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.
Recent Work: Dec 2018
by Simon Bland / 14 Dec 2018
Some new paintings done at the end of 2018. ...
Still Life Painting of a Coffee Pot
by Simon Bland / 12 Dec 2018
In this blog post I'm continuing with a series of still life paintings, showing how my process evolves incrementally over time. The subject this time is an Italian coffee pot....
Still Life Painting in the Studio
by Simon Bland / 08 Dec 2018
Still life projects are a great way to develop techniques and observation skills. In this blog post I walk step by step through a recent work....
Setting Up an Art Fair Booth
by Simon Bland / 15 Nov 2018
When I do art fairs and shows, I often trade ideas with other artists about booth setup—especially tips on where we get our "stuff". I thought it would be helpful to jot down some notes on my display and tell you where everything comes from....
Recent Work: Wrapping Up for a Show. Oct 2018.
by Simon Bland / 27 Oct 2018
Some last minute works that will be on sale at the Best of the Northwest event 9-11 November 2018 at Magnuson Park in Seattle....
Recent Work: Small and Square
by Simon Bland / 22 Sep 2018
In this post I show some new work on square canvases and talk about the design decisions resulting from this format....
Recent Work: August 2018
by Simon Bland / 30 Aug 2018
In this latest batch of paintings I'm continuing to explore my relationship with the immediate surroundings: Puget Sound, the parks and the waterfront....
Recent Work: Preparing for a Show
by Simon Bland / 30 Jul 2018
When I'm getting ready for a smaller show I don't often go to town and buy boxes full of new frames; I prefer to go through my inventory of paintings and cull the weaker ones, replacing them with new work. ...
Some New Seascape Paintings
by Simon Bland / 04 Jul 2018
This blog post features some recent seascapes. I did all of these at the end of June 2018 after selling all the seascapes I had on display at my last art fair....