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.
Painting at Woodgrove Meadows
by Simon Bland / 25 Feb 2015
Sketch Club Painting at Woodgrove Meadows. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2015 Beginning with a gradated color wash over a simple raw umber block that was already dry, I managed to finish the final layer of this painting in one (long) day. What drew my eye to this scene was the contrast o...
Beans in the Belfry
by Simon Bland / 23 Feb 2015
Beans in the Belfry 2. 9x6, oil on linen panel. 2015. Another small one done between working on commissioned paintings. I painted this scene previously on a scrap of linen, but by not paying attention to the size I ended up with something that was too small to be worth framing. ...
A Small Chicken
by Simon Bland / 23 Feb 2015
"Folk Art" Chicken. 6x9, oil on linen panel. 2015. This little work was painted in January in between two large commissions. I wanted to explore some color relationships and paint application techniques and, generally, take a break from the big stuff. I eventually used it as a color study for a larg...
Re-work of an Existing Painting
by Simon Bland / 19 Feb 2015
Every so often I go off on a Quixotic adventure to try and rework or otherwise advance the look of a particular painting. The most favorable outcomes usually involve reworking from the design stage forward and starting with a fresh canvas. Sometimes things spiral out of control and I end up on...
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...