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: May 2018 part II
by Simon Bland / 08 May 2018
This latest batch are the most recent paintings I've finished. It's interesting to look at them side-by-side because they look like they were done by different people....
Painting on Hemp Canvas
by Simon Bland / 08 May 2018
In this blog post I discuss the use of hemp canvas as a support for paintings....
Recent Work: May 2018
by Simon Bland / 04 May 2018
These are some of the paintings I did near the end April 2018....
Recent Work: April 2018 part 2
by Simon Bland / 12 Apr 2018
My push to get ready for the Edmonds Art Fair continues. I'm focusing on smaller works so that I'll have more inventory at an affordable price point. As much as I like to paint on a large scale, big paintings are hard to sell....
Recent Work: April 2018
by Simon Bland / 06 Apr 2018
A selection from a series of small paintings done over the course of a week....
Writing an Artist's Statement
by Simon Bland / 31 Mar 2018
This article is about the what, why and how of writing an artist's statement. I show how a typical artist's statement can be improved by making it shorter and more specific to the artist....
Recent Work
by Simon Bland / 31 Jan 2018
A new feature for the blog: the latest paintings and portraits available to preview as soon as they come off the easel....
What Makes a Great Art Blog?
by Simon Bland / 06 Jan 2018
As I go through the process of reworking my blog, I jot down my thoughts on art blogs including a list of the things that make for good reading....
How to Paint Green Landscapes
by Simon Bland / 18 Dec 2017
In this blog post I show some ways to paint landscapes without using out-of-the-tube greens and some strategies for using greens more effectively. I will try to answer the question: "What are the best oil colors for landscape painting?" ...