Seaside in Morocco

I’ve been on a hiatus! But only from blogging.

What a busy 2 years it’s been since I last posted. I won’t get into details, but I realised I should post when I finish my paintings at least..!

This is a Seaside in Morocco, a city called Essouaria. A lovely seaside city with the best fish you’ll find around. We had the sea bass with chips and local vegetables, mmmm.

 

This is another 1m wide painting and boy, do these really take their time! I find myself ebbing and flowing with motivation so sometimes I find myself going long stretches without painting.

In any case, my most favourite and enjoyable part to paint was the sky – I really wanted to capture the sun rays bursting through!

 

Conversely, the sand was the most difficult – I got terribly bogged down in the details of the footsteps from the source image. I’ve learnt to try and simplify and abstract away some of these noisy details.

 

You can follow me on Instagram @fayeez_the_painter for (slightly) more regular updates.

 

I’ll try not to let my next post be in another two years. Until next time!

 

 

 

a still life #2

I have to say, this one has taken me a lot longer than I care to admit. I also took a great deal of care to make sure the proportions were right. Alas I’ve managed to make it to the end.

This is my favourite piece of work, the amount of time taken to get the colours as spot on as possible was ardeous but worthwhile. This time I used a reference photo, but the photo was from shutterstock and so I printed it at A3 size. Although more costly than usual, it helped me with the proportions and mapping out the painting.

Painted using oils on canvas.

Please comment and share if you enjoyed this one!

a still life of a pot, oranges and glass jar

a still life of a pot, oranges and glass jar

The Painter was never good at titles, a simple descriptive title will suffice! Simple.

This is a continuation of the sketch of my last post, it was supposed to be a series of posts, but I didn’t get round to posting them individually. Oops.

In any case, I am really happy that the DMP method is really helping me improve my skills! I feel like with each painting I am doing, I am learning something new. Colours were really important to me and I worked on that to make sure my colour checking is as best as it could be. There is still room for improvement.

Proportions are actually fine, it’s just that when I draw the objects, they can look wonky. That doesn’t matter much for organic objects, but for man-made ones, it is obvious when things don’t look right.

The glass jar was the one I was most afraid of painting because of the complex reflections, but that wasn’t nearly as daunting when the paint hit the canvas. There is much to be improved with my latest work, but these are encouraging signs for me on the road to improving my paintings!

Another note, background cloth, I can do much better. I will do much better.

A note to myself, setting up a still life can be laborious and time consuming. I will use high quality images from now on, it makes things easier. There is nothing that compares, though to a real life set up. Your eye captures shapes and colours in much better ways than can be seen in a picture.

Until next time my fellow readers!

a work in progress – still life practice sketch

This is my next painting and the painter has decided to be brave and show you the work progress for this one. I am still using the old DMP method. You’ll see the layers being built up.

You’ll also notice the stained canvas, I’ve opted for a dark tone, mainly because that is what I had on hand!

the still life of a mug

Right… where to start..?

I began my journey with this painting after stumbling on this nifty method, DMP (Draw, Mix, Paint). This method taught me A LOT. I also had a sinking feeling… I have so much more to improve!

Alas… the person who stares at the mountain will only dread to walk up it (or something like that). So, with that in mind, I set off to learn the basics and teach myself how to paint more realistically. As with any new method, it can feel unnatural, but this one didn’t feel unnatural in a bad way. I felt like this is what I have been needing to really hone my painting skills.

The painter, keen as ever for self-improvement, set out to follow this method. This was actually a still life painting. The basic premise is as follows:

• Paint a coloured ground
• Draw in proportion using a proportional divider
• Mix paint with a medium
• Use a limited palette
• Lay out your colours prior to painting using a colour checker
• Use a glass palette
• Paint what you see
• DON’T BLEND

Still life of a mug using the Draw, Mix, Paint method

The only ones I was already doing was, painting a coloured ground and using a limited palette. A long road, then.

I also made my own proportional divider and still life shadow-box using cardboard boxes. Primitive, but they did the job, just about.

Well, like I said, I’ve learned a whole lot and even though this might not be the best representation of my learning, it does present a pathway. A pathway to keep me grounded and paint in true realism.

Also, I have realised the importance of using the right size brushes… where is that long list of painting equipment I need to buy..