Sunsets again!

Yes, I'm still working on large sunsets! This month's work in progress continues my sunset theme as I wrestle with optimizing the colours to create what I hope will be a magical glow.

I feel I should apologise for not offering you more variety in my output as the last few blogs have all been about this subject. But, on reflection, I think it's good to share the unvarnished truth of creative endeavour: it doesn't come naturally or easily but with dedication and many attempts at the same thing. Many of you have given me lovely appreciative feedback about my recent work and I thank you so much for that encouragement but it's in my nature never to be satisfied and to press on towards an unattainable ideal.

The video above shows, briefly, the process of printing the sunset sky featured at the top of this post. The next step will be to create a craggy foreground landscape.

This one has an astonishingly bright sky with the transparent reds and oranges contrasting with the blue/grey/mauve over-printing. There's a dark layer still to print over the foreground area and, of course, some trees silhouetted against the sky-line.

This will be a large Sycamore Gap - the white area is a paper stencil that will preserve the irregular outline of Hadrian's Wall. This photo is at an angle - it's actually symmetrical.

I printed these textures yesterday with a wonderful new colour - Claret - from Hawthorn Printmaker Supplies. It's wonderfully rich and intense. The colour contrasts with the oranges and blues are even more intense than the photograph shows.

I hope to complete these 4 new large originals in the next couple of weeks and share them with you in my next blog. Subscribers to my email list will get first pick! Sign up now!

In other news, I've painted the chimney-breast area of my studio a light dove grey to create a photography area. As my work is increasingly shown online, it has become necessary to have good quality photographs that show the art in context and with a sense of scale. It's taken me a long while to get organised for this but I now have a good camera, a pair of flood-lights, a place to shoot and a box of props. Sometimes I hire the services of a professional product photographer but it's handy to have my own set up to get new items online quickly.

Here's an example of what I've been up to with my photography set up. This framed original "Into the Light" has now sold. Prints can be ordered.

I've also updated many of my greetings cards on the website to show in-context photos. I'd be really interested to hear you feedback as to whether viewing in-context photos (as opposed to just the image) influences whether you wish to purchase an item online or not. You can leave your comments below.