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.
One More Painting Out in the Back Yard
by Simon Bland / 02 May 2015
No Edges in the Sky. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2015 What a great day to be painting outside! Standing in the shade of a pine tree this afternoon I could only hear the sound of birds and someone in the far distance mowing their yard. The spring greens have arrived in full force and, as usual, it take...
Studies
by Simon Bland / 27 Apr 2015
Spring Skies. 7x5, oil on linen panel. 2015 Fortune smiled on me today and I managed to do four small studies: two in the studio in preparation for larger paintings, and two done outside in the back yard. After spending all winter painting in the studio it was a huge treat to be able to lug my gear ...
Daisy
by Simon Bland / 22 Apr 2015
Daisy. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2015. This is another small painting for which I did a color study. Like many of my recent works, I spent more time on the edges than anything else. They helped to give the figure some life and prevent it looking like a cut-out....
Painting the Light (A Work in Progress)
by Simon Bland / 19 Apr 2015
Stoney Point. 14x18, oil on linen. 2015 WIP This is one of those paintings that sits in the studio for a long time while I chip away at it. What drew me in was the way the point of the roof looks against the light of the sky. Unfortunately I started without a clear focal point in the picture, a...
Fall at Oakland Green
by Simon Bland / 16 Apr 2015
Fall at Oakland Green. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2015 In this painting I tried to capture the sense of fall by mixing all the colors with reds, oranges and yellows. The palette is phthalo blue, alizarin permanent, cad orange and cad yellow medium. This was based on some photos I took during a paint...
Kuku
by Simon Bland / 15 Apr 2015
Kuku. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2015 This is one of those paintings that was stuck in my head and had to get out. The main idea behind the orange background was to do a painting that would complement the blue green in Portrait of 817. Although I didn't set out to have the orange so domi...
Hay Bales by Furnace Mountain
by Simon Bland / 12 Apr 2015
Hay Bales by Furnace Mountain. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2015 On the way home from a paint out last fall I stopped at the Point of Rocks boat ramp. Although nothing about the river caught my eye, on the way out I noticed a mowed field by the side of the ramp access road and felt it had some potentia...
Wicket
by Simon Bland / 09 Apr 2015
Wicket. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2015. The wild rabbits living in our neighborhood are always at risk of being painted. This little chap was hiding under a bush the other day when I managed to take his picture without spooking him. He still had his winter coat and was adorably fluffy. The surface ...
Portrait of 817
by Simon Bland / 06 Apr 2015
Portrait of 817. 12x12, oil on linen panel. 2015 This is another painting on a medium texture linen. The surface is hard to photograph - a cellphone picture from the side shows the painting better than a head-on shot. The cow looks pretty much as she appeared in real life but the setting was too com...