (plein air)
by Simon Bland / 22 Feb 2016
Ridgeline (plein air). 10x8, oil and cold wax on linen panel. 2016. Since I moved to Seattle, I've had the chance to paint on location several times over the winter. Because the beaches are so accessible, I've painted mostly seascapes. Even though I went to the beach again today I took a different v...
Portrait of Oban
by Simon Bland / 17 Feb 2016
Oban. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2016. Here's a portrait that I'm putting the finishing touches to. This was done from the customer's own photographs. As you probably can tell, black dogs are really challenging to paint. I like to compare it to playing the piano with just your left hand: it's diffic...
Discovery Park
by Simon Bland / 16 Feb 2016
Discovery Park. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2016. This painting was done on the beach at Discovery Park in Magnolia. There's a really picturesque lighthouse there which I'll get around to painting some other time. By the time I started working the view across the sound was into the light and the sky ...
Great Northern’s Salmon Bay Bascule Bridge
by Simon Bland / 09 Feb 2016
Ballard Rail Bridge (plein air). 12x9, oil on linen panel. 2016 Are there some things that you feel compelled to do, but every time you try they end up kicking your butt? I think everybody has at least one. For me it is painting engineering structures. Having been educated as an engineer, I loo...
By the Trains at Carkeek Beach
by Simon Bland / 02 Feb 2016
At Carkeek Beach. 9x12, oil and cold wax medium on linen panel. 2016 After getting an early start in the studio and putting in a few hours of painting I headed to the beach at Carkeek Park just north of Ballard. There were few clouds in the sky so I was able to make the painting about the ...
Alki Point
by Simon Bland / 01 Feb 2016
Alki Point. 5x7, oil and cold wax medium on linen panel. 2016 After seeing this view during a ferry ride to Bremerton, I did a small charcoal sketch of the scene. Since then I've made a few attempts to create it in paint, all of them abandoned. Today I decided to try again, this time on a small pane...
A Cold Morning on Lake Union
by Simon Bland / 01 Feb 2016
Lake Union (plein air). 8x10, oil and cold wax medium. 2016 On my way to the studio this morning I stopped off at Lake Union Park in Seattle to do a small study of the view across to University District. It was cool to watch the seaplanes landing in front of me while I worked. Although I am very par...
A Valentine's Day Gift
by Simon Bland / 30 Jan 2016
Hannah and Nikko. 24x30, oil on linen. 2008/9 These are our (now deceased) dogs Hannah and Nikko. I painted this as a Valentine's Day gift for my wife in either 2008 or 2009. It was done in a rush, going from start to finish in just two days, whereas I would typically work on something like t...