A painting of mine: "Life Turns Away Death" 40"×30" oil on linen. Completed years ago shortly after the untimely death of a dear friend.

Working on these two winged figures this afternoon--these and two others will be finished this week. each oil/canvas 24"x18"

Finished. "Be Thou My Bright Spear " from my series " A Prayer for Men" oil/canvas 30"x24"

England betrayed. We refuse to allow our cultural icons to be stolen from us by those who wish us harm and show us no respect. This project is a statement of intent. We are only just beginning. Thank you to everyone who has followed along and supported in any way. Here we conclude Project 39 with the John of Gaunt of speech from Richard II. John of Gaunt was the fourth son of Edward III, making him Richard II’s uncle. His son, Bolingbroke (future Henry IV) has just been banished, and here John of Gaunt complains about how Richard is betraying and destroying England. There are many notable literary techniques in this famous speech. Shakespeare often uses anaphora in speeches. This is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence, in this case ‘this’ is repeated 17 times. But a more significant technique here is metonym. This is where an object stands in for a concept. In this case the concept is England, and the whole speech can be seen as a succession of metonyms to describe the concept of England. What is England? It is, to say the least, a much contested concept. A landmass, an island, an idea, a religion, a people, a tradition, a history, a culture? John of Gaunt gives us some clues here. He starts with the monarchy, then moves on to describe its geography as an island, its defenses, its flora and fauna, the character of its people and, finally, its Christian religion. John of Gaunt was known to be a close friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Perhaps Shakespeare sensed that he was Chaucer’s successor as the voice of England and gave Gaunt this speech as a way of inheriting the mantle. John of Gaunt is played by Oliver Bennett

BEFORE and AFTER

Every other profession - "we demand fair pay and a good work/life balance!" 3D artists - "screw that, let's work for free round the clock, just to maybe be considered for a chance to be in the industry that treats us like crap! Wooooo!" Anyway.. weekly hand drills 👋

Worked on these two winged figures to close out the Studio day, each a limited palette, 18"x24". I'll do another pass on each, keeping the execution broad. A Glorious Weekend to All!

I believe this is finished--I'll set it aside for a few days, then retouch it and decide. For my A Prayer for Men series: Be Thou My Bright Spear oil/canvas 30"x24"

Today's sketch, mixed white, yellow ochre, Venetian red, cool raw umber. I love doing these drawing with brush studies, and it's the primary way I work out picture ideation and push my development of arabesque. oil/canvas board 14"×11"

Good Morning! I'm closing in on this, but the light is failing due to weather, so this is all for the day. It should be done with one more pass. I'll switch to artificial light to work on something else--when painting, I find that color/value coherence is best maintained when the light source is constant, if a work is started under natural light I use that light throughout, the same with artificial light. Be Thou My Bright Spear oil/canvas 30"x24"

A Blessed Evening to All.

William Shakespeare Burton, British. Painting- The Wounded Cavalier and the Puritan. 1855.

Good Afternoon! These are two concept iterations for my "A Prayer for Men " series, each oil, 11"x14", on Ampersand's Claybord, which is an extremely smooth, hard kaolin clay surface which is very absorbent, trapping pigment in the top layers of the ground. Generally used with water-based media, inks, egg tempera and such, I was given a number of these many years ago by an art materials dealing to test for a variety of oil techniques. They take some getting used to, but the effects can be quite nice.

The second palette cleanser , about a five minute sketch using the last bit of raw umber from today, lifted lights, oil/canvas board, 12"x 9". A Fine Evening to All.

One of two palette cleansers today, using up some raw umber, mixed white, Venetian red, and yellow ochre. I've been playing around with this image in my mind for some time, so here's the concept sketch. This will be the first prelim for "Be Thou My Inner Light". oil/canvas board 1.2"×9"

Another pass on "Be Thou My Bright Spear" from my "A Prayer for Men" series. The value range is more or less set, floating in cool notes, and still building up the lights. Another pass and it may be finished. oil/canvas 24"x18"

Good Morning! From my A Prayer for Men series (so far) Be Thou My Strength Be Thou My Shield Be Thou My Strong Right Arm Be Thou My Bright Spear (WIP) all oil/canvas 24"x30"

First pass with the palette expanded to mixed white, gold ochre, Naples yellow, Venetian red, and raw umber, loading the lights and keeping the darks thin. If it cures well enough overnight, another pass tomorrow. A Fine Evening to All.

The weekly "feet drills" day 👣

Another pass on this winged figure--I'll carry it a bit further, but still keep it broadly realized. oil/canvas 18"x24".

I'm with you, brother. Still drawing by hand in the machine age.