Saturday, September 30, 2006

Paper Flag


Paper Flag
oil on gessoed board
Sept 30, 06
120x120mm
Sold

Friday, September 29, 2006

Red Pencil


Red Pencil
oil on gessoed board
Sept 29, 06
$100
Sold

This one's to go with the Yellow pencil stub I painted a while ago. Someone asked me to paint a red pencil. Wouldn't it be great if we all had a magic red pencil that we could use to correct all the mistakes we'd ever made in life?

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Dried Starfish


Dried Starfish
oil on gessoed board
108x130mm
sept26,27,06
To purchase for $200 click here

Had a bit of a struggle with this one. Started it on a day when I was feeling quite down and I literally forced myself to paint. This was the major phillosophy and goal when I started this PAD blog, to attempt to paint every single day wether I felt like it or not. I dont always succeed in this goal but I try. There is a lot of airy-fairy nonsense spoken about artistes needing to "be inspired" and in the "right mood" in order "to create". Bullshit! It's like everything else in life - you only get out what you put in. One of the rewards of sticking to a dicipline of daily painting is that you get MORE inspired. I'm getting so many ideas for new paintings that I can't paint a fraction of them! The starfish had been sitting on the window sill paitently waiting it's turn to shine. THe light was bad on the first day and I couldnt seem to get it right so I came back to it fresh the next day and managed to resolve some of the problems I was having with it. It's always a challenge trying to capture the phisical presence an object has. This has little to do with it's surface appearance which is relatively easy to replicate, but if you do that it is merely an illustration. Yes, I know... I'm an arrogant snob in this regard!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Permanent Marker Pen


Permanent Marker Pen
oil on gessoed board
190x37mm
Sept 25, 06
To purchase for $150 click here

I guess we're all just trying to leave some sort of permanent mark while we're here...

Use-by Date Label


Use-by Date Label
oil on gessoed board
50x50mm
Sept 24, 06
This is one of those little plastic labels you get on the bags they put bread in. Another of my "postage stamp" paintings. They actually take as much time as the bigger ones to paint as they are fiddley.

Sunday, September 24, 2006


Self portrait in Grey Shirt
Oil on gessoed board
170x130mm
Sept, 23, 06

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Kowhai Blooms



Kowhai Blooms
Oil on gessoed board
170x135mm
Sept, 21, 06
Sold

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Cracked Cup With Red Pencil


Cracked Cup With Red Pencil
Oil on gessoed board
200x175mm
Sept 20, 06
To purchase for $200 click here

I'm one of those people who gets very attached to simple things, like my cup, which was my favourite for about thirty years. It was a family joke that if it ever got broken there would be all hell to pay! I accidently backed into it while painting a few weeks ago and it toppled to the floor and chipped and cracked. It was almost a relief when it finally happened. I find it hard not to view these things symbolicly. Definately time for a new cup...

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Friday, September 15, 2006

Wicked Bowl With Yams


Wicked Bowl With Yams
oil on gessoed board
Sept 13, 14, 06
190x190mm

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Finger Painting


Finger Painting
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 12, 06
sold

This is a bit of an odd one I guess. I had started another painting that day, however the light changed and I thought I'd finish it next day. I still felt like painting so I did this using the first model that came to hand. Ha ha.. I did a whole series of paintings of my hands during the 90's, and I guess painting fingers is a continuation of that interest. I've always been fascinated with the challenge of depicting flesh with paint. A big influence to me was when I discovered the paintings of Lucian Freud, who is the undisputed master of painting flesh.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Cloud Over Taranaki
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 11, 06
110x130mm

To purchase for $100 click here.



Monday, September 11, 2006

Pencil Stub



Pencil Stub
Oil on gessoed board
30x80mm
Sept 10, 06
To purchase for $100 click here
sold n


I've painted this particular pencil several times now, and it's getting shorter and shorter! I love painting it for no other reason than that it gives me an excuse to use pure unadulterated cadmium yellow deep straight from the tube! My heart beats faster just thinking about it!

