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.
Portrait of Honey
by Simon Bland / 05 Mar 2013
Honey: oil/linen 24"x24" Just finished this large portrait of Honey. I constructed the painting from a compilation of photos so I needed to do a lot of sketching and study work before I started working on the canvas. The block-in was done as a full value monochrome wash....
Sketch of Jake
by Simon Bland / 27 Jan 2013
A 14x18 sketch in oil of Jake. I did this alla prima (painted in one session) with a little reworking the next day. My intention was to keep the brush work as fresh as possible, but naturally I ended up scraping the paint all over with a palette knife....
Portrait of Flash: New Painting Step 11
by Simon Bland / 27 Jan 2013
In this final step, I've reworked the area immediately behind Flash's shoulder to soften the rectangle shape that appeared there. I think the painting is now complete....
Portrait of Two Children
by Simon Bland / 16 Jan 2013
This is the block in for a portrait of two children. Although I'm creating this from an old photograph provided by the customer I spent a long time getting the layout, values and scale to my liking before starting the block-in. Before starting to paint I did a large value-study in pencil on pa...
Portrait of Flash: New Painting Step 10
by Simon Bland / 17 Dec 2012
The portrait of Flash with a few changes requested by the customer. Although they were mostly small things I think they made a significant improvement in the overall look. A few more tweaks and I think it will be finished....
Sketch of Pearl
by Simon Bland / 11 Dec 2012
Pearl, oil on linen mounted on board, 12"x12". This is a sketch, rather than a formal portrait, and was done with a very quick turnaround time (and lots of alkyd medium) in order to get it ready for the holidays....
Tree Study
by Simon Bland / 11 Dec 2012
A small painting from the early fall at Ebenezer Church Rd just north of Bloomfield, VA. What drew me to paint the tree were the shadows that the branches were casting on the trunk. I worked in an impressionistic style to prevent the foliage from looking overworked, although the trunk required...
Another landscape with reworked sky
by Simon Bland / 08 Dec 2012
This is another landscape study with a re-worked sky. I broke up the flat expanse of blue sky by adding in some cloud formations which were there in real life, but had been omitted when I first painted this scene. The underlying gradation of value and chroma in the sky gives a very reali...
Landscape study
by Simon Bland / 08 Dec 2012
This is a study for a larger painting which is currently on display and for sale at Hillsborough Vineyards until the end of 2012. Originally painted with a flat grey sky, I used the same technique as in the previous post and scumbled some light, warm grey into the sky around the center of interest. ...