Seated Nude

New picture uploaded to 500 Nudes
Seated Nude
Oil on Board

A new model, and a new work - this painting is still incomplete; see the bigger version at 500 Nudes

How to buy this painting: How to buy a painting

On the beach - pen sketch

On the beach
Felt tip pen on paper

This little sketch was done as a tonal study while preparing to do a small painting. I often do a tonal study in pen before starting a painting; it helps me work out what I'm going to do with the paint. In this case I messed up the painting, the tones were right, but the umbrella was overworked and ill-proportioned - the overall presentation sucked.... I like the sketch though...

How to buy this sketch: How to buy a painting

Seated nude - Charchoal on paper and Oil on canvas.

Two new picture uploaded to 500 Nudes
Seated Nude
Oil on Board / Charcaol on paper

I've been very busy working on a new project, it's an art project, but it's not art.... I'll explain in detail soon.

In the meantime, here are two paintings done during our weekly figure study session.

How to buy this painting: How to buy a painting

3x3 Practice board

Louis Trichardt farmhouse - in progress

Laangebaan farmhouse

I'm frustrated - painting's just not working for me at the moment! I seem to be making too many mistakes and end up scrapping the painting I'm working on.
I tried to work out what the problem is and it comes down to my erratic way of working, I don't seem to have any sort of system.

I took a piece of masonite (60 cm x 45 cm) and marked off 9 squares (3x3) which leaves me 9 mini canvases of 18 x 14 cm - 9 practice attempts where the object is to practice and test concepts, not to deliver a finished work of art. The two paintings were done fast with only tonal study in mind.

The Langebaan farmhouse got bumped while it was still wet - I like the smudged effect... now I got to workout how to do it as part of my repertoire of techniques.

I still need to add a few details to the Louis Trichardt farmhouse, but I'm quite sure that I'm going to do a larger scale painting of it.

Only 7 more practice paintings to go........

To buy this painting...

How to buy a painting

If you've been browsing this blog wondering how to buy an original oil painting from me... this post will explain all.

The best way to purchase a painting from me is through Bid or Buy - I have partnered with them to facilitate selling. Bid or Buy adds value by ensuring the credentials of both the seller and the buyer.
Click here to see the paintings I currently have on offer.

There is one problem though - not all my paintings are registered on the auction site; I alternate paintings on the site to gauge interest from the Bid or Buy web users, and to give myself a break from the stress of waiting for a sale (yes it is very stressful).

If there is a painting on this site that you like, and it's not marked as sold, please pop me a mail at scostephen@gmail.com - I welcome offers. Payment can be done electronically or the painting can be loaded to Bid or Buy for an agreed period (2-3 hours) enabling only you to bid on the item and also making the transaction safer for both buyer and seller.

In summary - go to Bid or Buy or mail me your request.


I'm open to suggestions should you'd like to recommend another transaction method.

Waiting at the station - oil painting by Stephen Scott

Publish Post

Waiting for the Train
Oil on Board
21cm x 25 cm

This is another composite picture... a week ago I did a quick sketch while waiting for the train at Claremont station. The sketch was of a man dressed in blue, sitting on a bench, in the background was the shadow of the overhead walkway.

It was a < 1 minute sketch, but I liked the composition so I did a warm-up painting using the sketch as a reference - a quick 10min painting which concentrated on tone and without pretending to be a real painting. I wished that I had had a camera with me...

Then I went to Karin Jurick's blog - the latest image was so similar that I just had to use it to fill the void left by not having a camera with me.

See paintings from the other artists for the challenge at DSDF.

Pink Bikini - oil on board

Pink Bikini
Oil on board
20cm x 15cm
SOLD

I've cheated here... or is it more a case of artistic license? The figure here never existed as is, it is a composite of a few reference photos with the gaps filled by my imagination. The painting was an exercise in light and painting with tones.
I enjoyed the contrast of the bright blue sky against the warm flesh tones of the sunlight figure... or is it the other way around?

Since this is not a nude in the proper sense of nudes; I've posted it here; and on the 500Nudes blog.

White Cat - Oil painting on canvas board

White Cat
21cm x 25cm Oil on board

I've posted the progression of 'white cat' before (here) and in that post I said I had to stop because the paint was simply too wet... well after two weeks all I added were the highlights to the eyes... worth the wait.

Beach Couple - oil on board

Beach Couple
Oil on Board
21cm x 25 cm
SOLD

We went down to the beach despite the miserable weather - I think we were hoping to see whales (we did not). What we did see were some odd folks, I suppose like us, that were out on the beach with clouds looming behind us.

The sun came out and warmed us for a while, but with the sun cam the wind - a perfect day for bed and a book, yet we were out at the cold waters edge.

I got some great reference photos though... this is the first painting from those photos.

This couple, must have been in their seventies, strolled out along the beach, then stood for ages watching the waves come in. As they walked on it was hand in hand - I wonder how long they've been lovers for?

Barry Jackson - Painter and Sculptor

Barry Jackson
by Stephen Scott
Oil on board

This is my friend and fellow painter - Barry Jackson.
About a year ago the model did not pitch up so Barry sat for us. This is a quick study done in oils and I'd like to think that it would have become quite a nice painting had we had another session with him as the model.

Barry is a commercial artist by trade currently working as a professional sculpture. He recently started spending more time behind the easel doing oils - Visit his blog at http://barryjackson.blogspot.com/

Barry specializes in African wildlife and the human figure. His kudu leap, his bushmen dance and his miners toil... take a look at his bronzes, it's worth the click.

• Barry Jackson at the Cape Gallery (oils)
  
• Barry Jackson's Bronze

New blog for figures

I sent the link to this blog on to a work colleague and the first thing he commented on was the nude figure that he was presented with... not very office friendly!

