Sunday 5 March 2017

Recent Work

I post these with some trepidation especially comparing them with many of the artists I've featured in the 'Watercolour Paintings' series. However it's just my current work which has been done over the last three months while I've been suffering various health issues - mainly relatively minor  things which tend to assail you with increasing age.  I'm also fighting to avoid slipping backwards as work I did four years ago is - in some instances - superior to what I'm now turning out. Still enough of this negativity. Most of these were done at Avon Valley Artists sessions on Thursdays.


Turkeys for Xmas - this was done sometime in December.



A Bumblebee


'A Feast'


Young Cheetah hiding in rocks.


Long Tailed Tits


A Damsel Fly(?)


Chief Boy - A Blackfoot Indian.


A made up Indian warrior - in greys made from Ultramarine Blue and Schmincke Translucent Brown. A quick sketch.

All the above are 16" x 12 apart from the long tailed tits which are 12" x 9". Papers vary from Waterford, Lanaquarelle and Cornwall. The long tailed tits are Fabriano Artistico rough. All surfaces are not and 140lb (300gsm). One or two others I attempted I decided not to post (!)


2 comments:

Oscar Solis said...

Peter, I have to say I really like those insect and bird/fowl paintings. The turkeys seem to have a bit of Gerard Hendriks influence, which, of course, is always a good thing.

I was looking at the paintings of the Native-Americans. I like them as always. However, from what I see, I wonder if Chief Boy A Blackfoot Indian needs a bit more contrast and a brighter palette. Having said that, I do enjoy the Native-American paintings you create and always look forward to them.

Peter Ward said...

Nice to hear from you Oscar. I always have a dilemma with the indians as the guide photos are mostly old Edward Curtis photos with very strong contrast in black and white. Detail vanishes in the shadow areas and I tend not to be too creative in interpreting how to tackle this. I have had some friendly criticism that my skin colours were too light and have tried to address that. Actually I even had some scathing criticism from an 'anonymous poster' saying I should apologise to the Navaho nation for a painting of an old Navaho showing them in a bad light. When I compared it with the guide photo is was accurate so....! I'll keep trying.