‘Composers and Fruit' Still Life series. Planning and commencing the next oil painting.

I finally got round to starting work on my next painting in this series. I always enjoy seeing how artists go about their work so thought I would offer the same chance to people who are interested in observing the creative process.

The idea behind this series is to create a group of paintings that combine my deep interest and love of classical music with my admiration for the traditional still life genre - and to inject each work with a little bit of subtle humour which will appeal to classical musicians in particular.

Here is one that I completed early last year but have recently reworked by darkening and enriching some of the colours.

The following two images show the compositional drawing and still life set-up for my next painting which features the composer Rossini. One of his most famous pieces of music is the opera William Tell. Tell was a Swiss folk hero who, legend has it, shot an apple off his sons head with a crossbow.

Stories behind the portraits

As there is no information about individual paintings in this website’s gallery I thought I might include more details in my blogs.

1) As with most of the images here this oil portrait was created using several different photographic references. This really helps me build a more complete impression of the subject. It is also often necessary when one or more of the animals has passed away as was the case in this and two of the other portraits.

2) This coloured pencil portrait was commissioned by my hairdresser. It was quite tricky to integrate the four animals in a convincing way but I think the end result is reasonably successful. I think the ginger cat almost looks like he’s taking a selfie!

Up to this point the most animals in one commission!

3) When people commission a group portrait they often assume that they need to provide a photo with both animals included. This is not true of course. The advantage that an artist has is that they can easily move things around as well as add and delete objects, backgrounds and other features.

For some reason the background colour came out looking rather grey in this photograph. It is such a challenge taking good photos of artwork. The fine detail and colouring is never quite captured as accurately as I would like. The original always looks much better in my opinion and clients, once they have received the artwork, seem to agree.

3) This is one of several portraits I have done for vets. It makes me feel that, at least, I must be getting my pictures anatomically correct!

All three animals were drawn from different photos and it was quite a struggle trying to figure out how to bring them all together in the one portrait.

4) I painted this around 20 years ago. I have always loved studying and copying the old masters. At school the margins of my excercise books were covered with felt tip versions of various famous paintings.

In this copy of David’s famous painting of Napoleon I set myself the difficult challenge of getting as close to the original in every respect. For fun though I did make a few subtle changes.

I have substituted Napoleon’s face for mine, added a paint brush into the right hand and included Nelson’s Grampian Hill (complete with TV tower) in the background!

I painted this in oil on cardboard and was pleased to have got a photo of it before the bottom section was badly water damaged during a minor flood in my studio.

End of 2019

It has been a busy but very satisfying year with lots of interesting music and art projects on the go.

As director of the Orchestral Pathways programme at the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts it is gratifying to see all ages and levels of player getting the chance to play in an orchestra.

We now have a Beginners’ Orchestra for kids that have only just started learning an instrument as well as Junior, Intermediate and Senior Youth orchestras. There are also two groups for adults, the Greenhill Orchestra ( an adult community orchestra which I have now been conducting for 29 years ) and a newly formed adult beginners orchestra.

I also continue a full teaching schedule with approximately 60 piano students.

With careful planning around these commitments and much valued family time I have managed to find 8 or 9 hours for art during most weeks.

Fortunately it is now Summer Holidays and I am able to put aside a little more time for the next 6 weeks or so.

Although my art is very detailed I have developed an efficient technique over the years which enables me to finish works quite quickly.

I am planning a couple of larger oil paintings ( landscape and portrait ) and I also have a few commissions to complete.

WELCOME TO MY NEW WEBSITE AND BLOG!!

I’m very excited to be releasing this new website out into the big, wide world.

I would like to thank my young piano student Theo Parker for his invaluable assistance in helping me set it up.

I absolutely love painting and drawing and have done so ever since I can remember. Although I have many years of experience as an artist it is only in in the last 14 months or so that I have begun to promote my coloured pencil drawings and oil paintings in any meaningful way.

Although I am concentrating mainly on commissions at this stage I am also slowly building up a collection of my own work - mainly Landscapes and slightly quirky Still Lifes. (Originals and prints will eventually be available for sale from this website)

In this blog I will also talk a bit about my life philosophy. People seem quite interested to know what drives me to pursue my many passions and I may be able to give some insight into why I do what I do.

I’m not sure where this blog will eventually lead but I’m pretty happy to give advice on various aspects of art and art techniques for those who maybe want to know a bit more about how I work.

I’m also very happy to strike up a conversation about my other main interests - namely music ( piano, flute, piano teaching, conducting, ) and learning multiple languages ( currently Hungarian. Turkish, Romanian, Dutch, German, French, Polish, Hebrew, Swedish, Chinese, Greek, Korean, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Malayalam, Maori ).

Talking about life in general is also lots of fun - especially around the topic of how to live a contented and fulfilling one!

All the best. Joel