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What’s on the easel? WIP

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Jenny Harris

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Alan, I rarely comment on WIPs, but do enjoy seeing them develop.  I much prefer your second version having removed the tree on the right.  I see you’ve also made changes to the trees on the left.  They may well not yet be finished, but at the moment as they are rather symmetrical, being tall and straight, they tend to draw my eye up and out of the picture.  No-one else has commented on it, so it’s probably just me, but thought I’d mention it anyway!

Edited
by Jenny Harris

Alan Bickley

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Thanks Jenny, they aren’t finished… I blocked in the sky again and lost all the branches!

Alan Bickley

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Robert, thank you… I only ever… no exceptions, use portrait format for portraits. Landscape format for landscapes - I rarely deviate from that, landscapes in portrait format just don’t look right!
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Right!  Well that's a good guide.... I have used the portrait format twice at least for landscapes, but it does form the exception to the rule.  One of my favourites of my own paintings (and there aren't many of those) is a quite small painting in portrait mode; but this one will be larger - and it's not going to work in portrait format, I think; not sure it'll work at all, but it's got to be done!  So orders from Norrette - next one must be an oil.  And a strong suggestion from Alan - make a landscape a landscape, and none of your folderols and poodlefaking.   I'm an obedient soul.  
56Ta

Rod Fletcher

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Alan as a complete tyro at the oil painting lark. You will have my rapt attention now I have caught up. I have just started a fun piece (my grandson' milkshake) more for the practice of experimenting at learning how oil paint behaves.

Norrette Moore

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I do like works in progress, keep on folks. At the mention of watercolour above, I'm reminded by yesterdays news, that trouble in the Sudan may cause a shortage of Gum Arabic.  Not normally bothered by "rare earths & minerals" 😉 this news caused my antennae to twitch.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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There are several sources for gum arabic, so I wouldn't worry - of course, prices are always likely to be affected by shortages in any material (they never go down, though: have you noticed that....?). 

Alan Bickley

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It gives me great pleasure to report that the landscape oil WIP, has now been obliterated, never to see the light of day again! Had another go at it earlier, and frankly I just couldn’t stomach looking at it, so it’s gone. I think I’ve got bored with landscapes, certainly for the time being, maybe my enthusiasm will return at some point! Perhaps they just aren’t challenging enough, not after working on a series of industrial compositions for the TALP competition!

Norrette Moore

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Perhaps a still life?
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Alan - I might pinch your composition!   Unless you're quick, and remove the WIP from here. There are times when you don't feel it - aren't in sympathy with what you set out to do: and then - follow the advice of the great W C Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try again; and then give up; no sense being a damn' fool about it."
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Well - I just saved Alan's images; and now I have, I can see the problems with them; pinching them doesn't seem like quite such a good idea after all (of course, if I did, I'd make such changes as would hide the source, or would call whatever I got out of it "after Bickley").  We can't really know where Alan would have taken this, but my feeling about the trees or tree is ambivalent the more I look at it - I've been here before with strong foreground features, trees or anything else, which seem to be the point of a painting and perhaps not really a point at all.   That's about me, though, not about Alan: who I'm sure would have pulled this around if he'd persisted; but when you've fallen out of love with your vision, it's the devil's own job to get it back - and when you generally produce such a body of work as young Mr Bickley, you really don't have any need to fiddle about with a detail of your artistic life: so - he didn't!  

Alan Bickley

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Salvage what you may Robert, or not… yes, no point in flogging a dead horse… I’ve no regrets, I move on to better things!
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