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.
The Wildlife Meadows at Innisfree
by Simon Bland / 23 Aug 2014
The Wildlife Meadows at Innisfree. 11x14 oil on linen panel. 2014. This is my fourth painting of the landscape at Innisfree Farm in Rectorstown, VA. I was intrigued by the way the light was coming through the big tree and the way it was set against the very background treeline. I used a color called...
Barns on Shelburne Glebe Road
by Simon Bland / 23 Aug 2014
Barns on Shelburne Glebe Road. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2014 I painted this small landscape with deliberately subdued colors and spent most of my time focused on the way the light wraps around the tops of the trees. There are a lot of architectural elements in the painting, but the way they a...
Clune Forest Sheep Update
by Simon Bland / 20 Aug 2014
Clune Forest Sheep and Barn. 24x30, oil on linen. WIP Here's an updated look at the painting of the sheep. At this stage it is almost complete, but I still need to do a bit of adjustment to some of the dark areas....
Plein Air at Silverbrook Farm
by Simon Bland / 20 Aug 2014
Silverbrook. 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2014. This was done on location at Silverbrook Farm in Hillsboro, VA. I had a great perch from which to paint this scene, standing under a mature Norwegian Maple on the side of a hill which let me overlook the fields and valley....
Another Rabbit
by Simon Bland / 20 Aug 2014
Dandelion. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2014 To be honest, it is difficult to keep finding a name for rabbit paintings so I've decided that I will just have to rely on my imagination a little more. I found this rabbit by going for a 2.5 mile walk down some of the unpaved country roads round our neck of...
Shelburne Glebe Revisited
by Simon Bland / 12 Aug 2014
Shelburne Glebe Meadows. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2014. Unable to go painting on location today due to the rain, I spent the day in the studio. After working on a commissioned work this morning, I decided to revisit the plein air painting that I did last week at Shelburne Glebe in Lincoln, VA...
Featherbed Lane
by Simon Bland / 10 Aug 2014
Featherbed Lane. 24x20, oil on linen. 2014. Although I've been planning this painting for a long time, the actual painting part went very quickly: I started this last weekend and, after letting it dry for a week, I did the finishing touches today. In preparation, I did a few pencil scribbles, follow...
The Rabbit Next Door
by Simon Bland / 09 Aug 2014
The Rabbit Next Door. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2014. Even though there are plenty of rabbits in our neighborhood, the hard part of painting them is getting a good photo to use: I have to sneak up on them with my camera and take a few pictures before they bolt. I photographed this rabbit in ou...
Clune Forest Sheep - Work in Progress
by Simon Bland / 06 Aug 2014
A work in progress: 24x30 oil on linen. A new painting that I currently have in progress. I felt compelled to paint in the sheep first and do everything else afterwards. I spent a day and a half working on the design and another day doing the layout before getting to this stage....