Still too many things going on at the moment for me to have much time to paint but I did have the time today to give the Inktense pencils a...
Posts that are not about paintings
Keeping His Promise
I've not done much painting this year. It's partly due to having too many other distractions and partly due to the days still feeling too short....
Painting The Landscape In Pastel, Albert Handell and Anita Louise West – Book Review
This book arrived in a post yesterday. No art books for me for Christmas so I thought I'd better order one and learn more about using pastels...
Swatching New Soft Pastels
My 112th soft pastel arrived in the post today, filling up my wooden pastel box, so I was straight out to the studio to swatch all 56 of my new...
Christmas Stash 2024
Happy Christmas everybody. I'm busy rushing round finding homes for all my presents before I go for my daily walk. But then I thought, why not...
Website Tinkering
I’m still on my year end painting hiatus but that's not going to stop me posting. Individual posts on this website of artworks that are up for...
The 2024 Artistic Actuary Video
I wasn't feeling it today. I think it's time for me to down tools and start my Christmas break. It's a bit awkward when Christmas Day falls on a...
Portrait Artist Of The Year 2025 Entry
I've bitten the bullet and put in my entry for Portrait Artist Of The Year 2025. My self portrait is this one. For my second portrait, I went...
Creative Drawing Techniques, David Brammeld – Book Review
Time for another book review. Once again, a book whose price suddenly dipped on Amazon and tempted me to click on it. This one's been on my...
Painting In Pastels, Robert Brindley – Book Review
Time for another book review. Still considering myself a novice with soft pastels, I've had my eye on this one for a while and when the price...
Atmospheric Buildings In Watercolour, Nicholas Poullis – Book Review
So, yes, as I was saying, I bought a couple of books the other day that I thought I needed. This is the second one. It's a 144 page paperback on...
Painting Skies In Pastel, Sandra Orme – Book Review
I have lots of different excuses for getting new art instruction books. I get books for my birthday and at Christmas. But sometimes I buy them...
Fixative On Soft Pastels
Before my next painting, which will be in soft pastels, a long overdue experiment. If I’m ever to sell soft pastel paintings (and I'm planning on...
The NeoLucida XL
I’ve invested in some new gear. This has been on the cards for a while but it was having to measure out three grids of different sizes for the...
Ilad Rodavlas
And here's the companion piece to Salvador Dali, painted in parallel. It follows pretty well the same method, the only three differences being...
Salvador Dali
So here's what I did with that Schmincke dot card. I quite fancied doing a portrait, so looked around for a simple portrait of a colourful...
Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Exclusive Colours
Today's a busy day, what with this being the first of three planned posts. Another birthday present to try out, or at least a freebie that came...
Creating Textured Landscapes With Pen, Ink And Watercolor, Claudia Nice – Book Review
This is the last of the stash of art books that I got for my birthday. It's a 144 page paperback and is in landscape format. It's still roughly...
Painting And Understanding Abstract Art, John Lowry – Book Review
Time for another book review and today it's this one by John Lowry on painting abstracts. It's a 160 page paperback by Crowood. I’m not going to...
David Bellamy’s Complete Guide To Landscapes – Book Review
Things have been a bit quiet over the last couple of days as I've been reading this 288 page paperback monster. It's one of those books that's been...