Oil pastel painting.

Autumn on the Leicester Arm.
A small painting on watercolour paper mounted on board and waxed.

Recent work

The mushroom season is nearly upon us here, and to celebrate this here are a couple of sculptural pots that have a practical purpose. 

Derived from African pottery forms these deep bowls have textured bases and pinched rims with lugs for wooden handles gathered from the local woodland. Finished in a honey glaze and oversprayed with a darker iron oxide glaze the rims remain unglazed giving them a dry, rough feeling in contrast to the body of the pot. The wooden handles are left untreated and attached with jute cord. 

They are ideal as sculptural pieces in their own right or could be used as bowls for fruit or similar items. 

Currently these are available for sale in my Etsy shop, AlecPDavis. 
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AlecPDavis?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

al-davis: 1st day of Autumn

al-davis: 1st day of Autumn: It never fails to amaze me how the weather senses the man-made calendar: every year the first day of September, the start of Autumn seems to...

1st day of Autumn

It never fails to amaze me how the weather senses the man-made calendar: every year the first day of September, the start of Autumn seems to live up to its name and delivers a scene of "Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness"! Having lived up to this it can go back to summer again for a while, but the first day of Autumn never seems to miss out on its chance...

Bones, of course is ever-present on these occasions...

There is a full spectrum in this image which I rather like, and unusually the colour runs from warm in the background to cool in the foreground. 

Having left the painting alone for a day or two it became apparent that there was a hell of a lot of work required! The main thisng was the foliage canopy at the top of the trees which looked entirely unconvincing. I felt the trees were "runing out" at the top, and needed to finish, leaving the sky beyond. They were also far too thick with leaves generally and there needed to be a much more airy feeling to the trees.

Had this been a pure watercolour painting these alterations would have been quite impossible, but with oil pastel it was easy, especially as I had given the painting a couple of coats of fixative which had sealed the pastel. This gave me a brand new surface to work upon. Sennelier oil pastels are very rich in pigment so are quite opaque, making it very simple to work over the painting.

Here is the painting now:

al-davis: Painting

al-davis: Painting: The painting has had more work upon it and is now, I think finished. I will leave it for a few days and come back to it to see if it needs a...

al-davis: work in progress...

al-davis: work in progress...: Work in progress! Looking through a pile of paintings I have done over the years I rediscovered this one: Still on the full-imperial ...