Gallery of other work
“Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all it’s flavour” (English poet William Cowper).
Whilst I enjoy football and landscape themes, I love variety and painting other things too!
Mosquito (oil, 2024). On my 10th anniversary of working for the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine a portrait of a mosquito seemed appropriate. This is in oil on a cotton canvas, in a pseudo-photorealistic style capturing the shallow depth of field used in macro-photography. This required a lot of blending of boundaries in the background to give the out-of-focus feel. The paint needed to dry slowly to keep wet over a long period of time to allow the blending. To achieve this I used refined walnut oil as a medium to thin the paint, as this slows down the drying process considerably. Adapted from a royalty-free photo, Digital Images Studio/Shutterstock.com
Leopard (oil, 2024). This is my second attempt at painting an animal. Important here was the strong focus of the eyes which is key to any large cat. I found challenges in painting leopard fur as needed a black base underlying and lots of layering of colour. The challenges I faced are explained in a blog post. The fur is largely consistent in length but strong directional flow that, with colouring helps define shape. As described in the blog entry, I also faced quite a few issues with black paint 'sinking in' and needing remedy through oiling out.
Indonesian Blue Pit Viper (oil, 2024). Like the mosquito painting, I painted this to mark the 10 year anniversary of me working at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The school has had a snakebite research unit and herpetarium for 50 years. This is Trimeresurus insularis, or an Indonesian White-Lipped Blue Pit Viper. (Painted from a royalty-free photo by Agus_Gatam/Shutterstock.com)