Kaleidoscope - Colourful tulip still life abstract oil painting

Kaleidoscope - Colourful tulip still life abstract

Palette knife painting

40x40 (16x16") cm on box canvas

Painted on a black gesso ground

The sides have been painted black.

Can be hung without a frame.
Available for purchase 250€ int. shipping included

About this painting
This painted was started a while ago with some left-over paint and I left it quite unfinished. It resurfaced yesterday and I decided to have another stab at it. I wanted an abstract feel, so I lost some of the original tulips (there were a lot of them) and made the remaining ones larger. But, they still looked a little too realistic and I felt myself tightening up.

Knowing that I would finish up with realism if I kept on, I decided to do something drastic.!. I got out a large palette knife and scraped over the whole surface to lose the definition. I was starting to like it better. I continued applying paint and scraping back in some places. I am now calling it done.
It certainly is colourful - an antidote to today's grey and rainy day.

I shall take a better photo tomorrow when the rain stops and I can go outside to take one without the glare.

Mini Landscape Tips Part 1

Untitled, stage 1

15x20x1cm (6x8inch) oil on box canvas

Palette knife painting

There are so many things to think about when starting a painting, not least of which is which size to paint it. Each size presents its own problems in terms of composition and how much detail to put in.

Yesterday's Painting Landscape Tips
I started this painting yesterday and it seemed perfect to use it as a mini demonstration for some landscape tips. Although this is only a small painting the thought process is the same as in larger paintings. For this blog post I will concentrate on my four main pointers:

• No two corners should be alike.
  A. - I have made a mental note to ensure that the two sky corners differ. In this case I will add some leaves to the tree.
• Avoid items lining up in straight lines:
  Here I have several 'lines' going on
  B1 - The tops of the hills are straight, I need to make them into a more pleasing shape
  B2 - The bottom of fence posts are almost lining up straight, I shall have to disguise the bottom of a couple of them
  B3 - some of the vegetation is lining up, I shall have to form less rigid 'clumps'
• Ensure verticals are interesting shapes and not completely straight.
  C - I shall see if I can make this tree trunk more interesting
• Ensure items of a group are different sizes
  The fence posts are all similar in width, I need to make each one different.

Of course, there are many more things to think about, but that would be too much for one blog post. Let me know if you find this interesting and stay tuned to find out how the painting turned out tomorrow.