A couple more Plein Air Paintings carried out over the last two days. 'Field and Sky by the Marina Road' and 'Hills near Goodwood Race Course'..

Some more "Plein Air' Landscapes/Seascapes over the past couple of days..

This is a go with some acrylics...

I've been itching to do a bit more 'plain air' work...

today it was a trip to the beach, a bit chilly but I think it was worth it..

I had a go at a Self Portrait with some Heavy Body Acrylics... They seem to be quite nice to use and I think they suit my style.. I hope to try some landscapes with acrylics soon..

Townscapes at the moment .... It seems to take quite a lot of work to end up with something that seems a bit 'slap-dash'...

I've spent the past thirty-five years putting up scaffolding and I recall Tony, one of the developers we worked for, looking at one of his houses on which we were working (a house going for about 4 mill.) and saying that this was the part of the job that he liked best, meaning, as the scaffolding came down and the building began to emerge. It all then started to take shape.

Painting's a bit similar. The beginning can be rough abstract shapes followed by struggling to get some sort of composition and tonal values worked out. The painting only seems to emerge a bit (hopefully), and get more interesting in the final stages.... at least for me ..

Have been on Urban Townscapes the past couple of days....I can do these 'plain air' or from photographs and/or sketches and the 'success' rate is equally ambiguous no matter which method I use..

Here are a couple from photographs taken lat week.

I think this is slightly influenced by David Hockney (there was a documentary about him on the TV last night)..

Been out today and brought some acrylic paints so I'm itching to give them an outing..

Tuesday and a beautiful 'spring' day in West Sussex. My first day out 'Plein Air' painting and, although I quite liked the painting at the time , I'm not sure it has a focal point...

I think a dark frame will help:

I came home and painted a semi-abstract based (a bit) on the previous painting...

Gone semi-abstract again....

Been trying some 'musical' themes (with debatable levels of success)..

Finished this painting of the Theatre Goers at Chichester today... They had built a temporary 'dome' whilst they were refurbishing the Festival Theatre and we say a terrific performance of Barnum there....

Second piece of work today was this small 'studio' Landscape. Simple but I quite liked the 'splash' of colour and a frame (this one digital) seems to set it off.

A 'Townscape' ...Started last night, finished this morning...just finished an hour ago and, quite like it at the moment.

Paintings, like other things in life,  seem to change,  partly because the surface looses it's lustre as it dries which gets (mostly) restored with a good varnish and partly because of some innate metaphysical quality about the work or the painter or something which makes that which was appealing over a candlelight dinner seem less so over Shredded Wheat (so they say)...

and with a (digital) frame: