What will this blog be about?

Often people are curious about artists and how they do their work. This blog gives me a chance to share my work and a bit about how I create it.

I had a blog in the past and when I painted new work, I would write a blog post about it. Normally the posts were quite short and to the point. I used Blogger. At the time lots of artists used blogger to share their work. The posts are still available online.

I plan to post images of my work in progress and the final result as a way to explain a bit about my process to others and what we do as artists.

The image above is 36x12" landscape oil painting of a field of sunflowers.

Tools of the trade

Normally when I paint small or medium paintings, I use gallery-depth birch panels. For larger paintings I use stretched canvas. The medium I work in is water mixable oil paint. I prefer it because it is workable for a day or two and dries faster than regular oil paint and has a texture. I find water mixable oils easy to use and clean up. I often use flat and small round brushes that are fairly stiff, similar to hog's hair.

I seal my birch panels with 2 coats of GAC 100. I then prime them with gesso and paint them with either burnt sienna or raw sienna. I don't like to paint on a white surface, because I like to let some of the base colour show through. I find the burnt sienna or raw sienna adds a warm tone to the final painting.