When I'm painting a particular subject, I usually start thinking about why I'm painting it. I start to notice that I'm repeating certain compositional formats and I wonder if there is any significance. While painting this pencil I realized that I'd been painting a lot of long horizontal ones with the image four square to the viewer, and I got a sudden flashback to my early schooldays where I remember everything was in neat straight rows and we had to sit at our desks with our hands clasped in front of us and our paper neatly square to the desk with a 3/4 inch margin drawn down the right hand side, and our pencil, neatly placed in horizontal postion above the paper. The interesting thing is that I can't for the life of me recall a single thing I wrote on that paper, other than my name and the date. But I realised that in painting the pencil, I am painting a GOOD pencil. This is a self portrait of me being a Good Boy.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Three Marbles


Three Marbles
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 9, 06
40x90mm
To purchase for $100 click here.
Sold n

Another postage stamp sized one. I've had a love of glass marbles ever since my childhood - I think most kids love them. Each marble is unique and is it's own perfectly contained private universe.

I have learned a trick of holding them in place with grains of sand while I paint them, however it still didn't prevent one of them rolling away before I'd finished. I'm literally losing my marbles...

Saturday, September 09, 2006

A Grape





















A Grape
oil on gessoed board
Sept, 7 ,06
42x35mm

A grape. I wonder if it's a sweet one or a bitter one...?

To purchase this painting for sixpence click here

I 've had quite a bit of interest in this one - so far the highest offer is one shilling and threepence. I think that just for fun I'll leave it till next sunday sept, 17 12pm NZ time, and the most interesting or original offer in odd currency will get the painting. There must be some gold doubloons around there somewhere...!

Update: I have now been offered a nice $2 Canadian coin with a golden polar bear on it which I'm very tempted by, and , definately winning in the originality and humour stakes, a baby molar tooth with a large filling snatched from the tooth fairy ten years ago.

Sold n for the polar bear

This is one of my "postage stamp" paintings.
I tend to paint these tiny ones when I am lacking in confidence. I don't paint them on scraps or offcuts. I go and cut one of my bigger boards up into small pieces and carefully bevel the edges and round the corners slightly. I paint all the edges when I'm doing the painting so that the painting is a little physical object, rather than just a two dimentional image on the surface.


Friday, September 08, 2006

Daffodil in Blue Bottle


Daffodil in Blue Bottle
230x100mm
Sept, 5, 06

To purchase for NZ$400 click here
Sold n

Tomato


Tomato
Oil on gessoed board
100x135
Sept 5, 06

To purchase for NZ$150 click here.



"You say tomatoes, and I say tomatoes. Tomatoes! Tomatoes! Tomatoes! Tomatoes! This is a fine romance!"
- popular song

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Buttercup


Buttercup
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 3, 06

To purchase this painting for $100 click hereI like buttercups! 
sold

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Present


Present
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 2, 06

It was my partner Dale's birthday yesterday, and I wrapped up one of my small paintings as a gift. Then I decided to paint it.

To purchase this painting for NZ$150 click here Sold n

Wilting Daffodil


Wilting Daffodil
Oil on gessoed board
Sept 2, 06

To purchase for NZ$100 click here

Friday, September 01, 2006

Plum Blossom in Green Bottle


Plum Blossom in Green Bottle
Oil on gessoed board
August 29 - 31, 06
aprox 290x290mm

To buy this painting for NZ$650 click here



This one was a three-dayer. It is the biggest painting I've painted in this series so far. I don't deliberately set out to paint a picture of any particular size, rather I let the subject matter dictate the scale and size of the painting. I originally thought to paint this one on a tall vertical support, closely cropping the blossom branch and the bottle, however I decided that it might be better with a bit more space around it. The branch was a late pruning from the plum tree that overhangs the path to my studio. It was on the ground and I picked it up and put it in water as it looked like it was going to flower.