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.
Chicken Friday
by Simon Bland / 16 Mar 2014
Chicken Friday. 12" x 12" oil on linen/panel. 2014 I started off this painting by massing in the darks and lights using a mix of burnt umber and terra rosa. I let the block in dry thoroughly before painting in the final layers which I did in one long painting session. I used a loose edge in most of ...
A Step in the Right Direction
by Simon Bland / 06 Mar 2014
A Step in the Right Direction. 16" x 12" oil on linen panel. 2014 I spent most of February 2014 working on landscape paintings, some of which were more successful than others. For a change of pace I looked through some photos I took last year and found some nice images of a rooster that I'd pr...
WLAST - Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour
by Simon Bland / 04 Mar 2014
I'm delighted to have been accepted into the 2014 Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour as a guest artist (I'll be at Carol Clay-Ward's studio for the weekend). The tour is being held on June 21 and 22, 2014....
Ebeneezer Farm
by Simon Bland / 25 Feb 2014
Ebeneezer Farm. 20" x 24" oil on linen. 2012 Another painting destined to be entered into the Fine Art Professionals of Norther Virginia show at Delaplaine Art Center, Frederick, MD in April. I completed this painting about 18 months ago and, while it is one of my favorites, I've only recently...
Quarter Branch Road Winter
by Simon Bland / 25 Feb 2014
Quarter Branch Road - Winter, 12" x 9". Oil on linen panel. 2014 Finished in early February and just framed. This painting will be entered in to the Fine Art Professionals of Northern Virginia show at the Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, MD in April....
Study of a Horse at Trappe Farm Revisited
by Simon Bland / 22 Feb 2014
Horse at Trappe Farm. 9" x 12" oil on linen/panel. 2014 After letting the painting sit for a few weeks I decided to revisit the study of the filly. I decided try a simple background around the horse to give the painting more interest. The setting I used was taken from a view at an...
Some Tips on Process and Methods for Painting Animals
by Simon Bland / 14 Feb 2014
Here's a link to a presentation I put together in preparation for a group demonstration on painting animal portraits. In the end this presentation proved to be too long to use in its entirety, but there's a lot of useful info in here and I don't want it to go to waste. [This has since been rem...
Yellow Wood in the Fall
by Simon Bland / 01 Feb 2014
Yellow Wood - Fall. 8" x 6" oil on linen panel. 2014 I painted this from a plein air study I made in the fall during a paint out at Yellow Wood Farm in Hamilton, VA. The final painting is very close to the original version, but with a few extraneous details removed....
East South East
by Simon Bland / 25 Jan 2014
East South East 2. 8" x 6", oil on linen panel. 2014 The evening sky seen from our back yard looking toward the Catoctin mountain. We get some amazing views of the sky in the fall and winter, but I rarely get the chance to paint them....