My most recent artwork is titled "Near the Campfire" and was motivated by my camping excursions. Even just relaxing in front of the bonfire is an experience. On a 30 by 40 cm linen panel, an oil painting has been created.

I started the painting with a burnt Sienna imprimatura followed by a coloured block in. I used a basic palette consisting of a warm and cool version of each primary, white and burnt umber. The fire was painted using cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium orange, cadmium red light and crimson. The smoke was painted at the very end using a scumbling technique with a mixture of titanium white and ultramarine blue.

In this short video I show how I painted the fire.
Enjoy

Pumpkins are a beloved symbol of the fall season and have long been a popular subject for artists. The unique texture and color of pumpkins make them an interesting subject to paint, and when arranged in a still life composition, they can create a dynamic and visually appealing image.

Similar to other still life paintings, for this painting I used a limited palette consisting of the 3 primary colours, white and burnt umber.

One of the most challenging aspects of painting pumpkins is capturing their unique texture and color. Together with the pumpkin I included a tomato (for colour contrast), vine leaves from our backyard, two onions and an olive oil glass bottle.

Still life art has been popular throughout history for its ability to capture everyday moments and evoke emotion. It has also been used to explore philosophical ideas about mortality and the passage of time. This type of art can be seen in many famous works from artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Matisse, and Cezanne.

The basic principles behind still life oil painting involve a mastery of composition, color theory, light and shadow effects, perspective techniques, brushwork techniques, use of mediums such as oils or acrylics to create texture and depth in a painting.

At the moment I am working on a number of paintings in which I am including a rainbow. Rainbows are one of nature's most beautiful light phenomena. Rainbows are also a symbol of hope and of a new beginning. Here I painted a scenery of the Blue Mountains after a storm, with a rainbow in the distance. The photos above shows the various stages of the painting process while the video below shows how I  painting the rainbow in multiple glazes of paint. It is a challenge to paint a rainbow as it is semi transparent and very chromatic compared to the surrounding landscape. The challenge is to try to create this illusion of light using paint, that is a material which absorbs light and is also opaque. The approach is to first paint the actual landscape and when dry, the rainbow is first painted as a white stripe using a transparent white, like flake white. This is followed by glazing the colours of the rainbow on top of the dry white base and the process is repeated until the desired effect is reached. The glow can be reached by neutralizing the colour of the surrounding sky while darkening it a bit.

I prepare most of the surfaces I use for my work, in order to ensure the quality of materials I use. I constantly search for good quality materials that are archival, in order to ensure longevity of my work. My scientific background helps a lot in understanding what is available and hence be able to make informed choices of what I use. However, knowledge changes with time and new products are available which were not tested for their durability over time. So in many cases I stick to materials that have been used for a long time and there aren't apparent problems from feedback given by people working in conservation of artworks.

Here is a very short video of how I prepare my panels. Information on materials I use can be found in the description of this video on YouTube. If you like it please give a thumbs up and join the channel.

A few days ago I just finished the first still life painting for 2023. It is a small painting 20 x 25 cm, painted on fine linen that I attached to an archival Ampersand board.
A hard surface is my preferred surface to paint on, but not only that a solid surface is also the most archival one. Paintings tend to last longer on a solid surface and this is because the surface is not affected by humidity as it is not susceptible to the cycles of stretching and shrinking which causes cracking of oil paint. 

Nowadays I also tend to prefer painting on a very smooth surface hence using a piece of linen with minimal tooth is my preferred option. I prefer to attach a piece of linen onto an already primed board simply because if something had to happen to the painting, for example getting wet, and the backing board is damaged one can still save the painting and reattach it to a new board.

The still life objects were arranged in a shadow box and illuminated from above. I had a Japanese tea set which I always wanted to paint and I arranged together with a lemon and a piece of moringa from our back yard. in order to create some contrast I used a red background. For this painting I only used a limited palette consisting of five paints, the three primaries, burnt umber and titanium white. The painting was executed in two main stages, starting with drawing/imprimatura and the second coloured stage using a wet-on-wet approach.