So I've decided to move all my nude paintings away from this blog and onto the 500Nudes site. 500Nudes was an idea that I had some time back - it was a bad idea.

I wanted to create some hype around an artist setting out a goal to paint 500 nude paintings in a very short time... I lost interest after the third post.

Nudes are an important part of art, and are part of my weekly schedule. Each week I meet with my painting group and we share the costs of both the studio and hiring a model, so every week for at least two hours I work on a nude study.

I've decided to keep this blog nude and post the nudes to 500Nudes.

So this blog will be reserved for clothed figures, cats, vegetables, old paint tubes and anything else that begs to be painted.

For the nudes go to http://500nudes.blogspot.com/

Different Strokes...

Summer vegtables

This is a small quick sketch - I almost missed the challenge completely this week, as it is I'm hoping that the time difference is in my favor and I've made it in time....

Check out the other artists HERE

Standing Nude - Alla Prima

[image moved to the nudes site: 500Nudes.]

Standing Nude - Alla Prima
Oil on canvas - 25cm x 36cm

This is from the archives - which in my case is a pile of paintings that have been stacked away in a dark cupboard, mostly of unfinished paintings and paintings that desperately deserve to be shredded... finding this one was a nice little surprise.

The model for this painting was a lovely mother of one in her early thirties, she decided she wanted to try modeling for an artist group - we were very happy that she chose us. She has a lovely figure and a very pleasant manor.

The paint on here is very thin on a canvas roughly primed with gesso, it's the texture in the gesso that you see, not really the brush strokes.

The painting was completed in one two hour session so the size was a perfect fit for the amount of painting time I had available, any bigger and it would have looked incomplete - smaller and it would have looked overworked.

Onion - Oil on canvas board

Onion
Oil on Canvas Board
21cm x 23cm

I can't write the word 'onion' without thinking of my father - when I was a kid there was a silly joke in a kids book; what is an Oz-oz the joke asks... the answer is of course an onion with all it's letters turned sideways - it's all in the font.

I did this little painting as an exercise in simplicity, I wanted efficiency in brush strokes, bold brushwork, perfect colours... I got sidetracked and stuck to my normal little 'licks' of the paint brush... and I liked it!

It's not what I set out to do, but I have to ask myself what I was thinking - the style I set out to mimick is not mine, and it's not in my personality. This last year I've spent trying new things and I've made a lot of mistakes and churned out a lot of crap that I'm not willing to show anyone, while I have works going back a couple of years that I'm very fond of.

It's time to go back to doing what I know.

White Cat - Oil painting

White Cat - painting in progress
Oil on Canvas board

I could not carry on with it, the paint was simply too wet to continue... there is probably about ten minutes work still to be done, but it has to wait a day or two.

I've spent a bit of time ruining a bunch of paintings, nothing seems to be working at the moment, so it's great to have this small win.

Different Strokes from Different Folks

Different Strokes...

This little painting was done in response to Karin Jurick's challenge on her blog: Different Strokes from Different Folks - She puts out a photo as a challenge, artists then respond to the challenge by painting an interpretation of that photo and then posting the painting to her site.

This week we're working from a black and white photo of a landscape somewhere in Pennsylvania, the idea is to fill in colour from your imagination - I've given it a South African feel, since I have no idea what the landscape looks like.

Knysna holiday - Girl on the beach in Natures Valley

Girl on the beach in Natures Valley

We spent a week in March traveling through the Garden Route (Western Cape, South Africa), our base was in Kynsna a beautiful seaside town famous for it's treacherous 'Heads'.

This painting was done from a photo taken in Natures Valley - just short of two hours drive from Knysna. Natures Valley is one of the most beautiful places to live in the world!

The weather was perfect - light breeze and clear sky - but the aerial perspective was thick and close... Aerial perspective is the effect where distant hills are blue'er and less detailed. (More info on aerial perspective.)
I watched as people walk along the beach in what seemed to be perfectly clear weather, but they'd start fading as if they were walking into a thin mist. Details only a few hundred meters away were completely lost. This girl stood pondering something on the beach unaware that she was fading.

This is the first completed painting in a series from that holiday.

The winter rain is setting in now and it's heart warming to be working on paintings filled with bright sun!

Girl Walking

Girl Walking
Oil on Masonite
150mm x 180mm
Click here To Bid

As with many of my paintings, this painting was done in the studio from a photo taken on the streets of Cape Town.
This girl was walking at a brisk pace through the suburbs where I live. I captured this image as she walked past a neighbor's wall with the midday sun filtering through the tree branches.
Capturing the light flitering through those branches was interesting - it's amazing how easy it is to completely mess up something that looks so easy.

Fruit Seller - Smoke break

Fruit Seller - Smoke break
Oil on Masonite
150mm x 180mm
SOLD

This vendor sells his wares about 50m from the Queen of the Street selling seasonal fruit.

Cape Town's CBD is littered by vendors of all sorts, you can buy anything off the street from muti, to food, to radios, TVs and imitation fragrances.

The Rocker

Oil on Stretched Canvas
610mm x 770mm
Click here To Bid

You may recognize this rocker: Brain May (Queen).
My intention was to use the photo (a still from their 1986 concert) as a reference for a generic guitar hero, but then my wife convinced me to just paint it as it is... he would have been playing a Gibson 335 (Chuck Berry type guitar) if I had my way.
What I did want is that feeling of a god like guitarist in the spotlight caught midway through a spine chilling solo - I think I got it.

Did you know that Brain May and his dad made his first electric guitar out of the old coffee table (your useless fact for the day).