An artist’s journal from John Glover

Now it is time to concentrate on various portrait painting commissions. I have commisions to paint four children. A six year old in oils and three others , ranging in age from four to ten, in charcoal.

I also have a large double portrait in oils of the Sheriff of Huntingdon and her husband to complete.

Teaching continues also. I teach three classes a week at the Lothbury centre near Newmarket. Portrait painting, oils and acrylics, and of course my own paintings for pleasure. I also run day schools on portraits or life drawing and painting, at Grantchester and Barrow. These are held on a Saturday or Sunday and last from 10-4

Something else which is proving popular is one to one tuition whereby I ask any student to bring along samples of their work for review. We then work on a project together and I set ‘homework’ for the following session.

Bookings for me to demonstrate to art groups continue to come in for next year. The latest are for a landscape demo to the Comberton art group and a watercolour portrait demo to the Bury Art Society.

Next September, 3-10 th, I will be teaching during the Art Holiday for Inspiration Holidays in Menorca.

If you are interested in any of the above art holidays, art classes, painting workshops or art demonstrations please contact me on 01284 810 460 or e-mail me at john@gloverart.co.uk

Painting at Pin Mill 4

In a previous blog (August 10th) I demonstrated my methods for painting a gouache landscape en plein air. The subject was Pin Mill on the Suffolk Coast. Unfortunately, as I explained, “good light” stopped play.
To recap:

The start of the painting.

Stage two. At this point the painting had to be abandoned due to rain and wind!

Fortunately, I have since returned for another few hours to work on the painting and then complete it in the studio.

The finished painting.

Detail of finished painting.

As will be seen, a great deal of work has been done on the barges etc and on the water where I was hoping to capture the play of light and the patterns of reflections. At times I used hogs hair brushes, at others, softer synthetic ones which allowed me to blend much more easily. At the end I was using tiny sable brushes, to do areas such as the rigging.

As I said in my previous blog, working en plein air can be both exhilarating and challenging. If you haven’t already tried it , have a go!