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.
Figurative Portrait in Pencil
by Simon Bland / 06 Feb 2015
49ers. 20x16, pencil on hot press watercolor paper. 2015 Starting with a grainy cell-phone photograph I created this figurative portrait by reducing the picture to about 4 values and eliminating as much of the background clutter as possible. As usual, I laid down the drawing in a series of layers: a...
Warlock
by Simon Bland / 29 Jan 2015
Warlock. 22x18, oil on linen. 2015. This commissioned painting of Warlock is the third horse portrait of the year. I tried to paint the edges as dynamically as possible to create the illusion of depth and to make the head more prominent. There's also some sleight-of-hand occurring: I made...
Taking Some New Photos of an Older Painting
by Simon Bland / 20 Jan 2015
Hannah on the Sofa. 24x30, oil on linen. 2007? This painting of Hannah hangs in our living room. I don't recall exactly when I painted it, but I'm guessing it was 2007 or early 2008. At this point I'd been painting in oils for a few years and created this large painting to help with marketing ...
Still Life Painting of an Apple
by Simon Bland / 19 Jan 2015
Apple Still Life. 6x8, oil on linen. 2015 I painted this apple from life in the studio just to play around with using abstraction to break up the form. In the end, I wasn't successful in pushing this as far as I wanted (it is hard to let go) but I thought the final result was a break from my usual w...
Pier 66 and Brusque (Final Versions)
by Simon Bland / 19 Jan 2015
Pier 66. 24x30, oil on linen. 2015 It is often hard to draw a line underneath your work and call it finished. I thought I had completed this portrait but the very next day I saw some areas that clearly weren't right. The day after that I made some more changes. For these conformation portraits of re...
Eros the Ram
by Simon Bland / 01 Jan 2015
Eros. 20x24, oil on linen. 2015. Firstly, I should be honest and say that I finished painting Eros on New Year's Eve but since I'm unveiling the painting today I'm calling it a 2015 painting. The benefit of this, of course, is that I can convince myself that I'm getting off to a very productiv...
A Black Faced Ram
by Simon Bland / 19 Dec 2014
Black Faced Ram Sketch. 8x8, oil on linen. 2014 I painted this small sketch of a black faced ram at Weatherlea Farm in part because I wanted to try a creating something a little darker than usual. I had taken a series of photos in the shadow cast by the large barn and there was only a trace o...
A Work in Progress - Across the River in Maryland -
by Simon Bland / 12 Dec 2014
Work in Progress: Jefferson, MD. 12x24, oil on linen panel. 2014. The area of Virginia where I live is as green as a salad bowl in the summer months and there are few places with flat, open terrain and an unobstructed view of the distance. Across the river in Maryland, the land is s...
Study of 806
by Simon Bland / 08 Dec 2014
Study of 806. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2014. 806 was one of the young heifers at Rocky Point Farm in Point of Rocks, MD where I spent a morning in the pasture with the young cows. I've been meaning to paint this Holstein cow for the last 18 months and I plan to turn this small sketch in to a l...