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.
Soft, Hard, Scrambled: Edges in a Chicken Study
by Simon Bland / 05 Apr 2015
Soft, Hard, Scrambled Edges. 10x8, oil on linen panel. 2015. This painting was done to practice edge-work and to serve as a study for a future painting. The surface is a medium texture linen, less smooth than the portrait grades that I use, consequently I had to use more paint than usual. I applied ...
A Small Portrait of Hannah
by Simon Bland / 30 Mar 2015
A Small Portrait of Hannah. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2015 A small painting of our dog, Hannah, that I painted this afternoon. I started it as a workshop demo which was subsequently scraped off - this is a smaller version or the original. I had already done a value study and a color study. That...
Separating Light from Shadow
by Simon Bland / 25 Mar 2015
Separate Light from Shadow (Rooster Head Study). 10x8, oil on linen panel. 2015. After teaching a small workshop yesterday where one of my themes was separating light from shadow, I decided to put some of my own advice into practice and do a sketch of the rooster at George's Mill Farm in Lovettsvill...
Bradford
by Simon Bland / 20 Mar 2015
Bradford. 14x11, oil on linen panel. 2015. The portrait sketch of Bradford is now finished. I made a few small tweaks to the nose and collar and did some general tidying up since it was first posted. ...
Faraway Farm IV
by Simon Bland / 20 Mar 2015
Fields at Faraway Farm IV. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2015. About 18 months ago I did a series of paintings at Faraway Farm near Upperville, VA. This week I revisited one of those plein air pieces and used it as the basis for a studio painting. To make it more interesting I re-imagined the compositi...
Sierra Lane, Looking West
by Simon Bland / 11 Mar 2015
Sierra Lane Looking West. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2015 If you're a regular traveler to Lovettsville, VA on route 287 you will probably recognize this scene - it's the field at Sierra Lane, looking towards Short Hill/South Mountain. I wandered around in the field after a recent snowfall to tr...
Color Study for Workshop Demo Painting
by Simon Bland / 10 Mar 2015
Hannah Color Study. 8x10 oil on linen. 2015 For the people who have signed up for my workshop on 24th March I will be doing a demonstration painting using a photograph of my dog Hannah. If you would like to paint along with me please feel free to click on the link below and download the image ...
New Rooster Painting
by Simon Bland / 04 Mar 2015
Rooster (study). 20x28, charcoal on paper. 2015 Before starting a new, larger, work I thought it would be a good idea to first develop the concept with some charcoal on paper. What I'm going for is to better integrate the subject with the background. Ideally I'd like for this to be an abstract...
Spartacus
by Simon Bland / 03 Mar 2015
Spartacus. 14x14, oil on linen panel. 2015. It has been a busy last couple of days: painted this portrait, started another, finished another, made changes to two others, painted a color study, stretched and primed two canvases, then toned 6 panels. I painted this sketch portrait from the customer's ...