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.
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....
Study of a Horse at Trappe Farm
by Simon Bland / 25 Jan 2014
Filly at Trappe Farm. 9" x 12" oil on linen panel. 2014 A small figurative painting that I did earlier this week....
Three Miles Out
by Simon Bland / 25 Jan 2014
Three Miles Out. 8" x 6" oil on linen panel. 2014 This barn is about three miles away from my house. I passed it in the fall when I was out running and happened to have my cell phone with me, so I took a couple of shots thinking it would make a good painting....
Barn Cat - the Original
by Simon Bland / 25 Jan 2014
Barn Cat. 12" x 9", oil on linen panel. 2014 I came across this cat at Oakland Green farm while plein air painting in the early fall. She just happened to be sitting in the way when I was taking photos of one of the barns. I played around with the composition slightly, especially the foregroun...
A Portrait of Ezekiel and Natasha
by Simon Bland / 25 Jan 2014
Ezekiel and Natasha. 20" x 20" oil on linen. 2014. This commissioned portrait was worked on for about 6 weeks from the beginning of December 2013 through the middle of January 2014 (I mention this as a note to my future self when I start to grumble about how long a painting is taking). Ezekiel and N...
Portrait Sketch of Hudson
by Simon Bland / 16 Jan 2014
Hudon. 12" x 9", oil on linen panel. 2014. A portrait of Hudson that I finished this week. After toning the canvas with a two color wash I did a full value monochrome block in prior to putting on the final layers (there's a bit of glare in the image)....