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.
A Few More Sketches and Studies for the Studio Tour
by Simon Bland / 06 Jun 2014
I've been prodigiously busy this week so I'm going to spare the effort of writing a separate post for each painting and, instead, group a few together. All the paintings will be for sale at stop #4 on the WLAST tour. Barry. 8"x6", oil on linen panel. 2014. I painted this small picture of Barr...
Rams Head
by Simon Bland / 03 Jun 2014
Ram's Head. 11x14, oil on linen. 2014 A new sketch portrait which will be for sale at the Western Loudoun Artist's Studio Tour in June. This ram is one of several I found at Willow Hawk Farm in Lovettsville. Like the sheep portrait I painted at the end of last year I decided to paint thi...
A Sketch Portrait of Shakespeare the Cat
by Simon Bland / 29 May 2014
Shakespeare. 8x10, oil on linen. 2014 Last weekend one of the patrons at Upperville Stable Tour asked me if I ever painted portraits of cats. In truth I paint about 30 dogs for every cat I attempt, although I'm not sure why there is such a great imbalance. After dwelling on this for a few days I dec...
Painting on Location in Round Hill, VA
by Simon Bland / 29 May 2014
East Lynn I. 11x14, oil on linen panel. 2014. This year's plein air painting sessions have gone very well so far, with three paintings done in three painting sessions. All of the outdoor paintings I tried at home in March and early April were a failure, so perhaps I was due for a run of better...
Painting on Location in Waterford, VA
by Simon Bland / 14 May 2014
Talbot Farm I. 9" x 12" oil on panel. 2014 This is the first outing of the season for our local group of plein air painters. I decided to attempt a painting of the barns and it proved to be a challenging scene as the sun was partially towards me, something I usually try to avoid. I also w...
Meadow Grove Farm - A Limited Palette
by Simon Bland / 05 May 2014
Meadow Grove. 11" x 14" oil on linen panel. 2014 I'm gearing up for the first of my summer shows: Upperville Stable Tour, over Memorial Day weekend and the Western Loudoun Artist Studio Tour the third weekend in June. This latest painting is a landscape that I've been contemplating for a coupl...
Chicken Thursday
by Simon Bland / 10 Apr 2014
Chicken Thursday. approx. 16" x 16" oil on linen. Unmounted. 2014. The latest painting off the easel. It is currently unmounted so there are a few natural hills and valleys in the surface of the linen which you can see in this image. This is one of the chickens I photographed last weekend at G...
A New Pochade Box
by Simon Bland / 10 Apr 2014
Some images and a brief description of a home-made pochade box....
Old Waterford Road
by Simon Bland / 31 Mar 2014
Old Waterford Road. 9" x 12" oil on linen panel. 2014. A small landscape study that I finished last week. I took a few photos during a recent snowstorm and thought this scene would made a basis for an interesting painting. The trees were difficult to render without overdoing: as is often...