Today I’ve been doing a bit of experimentation in the studio. I’ve got a new palette, a grey toned glass one from New Wave Art. It’s good for judging the relative values of colour mixes, whether they’re lighter or darker than the neutral tone of the palette, or cooler or warmer.

Once I’d mixed up all these delicious greys and made a few colour charts to record the mixes, it seemed a shame to waste all that paint, so did a quick still life of the daffodils in the kitchen (now a week old and looking a little sorry for themselves).

It’s always lovely how the neutral tones of the various greys make the colours sing out even more vibrantly.

If you read my last blog post a couple of days ago, you would have read that I was headed London-bound again, to paint at Chelsea Physic Gardens yesterday and at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Paint Live event. Well things yesterday didn’t go to plan. My plans for a quick afternoon painting in Chelsea Physic Gardens didn’t happen due to heavily delayed trains. What should have been a 1 hour 30 minute train journey turned into 4 hours 30 mins, so I arrived too late to paint, unfortunately.

However, already in London the night before, I was raring to go this morning for the ROI’s plein air event at the Mall Galleries. The premise is to paint any subject of your choice within half a mile radius of the Mall Galleries. There were about 40 artists taking part, some of whom I recognised from social media, so it was good to put faces to the.names and make new friends, some who actually live fairly local to me, which is nice. As planned I headed straight to Waterloo Place and set up to paint.

As to be expected it was very busy, but if you don’t want to be talked to and/or photographed by random people, I always think it’s best to stay in the studio, so it doesn’t bother me at all to have loads of people walking past and looking at what I’m doing.

I was really pleased with my painting. I admit I was totally out of my comfort zone in regards to subject matter. I’m far more used to painting broken down barns and cottage gardens than posh London architecture. But I wanted today to be an experience and to push myself to try something different, and I loved the challenge. Unfortunately the weather today was grey, with flat light (unlike yesterday, which when I was stuck on a train was beautiful and sunny - oh well!). But it stopped raining as soon as I started painting which was good,

So here’s my painting, as it was when I stopped painting. I’d been working on it for about an hour and a half, and had reached the point where I was just fiddling with it...

I headed back to the Mall Galleries for the judging. I honestly can say that I was never expecting a prize, and I wasn’t disappointed! But I really enjoyed the day, trying out a new kind of subject and setting to paint in. It’s by trying out new things that we find out what we truly enjoy, and I know my heart is in painting more ‘country-fied’ subjects, not urban settings like this, which is lucky as I live in Derbyshire and its flipping expensive and exhausting going to London! Today was also a good exercise in mixing grey!

This week I am painting in London, and Tuesday was day 1.
Unfortunately it was raining heavily throughout the day, so I only had a chance to do a quick sketch in Whitehall Gardens, then opted for a pub interior, which was warm and dry!

I also visited the Royal Institute of Oil Painters private view of their annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries, which is a great exhibition, and well worth a visit if you can. Unfortunately PV’s are not the best place to have a good look at the art on show, as they are just too busy, as the photo below shows, but luckily I’m heading back to London on Friday and Saturday, so will have a chance to take a longer look when it’s quieter.

One of the tasks of the day was to find a good location to paint at the ROI’s Paint Live competition on Saturday, which I’m taking part in, and I’ve successfully found a good location with lots of interesting things to paint in it (and things I don’t get to see when painting in Derbyshire!), but I’m keeping the location a secret until the day! It was going to be Whitehall Gardens, hence my visit there, but I subsequently found somewhere better.

I will post a blog again on Friday, when I’m painting at Chelsea Physic Gardens. Fingers crossed for fine weather - forecast looks good at the moment!

I’ve been meaning to take a video when I’m out painting for a while now, but each time I completely forget, and remember as soon as I get home! But today I remembered when I was painting at National Trust Stoneywell Cottage, and here it is.
It’s just a short clip, showing the viewpoint I was looking at and the painting as I finished up, after an hour and a half’s painting.

I’ve been painting locally this week, and Belper certainly offers much to inspire the plein air painter, in fact, I’ve not really left one area! All these paintings below were painted in the gardens on Wyver Lane, and the field behind it.

I was back at Stoneywell National Trust today in Leicestershire, to hand over my cottage painting from last week for exhibition there, and to paint as it was such a lovely day.

I concentrated on the old stable yard this time, which was a great subject.

As is normal for the U.K., the weather so far this October has been a bit hit and miss. We’ve had some of the hottest October days ever recorded and some very wet and windy weather, so it’s been a bit of a mix between plein air and studio work for me.

Here’s a couple of recent pics of studio paintings...

Making the most of the exceptionally warm October weather yesterday, I headed off to paint at the stunning Stoneywell, a unique and quirky arts and crafts style cottage in Leicestershire.

The property is now owned and cared for by the National Trust, and is well worth a visit if you can.

I’ve been feeling a little poorly this week with an ear infection, and feeling a bit dizzy from the antibiotics today, so thought it would be wiser to stay close to home to paint. So here’s my painting of the dining room...

It’s been nice to get out and enjoy some of the late summer sun in September. Here are a couple of local places in Derbyshire I’ve been painting...